I believe that understanding the world is a lot like seeing the world, and the visual illusions to which the eye is prone provide exquisite metaphors for the cognitive illusions to which the mind is prone. When you first look at Escher's painting everything seems fine. But as you inspect it you suddenly realize that what you're seeing is impossible...each section of the canvas is coherent but all those possible parts add up to an impossible whole. Escher's work exposes the masterful fraud that our brains perpetuate upon us, the neural disaster that we call reality.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
I believe that understanding the world is a lot like seeing the world, and the visual illusions to which the eye is prone provide exquisite metaphors for the cognitive illusions to which the mind is prone. When you first look at Escher's painting everything seems fine. But as you inspect it you suddenly realize that what you're seeing is impossible...each section of the canvas is coherent but all those possible parts add up to an impossible whole. Escher's work exposes the masterful fraud that our brains perpetuate upon us, the neural disaster that we call reality.
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