"jhu" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> That is rather weird. Why does it look like things are moving?!?

Short answer:  Your brain is messing with you.

Longer answer:  Your brain is the world's most sophisticated image
processor.  It continually "Photoshops" everything you look at before it
allows "you" (i.e., your consciousness) to see it.

This subconscious preprocessing identifies and analizes patterns in what you
look at, so that when "you" have to act or make decisions about what you
see, "you" don't have to figure out what it is that you're looking at.  An
example is when you see a familiar face.  You didn't have to think about
it; you recognize the person instantly--or so it seems.  But *something*
inside your head had to figure out that it was a face, and then figure out
whose face.

It's actually a survival adaptation.  People who saw a lion, but had to
consciously figure out what they were seeing, got eaten.  People who could
not recognize an enemy on sight ended up in very undesirable situations.

However, as is common with automated processes, things can go wrong; and as
is the case with man-made computers, your subconscious brain is none the
wiser.  This is how people like Richard Hoagland can write entire books
claiming that an unremarkable hill on Mars is actually a face built by
aliens.  The phenomenon is called pareidolia, and it's also behind all
these images of Jesus and Mary in odd places like an underpass water stain,
a burrito, the M16 nebula, and the lastest, an oil stain in a baking pan.

Biology tolerates these errors; natural selection favors the false
positives.  As the lucid schizophrenic says, "Just because i'm paranoid
doesn't mean they're not out to get me."  Nobody ever died by wasting their
money on Mr. Hoagland's books, but brains that report false negatives get
eaten.

Nevertheless, these errors can be fun, and even useful.  Many people can see
a face in the Moon.  As children, we all used to see animals and other
shapes in  the clouds.  Nobody needs to be an artist to communicate a face;
a circle, and arc, and two dots will do. :)  Looks like you can even skip
the circle! :)  Bold, black-and-white stylized drawings of people
communicate "Men's Room," "Ladies' Room," and "pedestrian crossing" better
than photographs would.

For Akiyoshi's illusions, i think the key is that the brain expects a
real-life scene in 3-D space.  The preprocessor doesn't know what to make
of artificial 2-D images that don't represent reality.

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