As observers of life, most of us fascinated by optical illusions. At the same time we like to deny our susceptibility to being conned. After all, isn’t an optical illusion the “conning” of the brain into seeing one thing when in fact it is something else?
One such con, that is very easy to recreate, involves repetitive three dimensional patterns with lots of shadows.
While there are some (very few) people that will see the following two pictures of cedar siding as being identical–except for one being upside down–most people will see one on the top as an “outie” and one on the bottom as an “innie.”
If you see the top picture as an “outie” with soft edges count yourself among those that have been conned, and marvel at the brain’s ability to see things the way it needs to see things.
Optical illusions are very useful in that they can remind us all to not necessarily “believe” what we see, as well as a wake-up call as to the actual dangers of “belief” itself.
Marveling at the “experience” of seeing–of being conned–is priceless in our experience as human beings.
As Goethe said: “Thinking is more important than knowing but not so interesting as looking.”
By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle
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