All Perception is Fundamentally an Illusion

Most people who stare at the image below will believe the dark oval in the middle is growing larger. But, believe it or not, it is just an illusion – a static image.

According to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, this illusion has something to teach us about how our brains and eyes collaborate to see the world. Researchers tested the illusion on 50 men and women with normal vision and found that those participants who had eyes with the strongest pupil dilation response had the greatest response to the illusion; while those with poor dilation response could not see it.

The pupils in the human eye are designed to automatically adjust to the surrounding light, dilating when it is dark so they can capture more light, and constricting when it is bright to prevent overexposure. Even though the hole in this illusion is not darkening, the perception or expectation in our mind that it should be darkening is enough to make our pupils respond.

Bruno Laeng, a psychology professor at the University of Oslo and an author of the study, says: “There is no reason that the pupil should change [while looking at this image], because nothing is changing in the viewers world, but something clearly has changed inside the mind.”

The researchers hypothesize that the illusion is deceiving because the gradient on the central hole makes it look to the viewer as if they are entering a dark hole or tunnel, which prompts the participants’ pupils to dilate. Our brains are making assumptions about what it sees based on past experience and is trying to predict and prepare our senses for what it thinks will happen next.

It takes time for light to reach our sensory organs and send the image to our brain. The brain then takes more time to process the image, make sense of it, and decide what actions to take based on the collected information. By the time our brain catches up with the present, time has already moved forward, and the user’s environment has most likely changed.

To minimize this image collection and processing delay, the brain may be constantly trying to predict a little bit into the future so that it can better perceive the present. Being fooled by this expanding hole illusion is not a flaw of the human species, but a feature. It is most likely built up from evolutionary history to help humanity survive.

The information we get from our senses is spotty and incomplete, so the brain has evolved over time to try to guess what is happening in the uncertain and ever-changing world – and to make decisions based on what is most likely to happen next.

People who possessed brains with the best ability to adapt and predict what is happening at any given moment most likely had an advantage over those that lacked the capacity to adapt. When the illusion image is communicated to the brain, it anticipates that the body will soon be entering a dark place and it responds by telling the pupils to begin dilating (so the body will be able to react sooner in case there is danger lurking inside that black hole).

Researchers tell us that everything we perceive is inconsistent with the physical reality of the world. It is not just that the information taken in by our senses can be misunderstood, it is also that there is a universe of information available in the physical world that is imperceptible to the human senses.

Consider light itself. The light our human eyes can detect is only a sliver of the total amount of light that’s out there. The 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum we can see is referred to as visible light, but the other 99.9% percent of the spectrum consisting of radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma rays are all undetectable by our eyes.

Electromagnetic Light Spectrum

Humans have cone-shaped cells in our eyes that act as receivers specifically tuned to the wavelengths in the narrow visible light band of the spectrum. Other portions of the spectrum have wavelengths too large or too small and energetic for the biological limitations of our perception.

Evolution has not endowed us with the ability to see beyond the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum; although it is possible to feel infrared radiation as heat and employ other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum for practical uses, such as X-Ray medical imaging.

But we carry on with our lives, oblivious to the huge spectrum of electromagnetic waves present all around us. Humans have managed to survive and reproduce despite our limited view. It’s a good thing that visible light was adequate to help our ancestors detect predators that would do them harm.

But imagine if our eyes were able to detect other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum — our universe would be unrecognizable. We could glean so much more visual information if we were able to see in the radio, infrared or even X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Bees and butterflies are examples of organisms that can detect Ultraviolet radiation. Some flowers have special markings that can only be seen in UV light. Bee and Butterfly eyes are able to view this electromagnetic radiation like lights on an airport runway, to find their way to the flower’s nectar. Snakes have special sensory organs on the front of their heads that let them ‘see’ infrared waves, which they put to use with particular effectiveness when hunting for warm-blooded prey.

Consider our sense of sound. Humans can detect sounds in a frequency range from about 20 Hz to 20 kHz, though the upper limit in average adults is closer to 15–17 kHz (because humans lose some high-frequency sensitivity as they mature).

That range of sounds allows humans to hear many of the sounds produced in nature, but not all. Any frequency that is below the human range is known as infrasound. It is so low that it may be detected only by a creature with big ears, such as an Elephant or by specialized instruments designed by scientists to detect the low frequency sounds that precede avalanches and earthquakes. Any frequency that is above the human frequency range is known as ultrasound. Bats and Dolphins use ultrasound frequencies as high as 200,000 Hz to help them navigate via echolocation.

Most dogs can hear sound frequencies as high as 47,000 to 65,000 Hz which is far too high-pitched for humans to hear. That is why dogs can be trained to detect when their owner is about to experience a seizure. Dogs ears are also much more sensitive to loud sounds than ours, which is probably why fireworks, thunderstorms and vacuum cleaners send them scurrying for cover.

