/x/ - Paranormal

Neanderthals?

Anything that deviates from the ideal is undesirable. Same reason we react negatively to people with facial disfigurements.

>>27168

But Neanderthals were just like another race. However there's a theory that they hunted at night (because of the big eyes) and that this might be the reason we're afraid of the dark.

Corpses. Partially decayed dead bodies look almost, but not quite, human. We evolved an avoidance of things that look like this so we didn't catch diseases.

>>27173

Interesting theory, I like it.

>>27173

>>27223

It's corpses and diseased people, to be more precise. The basic idea is that if you see a human that does not behave like a human, your brain concludes that the latter's abnormal behavior is caused by some kind of transmittable disease, and that you should stay as far away as possible from said person.

Humanoid robots and figures also trigger this reflex because we subconsciously interpret them as actual humans. It's not like with smaller non-humanoid robots, which we may find funny or adorable because they try (and fail) to imitate humans (not quite unlike pet animals), but the more similar the entity gets to a human, the more it creeps us out if it isn't one.

>>27223

>The problem with that theory is that it only explains half of the phenomenon. See there are actually two uncanny valleys. One for unmoving humanoid forms (e.g. pictures, dolls, mannequins etc.) and one for animated humanoid forms. Further more the uncanny valley response for moving forms is stronger and much more severe than the one for unmoving forms.

The second uncanny valley may have evolved in order to cull out humans with obvious deformities and disorders like Downs and Progeria. The instinctive revulsion would a) keep these individuals from spreading their rancid genes and b) prevent the other members from a band/tribe/pack from expending the effort and resources to support someone who is a net negative to the group.

>>27167

the real question is why WOULDN'T this ability evolve? When you want to recognize someone, you look at their face and eyes, right? People have been doing this for a very long time and we are used to seeing certain patterns, shapes, colors, etc that make up a real person. If something is "off", part of our brain is NOT being used to say "this is a person you can communicate with". So the whole message instead of being 100% a real person is only 80% or whatever and gets interpreted as creepy.

So I think it is a relatively new thing. I'm sure people were asking themselves the same "why do I have this ability?" question hundreds of years ago when looking at dummys and whatnot, but in reality it's a not-ability.

I don't think I'm very good at explaining things, some people say it don't be like it is, but it do.

>>27167

If you've ever seen a non-passing trap IRL, you know then what the uncanny valley is meant to detect.

>>27167

Uncanny valley is a phenomenon that exists because so much of our communication is non-verbal social queues - not to mention there was a time when we were completely non verbal except for ape grunts and squeals.

Our non verbal signalling comes to us so naturally and we interpret it in others so naturally most of the time we don't even think about it, we're just aware of it. So when something is off, i.e characters in video games or robots, dolls, whatever, we pick up on that subconciously as well and the result is an uneasy feeling.

That's all. It's really nothing special. Certainly not paranormal, supernatural, or cryptozoological.