Wade
FeralNormal master
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Seeing is not Believing
- Thread starter Wade
- Start date
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You should be able to delete, since eI see it in your illustration, for 24 hours. What do you want to delete?
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Wade
FeralNormal master
It was an optical illusion. If you stared at the dot for a few seconds, you looked at the picture until that bar filled up...the resulting picture took on a ochre/brick/sepia faded color photo but it was actually a black and white pic. The second you averted your gaze or blinked it would turn to it's true black and white image. When it didn't do what I thought it would do i attempted to delete it.
Gene, I think I know why I couldn't delete it, this happened to me before, if my post was the first post in a thread I had started I wasn't able to delete it, only edit the post.
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
OK I got it to work ... sort of
. The first one didn't play and turn B & W. The other one only shows half the image, but it still gives that momentary sepia tone.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Yes. You got it. Not sure of the explanation, but probably due to the saturation of the blue color receptors having to normalize and the brain attempting to compensate. This of course does nothing to change the fact that we're still looking at a picture of some architecture. The rationale of some skeptics would go something like this: "Because the mind can be fooled it means that when you are looking at something, it may not really be there, and therefore flying saucers may just be illusions." However I wonder: If we were to create a similar illusion and use the image of a flying saucer instead of architecture, would the illusion cause the flying saucer to vanish because it was never actually there to begin with? I think we can safely assume the answer would be no, and therefore the logic that the skeptic is using is faulty.
Han
piscator ψ
Does anyone know if Animals see desert mirages?* I have tried a brief google search and have come up with zilch. I have somebody I can ask but I don't want to bother him as he is very busy at the moment, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
As in seeing Water were there is none.
As in seeing Water were there is none.
Wade
FeralNormal master
Never in a million years would i have ever concieve of asking such a question. Absolutely Brilliant.
I would start by asking if any animal has eyes that could be suitable for human use if the need arose; the idea being that you would want to use whatever animal you replicate as best you could the human experience without having to adjust or compensate your perception.
Being that many animals carry camouflage in order to keep hidden to prey...or from predators. .. would suggest that animals can be optically fooled and therefore maybe susceptible to optical illusions or mirages.
On the other hand.
The thing is most mirages I've heard of involve false images of things miles away beyond the horizon and I think this aspect may be a necessary element of a mirage. I don't know if animals can appreciate or even be aware of something of that scale. Their perception is probably focused on a more localized level and a false image reflected in the distance wouldn't even register.
Maybe one could test this by observing the actions of desert elephants. I understand they can find water by smell, and eventually rote memory I guess, but maybe they can be fooled once they are on the right track. I suppose they would be suitable test subjects. Actually maybe any migratory animal would be suitable because their targets do involve places beyond the horizon and again while these places can be memorized or sensed...via smell.. Perhaps some unusual behavior or apparent confusion has been noted while on their migration.
I would start by asking if any animal has eyes that could be suitable for human use if the need arose; the idea being that you would want to use whatever animal you replicate as best you could the human experience without having to adjust or compensate your perception.
Being that many animals carry camouflage in order to keep hidden to prey...or from predators. .. would suggest that animals can be optically fooled and therefore maybe susceptible to optical illusions or mirages.
On the other hand.
The thing is most mirages I've heard of involve false images of things miles away beyond the horizon and I think this aspect may be a necessary element of a mirage. I don't know if animals can appreciate or even be aware of something of that scale. Their perception is probably focused on a more localized level and a false image reflected in the distance wouldn't even register.
Maybe one could test this by observing the actions of desert elephants. I understand they can find water by smell, and eventually rote memory I guess, but maybe they can be fooled once they are on the right track. I suppose they would be suitable test subjects. Actually maybe any migratory animal would be suitable because their targets do involve places beyond the horizon and again while these places can be memorized or sensed...via smell.. Perhaps some unusual behavior or apparent confusion has been noted while on their migration.
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Han
piscator ψ
Thank you Wade, but I have to be honest and say that the question is a result of a few factors, but mainly what started to make me think about it was I was reminded about the differences in what different creatures perceive when @Christopher O'Brien said in a different thread:
"The existence of a rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don't just look at a rainbow, you create it. All the beautiful colors you can perceive represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum." I just applied the same thinking to Desert Mirages.
I was lucky to be taken to Egypt when I was 15 or so and during a trip to Abu Simbel we traveled on a bus through the Sahara Desert and during a stop I saw a Mirage Lake. When I say lake I mean a lake complete with trees and Water Birds etc it was unbelievable, even though I knew what I was looking at I would swear that it was Water. It was one of the most surreal experiences I have ever had.
Regarding Animal vs Human eyes my understanding is that some Raptors (eagles/hawks etc) have much keener eyesight than Humans, and the best underwater vision belongs to Cephalopods (Squids and Cuttlefish) which is very interesting when you consider how long ago they first evolved!
My suspicion is that animals (especially those that inhabit extremely arid places) either are not fooled by or do not see Mirages but I will ask a friend who works at the Natural History museum if he can find out more for me. I will post what he says here.
"The existence of a rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don't just look at a rainbow, you create it. All the beautiful colors you can perceive represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum." I just applied the same thinking to Desert Mirages.
I was lucky to be taken to Egypt when I was 15 or so and during a trip to Abu Simbel we traveled on a bus through the Sahara Desert and during a stop I saw a Mirage Lake. When I say lake I mean a lake complete with trees and Water Birds etc it was unbelievable, even though I knew what I was looking at I would swear that it was Water. It was one of the most surreal experiences I have ever had.
Regarding Animal vs Human eyes my understanding is that some Raptors (eagles/hawks etc) have much keener eyesight than Humans, and the best underwater vision belongs to Cephalopods (Squids and Cuttlefish) which is very interesting when you consider how long ago they first evolved!
My suspicion is that animals (especially those that inhabit extremely arid places) either are not fooled by or do not see Mirages but I will ask a friend who works at the Natural History museum if he can find out more for me. I will post what he says here.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Mirages are caused by refraction and/or reflection of visible light and therefore any animal capable of perceiving visible light should be able to perceive a mirage. Your reference to Chris' post about some animals not being able to see rainbows is only accurate to the extent that some animals don't have RGB based color perception, but even animals that only see in greyscale should be able to perceive an arc of varying shades of grey. See B & W photo below:
Proving what another animal, or for that matter what another person actually perceives is a whole other matter. All we can do is extrapolate based on the evidence. We cannot literally go inside their heads, become them, experience their perceptions, come back, and know beyond any doubt exactly what kind of perceptions other people or creatures actually have.
Han
piscator ψ
"We cannot literally go inside their heads, become them, experience their perceptions, come back, and know beyond any doubt exactly what kind of perceptions other people or creatures actually have."
Yet! one day I believe that we will, I hope its sooner rather than later!
I know how silly this sounds but I would love to see what it is like to be a Peregrine Falcon, a Tiger or a Blue Whale for a day
Yet! one day I believe that we will, I hope its sooner rather than later!
I know how silly this sounds but I would love to see what it is like to be a Peregrine Falcon, a Tiger or a Blue Whale for a day