Consider our sense of smell. Humans have 396 olfactory receptors which are employed to help us pick up scents. Almost all animals, however, have a larger number of olfactory receptors than humans (rabbits have 768 olfactory receptors) which provides them with an excellent ability to smell. 

Among the animals with the greatest sense of smell are bears whose sense of smell is 300 times better than humans and is capable of detecting a deceased animal from up to 20 miles away; elephants who can smell water sources from up to 12 miles away; sharks who can smell the presence of a drop of blood in almost 100 liters of water; and bloodhounds whose sense of smell is 2,100 times better than that of a human’s and can detect trace amounts of drugs and explosives inside packages.

When you consider all these blind spots in our senses, it is obvious that humans live in a world in which many sights, sounds and smells exist that are beyond the ability of our limited senses to detect; and those that we can detect can be compromised by our overactive minds. It’s enough to make you think that all human perception is, fundamentally, just an illusion; or as Bob Dylan keenly observed “All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie“.

It could well be that we are each living in our own virtual reality world, bound by the limitations of our physical senses and the tricks employed by our minds. Dr Laeng believes we each do live in a virtual reality world. Much of what we see is an illusion, but we are not really being tricked – he believes the visual illusions help to reveal the mismatches between what our eyes see and what our mind’s eye thinks is happening.

So what lessons can we take away about how to live our lives knowing the limits of our senses and the tendency of our brains to trick us into seeing what it wants us to see.

One lesson is that we should remind ourselves that things are not always what they appear. It is possible for two people to witness the same event but still give contradictory descriptions of what they saw; even though they are certain their description of events are true. Knowing that our eyes are susceptible to being tricked should make the criminal justice system wary of judging guilt based solely on the testimony of eye-witnesses.

Another lesson is to be careful of letting our minds be swayed by our pre-conceived biases and political opinions. If we each live in our own virtual worlds then we need to be careful of falling into the trap of accepting information that matches our biases and opinions while discarding facts that don’t. If more people were careful to seek out an objective, agreed-upon, reality then maybe there would be less disagreement and discord in today’s society.

Finally, we should all be humbled and filled with wonder knowing that what our senses reveal to us is only a small portion of the great wide-world we live in. There is a whole universe out there beyond our human senses – a twilight zone if you will, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of the mind, one where there is so much more for us to discover.

“I do not understand; I pause; I examine”

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) has been recognized as one of the most significant philosophers of the 16th century. Born into a privileged family and raised during the period of the French Renaissance, he was educated in a private boarding school where all his lessons were taught in Latin. Because of his family’s great wealth, he was free to devote the first half of his life to jobs serving the public sector; including volunteering as a legal counselor, advisor to King Charles IX and mayor of the town of Bordeaux.

In 1571, at the age of 38, he retired from public life to his estate, where he isolated himself from all social and family affairs so that he could dedicate his time to reading, meditating, and writing. It was in his castle’s round library room – which contained more than 1,500 books – where Montaigne probed his mind and produced two highly influential books titled simply Essays; which he published in 1580. Montaigne wrote that “I am myself the matter of my book“, and his stated goal was to describe humans, and especially himself, with utter frankness.

Some of the key topics Montaigne explored in his various essays include:

• Mankind’s dangerously inflated claims to knowledge and certainty
• The assertion that there is no greater achievement than the ability to accept one’s limitations
• The problem of trying to locate truth in commonly accepted ideas that are false or unexamined – especially since many things we held yesterday as articles of faith today we know as fables.
• The importance of freeing ourselves from outside influences, customs and opinions
• His belief that the best path to understanding truth is by a careful exploration of one’s own body-and-mind.

Montaigne believed that the self, even with all its imperfections, was the best possible place to begin the search for truth, even though our identities can’t be defined as a stable thing because it is always changing. The most obvious example to him was the struggle of living with the infirmities of a human body. “Our bodies smell, ache, sag, pulse, throb and age regardless of the best desires of our mind“. It is only in acceptance of these traits that we can remain faithful to the truth of one’s being.

Montaigne isolated himself while writing his Essays but maintained the importance of maintaining contact with the outside world of other people and events because one can learn much that is useful from others. He described human beings as having a front room, facing the exterior street, where they meet and interact with others, but also with a back room where they are able to retreat back into their interior private self to reflect upon the vagaries of human experience and consider how it impacts their intimate identity.

Montaigne was refreshingly different from other philosophers and academics of his day who believed that their advanced powers of reason were a divine gift that gave them mastery over the world and a happiness that was denied to lesser educated creatures. He mocked those philosophers who were proud of their big brains and his writings come across as wise and intelligent – but also as modest and eager to debunk the pretensions of learning.

He wrote of his fellow academics and philosophers: “On our highest thrones in the world we are seated, still, on our arses” and, “…in practice, thousands of little women in their villages have lived more gentle, more equable and more constant lives than us.

