Thread: Blue blue electric blue

14:31 is basically the Buddhist notion of "emptiness of self" in a nut-shell. This is similar to the work that Dennet's done. Of course he seems to ride pretty hard on emptiness himself.

This brings up the point I was trying to argue in my intelligence thread. People get the sense that optical illusions are like flaws in our ability to see but they're not, they're adaptations to enable to us to better discern what we see. Seeing something other than reality is better for our evolution than trying to see things exactly as they are. Besides, as he mentions at the beginning, nothing is exactly anything, it only takes form through perception.

Very interesting.

The only reason I got the first one correct is because I thought he meant which circles are the same, as in, the same colour in the same position on both squares lol So I saw the grey one near the bottom right in both squares

Did anyone else see the mountain mirror image on the opposite to what he said? The left side looked red to me, and the right side green :S

Also, do you know how they translated that painting in to sound? Did they purposely make each colour/shape/size a certain sound or just following some objective method? Because it sounds quite nice. Damn it would be good to be a synaesthete.

Originally Posted by tommo

Very interesting.

The only reason I got the first one correct is because I thought he meant which circles are the same, as in, the same colour in the same position on both squares lol So I saw the grey one near the bottom right in both squares

Did anyone else see the mountain mirror image on the opposite to what he said? The left side looked red to me, and the right side green :S

Also, do you know how they translated that painting in to sound? Did they purposely make each colour/shape/size a certain sound or just following some objective method? Because it sounds quite nice. Damn it would be good to be a synaesthete.

Brightness controls the amplitude, colour controls the pitch, I'd think.

Did anyone else see the mountain mirror image on the opposite to what he said? The left side looked red to me, and the right side green :S

I saw it the way you said too. What happens is that the photoreceptors become habituated to the different colored squares. So if you are looking through tinted sunglasses for example, your eyes will eventually compensate for the tint so that the objects look the same color as they did before you put on the glasses. When you take the glasses off, your eyes are overcompensating so you see the opposite of the tint. (opposite of red is green). So when you stop looking at the red and green squares, you perceive the opposite color in their place. You can still see the after image when you look at a white surface.

So he just said the colours the wrong way around then? Glad to know I'm not insane lol

Originally Posted by tommo

So he just said the colours the wrong way around then? Glad to know I'm not insane lol

No I don't think he actually said it the wrong way round, it's just confusing to word. Remember that the eye compensates for colored light. Because your eye is tricked to think that the right one is still under red light when it isn't, your perception of red is still inhibited and your perception of green is exaggerated. That's why you perceive the right side to be greener than it is.

This is related to photoreceptor exhaustion. As you stare at the same color for too long, the signal starts to get weaker and weaker.
You can try something kind of cool by staring at some part of your room, hardly blinking, and not moving the direction of your gaze at all. You will notice the colors start becoming dull especially in the periphery and you are unable to see detail. Of course you can quickly snap out of this if you change the direction of your gaze.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Brightness controls the amplitude, colour controls the pitch, I'd think.

Listen to the timbre and harmonies of the sounds being played. Then look at the painting. There was obviously a lot of post-production there.

I just watched the video and it was interesting. I wish he had made it a bit clearer though what we were supposed to do. I didn't know what he meant by "which circles are the same" in the first one, and most went so quickly I didn't have time to decide and had to pause the video. Most of the illusions used the same principles, colours appearing different due to being on different backgrounds, and it didn't seem necessary that he use that same illusion multiple times.

I've always gotten a little annoyed when someone presents optical illusions and concludes that we can't trust anything we see, not that he did that.

I tried to come up with the sounds that the image translated to before getting to each part, and the sounds I imagined were usually pretty close to what the 6 year old came up with.