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It`s Okay To Be Smart, The Illusion That Makes You Question Reality (2)

The Illusion That Makes You Question Reality (2)

might explain one of the oldest illusions on Earth.

I'm sure we've all experienced that incredible feeling

that you get when you go out, look up at the night sky,

and you see shapes emerge from the stars, constellations.

Different cultures have connected the sky dots

slightly differently over the past few thousand years,

but one that always seems to be seen the same is this.

The rough shape of a human wearing a belt.

We call that one Orion.

Incidentally that reminds me of a joke:

Ever look up at the night sky and see Orion's belt?

Big waist of space if you ask me. (chuckles)

It's like a belt around the waist.

(insects chirping)

Ah, whatever, that joke only has three stars.

(crowd boos)

Anyway, this is probably going to ruin your horoscope,

but the shapes we see in the stars

they happen for the same reason we see a chair

in a bunch of random strings.

Because we happen to be viewing it

from a very specific point of view.

If you were somewhere else in space, the stars of Orion

(board scratching)

would look like this.

They're all different distances from Earth,

and well, nothing special

to our friends on Alpha Centauri or whatever.

It's only because you happen to be right here

that this group of stars means anything at all.

(board scratching)

Most of the illusions in this video

were invented by a guy named Adelbert Ames.

You don't meet a lot of Adelberts, do you?

Around 1910, Ames was studying to be a lawyer,

and decided he wanted to be an artist instead.

It was always a fun conversation to have with mom and dad.

When he started studying how the eye senses the world

with the goal of making more realistic-feeling art.

But Adelbert ended up abandoning art,

and spending the rest of his life

designing a series of elaborate demonstrations

to try and unlock the secrets of how we see the world.

Those demonstrations have captivated scientists

and the public ever since.

Just before Ames died, the plans for these demonstrations

were published in a book that is incredibly hard to find.

But thankfully I was able to find a copy,

thanks to something amazing called the library,

which is like the internet if it was a building

that you had to go to.

And one of the strange things about most of Ames' illusions,

is most of them only work when viewed with one eye,

from a very specific spot.

Which is why so many of them work so well in video,

because the camera is essentially like viewing the world

with one eye.

And as powerful as these illusions are,

if you were to view most of them with two eyes,

or if you were able to move around a bit,

they wouldn't work.

So even though they show us a ton

about how our visual system can kinda break down,

they also kind of show us how awesome our visual system

really is when it does get all the information it needs,

from both of your eyes!

Unfortunately, you still only get to use one eye

for the rest of the video, the camera

but there's one last set of visual cues

that I have to tell you about,

for size and how far away things are,

and they only work because you have binocular vision.

Okay, try this: Hold up two pencils or pens,

one in front of the other.

When you focus on the rear object,

you see a double image of the front object,

one on each side.

Close one eye at a time,

and you'll see that your right eye sees the left image,

and your left eye sees the right image.

Now, focus on the closer one.

And suddenly the back one is doubled.

Now your right eye sees the right image,

and your left eye sees the left image.

So what's going on?

When we look at a fixed point, your eyes move individually,

so that point hits the center of each eye.

The closer an object is to you, the more extreme the effect

but your brain is sort of always unconsciously comparing

how different the picture from each of your eyes is.

And it uses that as a clue for how far away things are.

When an object is really close to your eyes

you can actually sense the feeling of your eyes

crossing inward, to focus on it.

You can even feel how the muscles that focus your eyes lens

are flexing and pulling to bring something into focus

and get another clue that way.

There's clues like texture.

You can see more detail on closer things

than you can far ones.

And clues like parallax

which is how objects at different distances

move differently relative to you.

You actually have a ton of clues at your disposal

to judge what you see.

So we build our picture of reality

from these bits and pieces from clues.

Not the full picture.

The software of your brain.

If you wanna think of it that way

it looks for certain clues that it thinks are important.

And your reality is always built

from that incomplete information.

Most of the time that incomplete information

is still good enough

to build a an accurate model of reality.

But the Ames illusions show us that sometimes

incomplete information isn't enough.

There's this idea that in some ways, especially today

if different people are given the same information

then we can end up with a very different picture

of what is real and true.

But these illusions show us the opposite really

that when it comes to seeing at least

evolution has made it so that very different people

perceive the world in the same way.

And that's kind of nice to hear these days.

Stay curious.

Thank you to Policygenius for reporting PBS.

Policygenius is an insurance marketplace,

not an insurance company.

Policygenius combines that marketplace experience

with online tools, an educational library

on all sorts of insurance topics

and guidance from humans to get you covered.

For example, if you're searching for life insurance

Policygenius offers info and quotes

from most insurance companies all at once.

You can get personalized quotes, apply online,

and compare your quotes all in one place.

Additionally, Policygenius offers advice

from people who work in the industry.

Their team handles the paperwork, scheduling,

and negotiating with the insurance company on your behalf

as part of the service.

For more information,

click the link in the description below.

I wanna say a big thank you to Brian from Real Engineering

for 3d printing, this nifty, little thing.

There's a link to his channel down in the description.

And as always a huge thank you

to everyone who supports the show on Patreon.

Patreon, you know how it works.

It's how you can follow the channel

and support video like this without any AI,

any algorithms in the way.

Just you and me hanging out, talking science.

If you wanna learn how you can support the channel

there's a link down in the description.

Thank you very much.

I will see you in the next video.

- First years, I'll fight you Voldemort, I'm grown up now.

The Illusion That Makes You Question Reality (2) Die Illusion, die Sie die Realität in Frage stellen lässt (2) La ilusión que te hace cuestionar la realidad (2) De illusie die je doet twijfelen aan de werkelijkheid (2) A ilusão que nos faz questionar a realidade (2) Иллюзия, которая заставляет вас сомневаться в реальности (2) 让你质疑现实的幻觉(2) 讓你質疑現實的幻覺(2)

might explain one of the oldest illusions on Earth.

