bgrah449 comments on Bizarre Illusions - Less Wrong

11 Post author: MrHen 27 January 2010 06:25PM

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Comment author: mattnewport 27 January 2010 10:39:37PM 4 points [-]

I'm afraid I still don't fully understand the point of your post. I honestly don't find this illusion bizarre any more because I do understand what our visual system is reporting. You ended the post with what sounds like a request for an explanation that renders this illusion non-bizarre. I think between the various responses that has been provided. You seemed resistant to accepting that explanation initially which is probably why discussion of it took over the comments.

It is true that most illusions have an explanation that renders them non-bizarre. This one does and it has been provided. What other point(s) were you hoping to make?

Comment author: MrHen 27 January 2010 11:06:04PM 1 point [-]

You ended the post with what sounds like a request for an explanation that renders this illusion non-bizarre.

This was my miscommunication. I was skipping over the explanation in an attempt to cut on length.

You seemed resistant to accepting that explanation initially which is probably why discussion of it took over the comments.

I was trying to avoid talking about the explanation because in my mind the post was only using that particular example as an example. I was perceiving the ensuing discussion as nitpicking. (And fully acknowledge that this was a communication error on my part.)

It is true that most illusions have an explanation that renders them non-bizarre. This one does and it has been provided. What other point(s) were you hoping to make?

That is it, that is the point. This wasn't meant to be an awesome post of amazing new concepts. It was just connecting the dots between two subjects I hadn't connected yet. This connection was that illusions aren't tricky. We think they are tricky because we were expecting something different from reality.