He mocked books that were difficult to read. He found Plato boring and just wanted to have fun with books. “I’m not prepared to bash my brains out for anything, not even for learning’s sake – however precious it may be. If one book tires me, I just take up another“.

[note: I must admit that this sentiment makes me feel somewhat better about my decision to hold off reading the notorious difficult novel Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce].

Montaigne was honest about the limitations and usefulness of his own intellect and attacked his prestigious academic friends for studying difficult things that were not useful to our lives.

“Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies. Intellectuals would prefer you to study other people’s books way before we study our own minds. If man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life”

I can’t help but wonder if Montaigne’s admiration for the working class – and life’s simple things – stemmed from the decision his humanist father made to leave him for three years when he was a small boy in the sole care of a peasant family in their town, in order to “draw the boy close to the people, and to the life conditions of the people, who need our help“.

Whatever the reason for his modest and humble personality, Montaigne comes across as one of the world’s first examples of a tolerant mind; a breath of fresh air in the cloistered and snobbish corridors of 16th century academia. He became an inspiration and encouragement to all those who felt put-upon and patronized by the arrogance of self-proclaimed clever people.

Montaigne tells us that each one of us is richer than we think. We may all arrive at wise ideas if we cease to think of ourselves as unsuited to the task just because we haven’t been classically trained or happen to lead an ordinary life.

The inscription Montagne had placed on the crown of the book shelf in his library was “I do not understand; I pause; I examine“. He had the inscription placed there to remind him of the limitations of his own knowledge and to caution him about the dangers that can result when one hastily forms opinions without careful consideration of all the facts.

Too many people today, especially since the advent of social media – which allows anybody to pass themselves off as experts – form their beliefs by adopting commonly accepted ideas or by making broad generalizations. Outside influences and political talking points trigger knee-jerk reactions from those who fail to take the time to study all sides of a topic – or to consider what is the truth and what is morally just.

It would be refreshing if more of us today, before forming our opinions, would like Montaigne, acknowledge the limitations of our knowledge, admit that we don’t fully understand a topic and then take time to examine all aspects of the issues in question using qualified experts in the field as our guides.

The danger of operating a society with uninformed or half-informed subjects was identified as early as the 2nd century by the Roman writer Publilius Syrus who said that it is “Better to be ignorant of a matter than to half know it“.

Today there are so many competing sources of information, where anyone with a computer can offer their uninformed opinions. Few people check the credentials of writers or the authenticity of the facts, and foreign actors can easily spread misinformation along via unregulated social networks.

The next time we are asked to form an opinion or make a decision about subjects we do not fully understand, we would do well to follow the sage advice of Montaigne: Do not let somebody else speak for you and do not fall prey to the pressures of biased outside influences. Instead take a moment to pause, study all sides of the issue, consult qualified experts and sources, and endeavor to reach true understanding.

If you can summon the conviction and discipline to do this, then you will be able to take solace knowing that even though you can not govern external events, you at least govern yourself.

“Get your facts first and then you can distort ’em as much as you please”

As the 2016 election season begins in earnest, and the presidential candidates start flooding the media with numerous facts bolstering their political positions, it would be wise for voters to remember this humorous observation made by Mark Twain noting the tendency politicians have to distort facts to their liking.

Mark Twain also used the famous phrase – “There are three types of lies: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” to describe how statistics are often used to persuade people to believe weak arguments.

Statistics can be powerful when properly applied – simplifying complex data, identifying trends and providing answers to questions that would be otherwise unknowable. Statistics can be improperly applied and misused too – becoming a dangerous mechanism for unscrupulous actors to mislead people for their own personal or political gain.

That is why, as consumers of statistical information, it is important for us to question the validity of statistical data and to insist that the sources of the data explain how the data was derived. There are websites like Politifact and the Washington Post’s Truth Tracker that provide a valuable public service by evaluating statistical claims made by the candidates and reporting on the credibility of their statements.

However, these non-partisan websites should not be a substitute for our own self examination to decide whether or not the facts presented to us should be believed. A good life skill to acquire is the ability to examine the facts presented to us and objectively evaluate the validity of the claim.

In the book “Flaws and Fallacies in Statistical Thinking”, Stephen K. Campbell writes that we should ask ourselves five questions whenever we are presented with a statistical fact before we accept it as trustworthy.

