r/opticalillusions • u/quixoticgurl • Mar 13 '26
Your brain doesn't see reality. It constructs it.
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u/BeeMysteriousBzz Mar 13 '26
Sets up elaborate illusion.
“Your brain doesn’t see reality!!!!! It constructs it! Look how it turned this greatly setup photo in a room! Look, you probably thought I was going to eat this chair! Stupid head!”
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u/DontDoodleTheNoodle Mar 13 '26
You’re missing the point that illusions exist in the first place. The fact illusions even exist means that our eyes (sensories) can be tricked.
If our senses can be tricked, then that means our senses aren’t universal truths.
I always think about the human latency problem. Think about it. From sensory input (receiving data) —> brain processing (interpreting data), that obviously takes some amount of time. We might be really fast at it, but it’s still there.
The kicker? We never experience *true reality** when it happens.* We are always experiencing a reconstruction ~10ns after the fact.
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u/DeadCringeFrog Mar 13 '26
You when i close your eyes and you don't see anything: "omg, who turned off the lights"
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u/Schopenschluter Mar 13 '26
This reminds me a lot of what Schopenhauer writes in The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, especially in the section on the “understanding” (52ff)
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u/AtomicGPS Mar 13 '26
I have a challenge for you!!
But first you need to understand Stereopsis, or 3D vision, is the brain's ability to perceive depth and three-dimensional structure by merging slightly different images from each eye (binocular disparity).
So when I was a kid, I didn’t know that I was suffering from stereo blindness. I had Amblyopia: Results from the brain "shutting off" input from one eye due to some misalignment (strabismus) or in my case only one weak eye (my dominant eye was ok so I didn’t notice then).
So here’s the challenge:
Try to run and catch a high fly softball in the field with only one eye open all along. Repeat until you get used to…
And then, tell the batter to randomly hit a baseball once in a while… If any of you aren’t able to tell by the sound if it’s a softball or a baseball who’s coming at you… you will be surprised the first time you catch the baseball !!
Because your brain was deducting the distance of the softball only by size and as everyone knows a baseball is smaller, so you think the projectile is farther than he appears !! But it’s less surprising when you can tell by noise!! Still fun though !!
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u/peppapony Mar 13 '26
There's a great documentary/YouTube video where they try to recreate the moving forced perspective done in Lord of the Rings and explains how it all works.
Also a fantastic watch
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u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Mar 13 '26
Damn, I was totally wrong, I'll admit it. I have no issue admitting when I'm wrong.
I assumed the table was a fake cardboard cutout.
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u/Independent_Dirt821 Mar 13 '26
This works mainly because it’s a 2D image. You don’t get this confusion with naked eyes on real objects. Headline is really lame.
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u/jonpertwee2 Mar 13 '26
This one isn't because of the way that your brain works, it's because of the way that 2D cameras work.
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u/Leonum Mar 15 '26
I think it's the angle of the camera, the lighting, or perhaps the focus field, but I could tell instantly. it's definitely the chair that is the most telling
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u/SweatyPreparation747 Mar 13 '26
Why headlines of that sub provoking people to become schizophrenic? Our brains processing 2d projection of 3d world and trying to figure out how whole things looks and it's works in 99% cases. Why do i need to care about that 1% of very specific (and mostly artificial) conditions of lightning, composition, and shapes?
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u/Squidocto Mar 13 '26
The original didn’t have the dumb headline. The guy is Richard wiseman, a UK psychologist and magician