I'm sure we've all experienced that incredible feeling

that you get when you go out, look up at the night sky,

and you see shapes emerge from the stars, constellations. ||||||||сузір'я

Different cultures have connected the sky dots

slightly differently over the past few thousand years,

but one that always seems to be seen the same is this.

The rough shape of a human wearing a belt.

We call that one Orion. ||||Оріон

Incidentally that reminds me of a joke:

Ever look up at the night sky and see Orion's belt? |||||||||Оріона|

Big waist of space if you ask me. (chuckles)

It's like a belt around the waist.

(insects chirping)

Ah, whatever, that joke only has three stars.

(crowd boos) |гудіння

Anyway, this is probably going to ruin your horoscope, ||||||||гороскоп

but the shapes we see in the stars

they happen for the same reason we see a chair

in a bunch of random strings.

Because we happen to be viewing it

from a very specific point of view.

If you were somewhere else in space, the stars of Orion

(board scratching)

would look like this.

They're all different distances from Earth,

and well, nothing special

to our friends on Alpha Centauri or whatever.

It's only because you happen to be right here

that this group of stars means anything at all.

(board scratching)

Most of the illusions in this video

were invented by a guy named Adelbert Ames.

You don't meet a lot of Adelberts, do you?

Around 1910, Ames was studying to be a lawyer,

and decided he wanted to be an artist instead.

It was always a fun conversation to have with mom and dad.

When he started studying how the eye senses the world

with the goal of making more realistic-feeling art.

But Adelbert ended up abandoning art, ||||покинувши|

and spending the rest of his life

designing a series of elaborate demonstrations

to try and unlock the secrets of how we see the world.

Those demonstrations have captivated scientists

and the public ever since.

Just before Ames died, the plans for these demonstrations

were published in a book that is incredibly hard to find.

But thankfully I was able to find a copy,

thanks to something amazing called the library,

which is like the internet if it was a building

that you had to go to.

And one of the strange things about most of Ames' illusions,

is most of them only work when viewed with one eye,

from a very specific spot.

Which is why so many of them work so well in video,

because the camera is essentially like viewing the world

with one eye. |одним|

And as powerful as these illusions are,

if you were to view most of them with two eyes,

or if you were able to move around a bit,

they wouldn't work.

So even though they show us a ton

about how our visual system can kinda break down,

they also kind of show us how awesome our visual system

really is when it does get all the information it needs,

from both of your eyes!

Unfortunately, you still only get to use one eye

for the rest of the video, the camera

but there's one last set of visual cues

that I have to tell you about,

for size and how far away things are,

and they only work because you have binocular vision. |||||||бінокулярний зір|

Okay, try this: Hold up two pencils or pens, ||||||олівці||ручки

one in front of the other.

When you focus on the rear object,

you see a double image of the front object,

one on each side.

Close one eye at a time,

and you'll see that your right eye sees the left image,

and your left eye sees the right image.

Now, focus on the closer one.

And suddenly the back one is doubled.

Now your right eye sees the right image,

and your left eye sees the left image.

So what's going on?

When we look at a fixed point, your eyes move individually,

so that point hits the center of each eye.

The closer an object is to you, the more extreme the effect

but your brain is sort of always unconsciously comparing

how different the picture from each of your eyes is.

And it uses that as a clue for how far away things are.

When an object is really close to your eyes

you can actually sense the feeling of your eyes

crossing inward, to focus on it. |внутрішній||||

You can even feel how the muscles that focus your eyes lens

are flexing and pulling to bring something into focus |намагаються|||||||

and get another clue that way.

There's clues like texture.

You can see more detail on closer things

than you can far ones.

And clues like parallax

which is how objects at different distances

move differently relative to you.

You actually have a ton of clues at your disposal

to judge what you see.

So we build our picture of reality

from these bits and pieces from clues.

Not the full picture.

The software of your brain.

If you wanna think of it that way

it looks for certain clues that it thinks are important.

And your reality is always built

from that incomplete information.

Most of the time that incomplete information

is still good enough

to build a an accurate model of reality.

But the Ames illusions show us that sometimes

incomplete information isn't enough.

There's this idea that in some ways, especially today

if different people are given the same information

then we can end up with a very different picture

of what is real and true.

But these illusions show us the opposite really

that when it comes to seeing at least

evolution has made it so that very different people

perceive the world in the same way.

And that's kind of nice to hear these days.

Stay curious.

Thank you to Policygenius for reporting PBS.

Policygenius is an insurance marketplace,

not an insurance company.

Policygenius combines that marketplace experience

with online tools, an educational library

on all sorts of insurance topics

and guidance from humans to get you covered.

For example, if you're searching for life insurance

Policygenius offers info and quotes

from most insurance companies all at once.

You can get personalized quotes, apply online,

and compare your quotes all in one place.

Additionally, Policygenius offers advice

from people who work in the industry.

Their team handles the paperwork, scheduling,

and negotiating with the insurance company on your behalf

as part of the service.

For more information,

click the link in the description below.

I wanna say a big thank you to Brian from Real Engineering

for 3d printing, this nifty, little thing. ||||класна||

There's a link to his channel down in the description.

And as always a huge thank you

to everyone who supports the show on Patreon.

Patreon, you know how it works.

It's how you can follow the channel

and support video like this without any AI,

any algorithms in the way.

Just you and me hanging out, talking science.

If you wanna learn how you can support the channel

there's a link down in the description.

Thank you very much.

I will see you in the next video.

- First years, I'll fight you Voldemort, I'm grown up now.