QUESTIONS:

1. What kind of reputation does the source of the fact enjoy as a supplier or as an authority on the relevant subject? If the source of the data is not a widely recognized authority with a history of providing accurate data then the validity of the fact should be questioned. 
2. Does the supplier of the fact have an “axe to grind”?  The fact may be tainted by the effects of intentional and unintentional bias based on racial or religious bigotry or  bias based on the desire to sell an idea or commodity. Be skeptical of estimates from sources that have “axes to grind”. Make the source work hard to convince you that their facts are trustworthy.
3. What supporting evidence is offered? When evidence is offered, ask yourself whether it does in fact support the estimates or whether it has been artificially created merely for the sake of making a good impression.
4. Does the underlying methodology behind the statistical facts seem reasonable or are they based on questionable assumptions? Beware of facts based on eccentric theories or from a buildup of previous dubious facts.
5. Do estimates appear plausible? Sometimes common sense and just a little knowledge about the relevant subject is all that is required to strip worthless estimates of their respectable facades.

If you ask yourself these questions and still are not sure whether a fact has merits, it is better to doubt the accuracy of the fact than to believe it.

Both Republicans and Democrats have historically played fast and loose with their statistical facts and both parties are guilty of doctoring statistics to gain political advantage.  For example, I have examined two statistical facts below, one presented by Donald Trump and one presented by Hillary Clinton to see if the facts would pass the trustworthy test questions recommended by Stephen Campbell.

• Trump said that “Homicides last year increased by 17 percent in America’s 50 largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years.”

The data for this statistic does come from a reputable source, The Washington Post; but Trump makes the situation appear more dire than it actually is by cherry picking the data to only select cities that had a rising homicide rates – failing to mention that the overall crime rate for the country as a whole has been declining since the late 90’s. This statistic would fail Campbell’s third question because it was artificially created for the sake of making a good impression.

• Clinton said that “About 1 percent of all gun sellers are responsible for more than half of the guns that are used in crimes”.

There is some truth to this claim. The source of the data is a 2000 report on 1998 gun tracing data produced by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. However, it would be fair to question if this fact from the year 1998 is still valid 18 years later in 2016. It would be impossible to validate this fact today because Congress passed a law in 2003 that forbids the ATF from reporting gun related statistics. This statistic would likely fail Campbell’s fourth question because it is based on a buildup of previous facts that may no longer be valid.

So good luck wading through the avalanche of data and statistics that will be unleashed on the American public over the next three months – and whenever you hear a new statistic it would be good to be skeptical like our former president Ronald Reagan when he advised “Trust but Verify”.

Mathematics is the Poetry of Logical Ideas

One of my post retirement goals is to spend more time reading. After living in my town for 8 years it felt good to finally visit my library last week to request a library card. I have a long list of books that interest me and plan to dedicate at least one hour every day to reading.

My reading list contains novels and biographies but it also includes technical books on engineering and mathematics. There is something profound and beautiful about the laws of mathematics which led Albert Einstein to equate math and logic with poetry and the philosopher Aristotle to observe that the mathematical sciences exhibit order, symmetry and limitation; and that these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.

Math is beautiful because it is governed by proofs, logic and a set of laws that can not be disputed. Mathematical laws properly applied to solve problems lead to insight and truth – solutions that can be trusted. In a world where so much of life falls into areas of gray, it is refreshing to work occasionally in the black and white world of math.

Today’s polarized political environment generates a lot of arguments and misinformation. Too many people purposefully practice the politics of division and fear – spreading select information that matches their personal biases of what is right and wrong; telling people what they want to believe; and keeping a closed mind to alternate facts that contradict their preconceived positions.

Decisions made with insufficient facts always invite danger. At critical moments, people tend to see exactly what they wish to see, rather than objectively considering all the facts. Logic is the beginning of wisdom and without logic bad decisions will be made. The country would be much better off if our governing officials eliminated  emotion and party politics from their decision making process and instead used logic, facts, statistics, chemistry and science to craft wise policies that will best solve our nations problems.

I have discovered that there also appears to be health benefits associated with doing math. I recently worked on a book of Math puzzles which occupied and focused my mind over a period of several weeks. I was surprised that working on these puzzles had a positive effect on my mind and body similar to the effects I get when I meditate. While I am working on a math puzzle, all other life distractions temporarily disappear and I find that my mind becomes more focused and my body less stressed. I think a topic on “Mathematics Meditation” would make for an interesting TED Talk and be a good area for future studies in the meditation sciences field.

One last cool thing about math is that it can be used to perform magic tricks that will amaze your friends and encourage them to further explore the mysteries of math and numbers.

Try this Math as Magic trick with one of your friends:

• Have a friend give you any 3 digit number [For example, the number 519 – this trick will work with any 3 digit number]
• Repeat the digits to make a 6 digit number [519519]
• Tell the friend that your magical power leads you to believe that the number is evenly divisible by 13 [519519 / 13 = 39963 : No remainder!]
• Now tell the friend that you feel the resulting number is evenly divisible by 11 [39963 / 11 = 3633 : Again no remainder!]
• Now, have your friend divide this new number by lucky number 7 and say Shazam when the number that is returned is the original 3 digit number they gave you [3633 / 7 = 519!]

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God” – Euclid