Sunday, September 11, 2011

Optical Illusions

Visual illusions.

'Fooled by the Brain'.
An optical or visual illusion can be created by fooling the brain. The explanation for this phenomena is that the information obtained through the eyes is used for only 20% by the brain to form an image. The rest is complemented by the brain through past experience, expectations and other senses. The resulting image is only an extrapolated interpretation of reality. Therefore, reality can be interpreted differently and result in an optical illusion. The brain can be considered as a bit sloppy in this respect, most likely for reasons of 'efficiency' at the cost of accuracy. Unfortunately, the failure must be taken for granted. Nevertheless, optical illusions can be fascinating, enjoyable and awesome. Enjoy!

 
Spinning Dancers

'Visual illusions: Dissociation between perception and reality'.
"Visual illusions are defined by the dissociation between physical reality and subjective perception of an object or event. When we experience a visual illusion, we may see something that is not there, or fail to see something that is there, or even see something different from what is there. Because of this dissociation between perception and reality, visual illusions demonstrate the ways in which the brain can fail to recreate the physical world" (by Martinez-Conde)

Silencing illusion

'We see things as we would like to see things'.
There's an analogy with the above mentioned influence of a past event or experience on the brain. Our brain determines our view based on our experience and in this way our thoughts and views are mostly formed on the basis of prejudice and therefore free thoughts on a particular subject will be blocked. If we experience something it will be imprinted in our brain together with our expectation and view in view of a possible recurring occurence. As a consequence, our thoughts and view won't change easily, our thoughts about the subject are 'stuck'. If this is the case we then should feed our brain with a renewed vision by forcing ourselves to have a look at it from the other side. In this way a negative view or opinion can be changed in a positive one (Avatar). 
However, we see things as we would like to see things. The conscious and unconscious observations of reality will pass several 'filters' of our brain and will be incomplete and/or transformed into distorted reflections of 'reality'. Our views are to some extent coloured by our mind. The world around us will be interpreted differently by each of us. This is why we experience life differently. A positive or negative attitude matters a lot and in fact will result in different views on the world. We experience reality only as an approximation of reality. The phenomena of visual illusions is a nice example that our brain can fool us. Be aware and stay always on guard, you can and you will be cheated. 
Again, reality will only be experienced as an approximation of reality and will never be complete or real!
Rotating Snake illusion for a still image
 

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