There's some sort of filtering mechanism in
> the brain that discriminates, for instance I can
> show my dog a pix of the mona lisa and she falls
> asleep. Show it to an art thief and they'll
> conspire on some way to steal it. However if she
> sees a live duck or a bird of some kind she goes
> berserk and tries to kill it. So there's something
> definitely hardwired into us to see things in
> different ways and procure what we consider to be
> 'desirable'. This too me is one of the most
> difficult things to understand.

Not if you think of it in terms of a survival mechanism.

Dog: duck = dinner.

Art thief: we take this, make $$ = hookers & blow.