stereo-grams; metaphors;

[quarky]

http://www.eyetricks.com/3dstereo2.htm

I feel safe in saying that most of you are familiar with these 'stereo-grams'; optical illusions that enable a 3d image to emerge from a 2d image, if you are able to relax your focal imperative.

I have a whole raft of stuff to say about this metaphor.
I know that I need to express it in tiny increments to dodge the "tl/dr" rule.

Hang in here with me. This could be entertaining.

[ehcks]

Is that a three-legged bunny?

[quarky]

yes

[DaveThomasNMSR]

Originally Posted by quarky

http://www.eyetricks.com/3dstereo2.htm

I feel safe in saying that most of you are familiar with these 'stereo-grams'; optical illusions that enable a 3d image to emerge from a 2d image, if you are able to relax your focal imperative.

I have a whole raft of stuff to say about this metaphor.
I know that I need to express it in tiny increments to dodge the "tl/dr" rule.

Hang in here with me. This could be entertaining.

I've some uber-simple streograms here.

Cheers, Dave

[BowlOfRed]

Originally Posted by ehcks

Is that a three-legged bunny?

Looks messed-up to me. I see the rearmost leg drawn, but it appears flat to me. There's no depth gap between the second and third legs.

[quarky]

What I was about to jump into, via this metaphor, is alternate perceptual possibilities.

As well as an 'on-going theme' of mine:

elements have wildly different attribute, yet an electron behaves the same, no matter if it is engaged in expressing helium or lead.

Jumping to the chase, an electron can express itself in both perceptual possibilities simultaneously.

Jumping to the mega-chase, the sub-atomic bits can express themselves in a near infinite variety of configurations...if not simultaneously, than at least, very, very quickly...as if there was a violation of "C", big time.



It won't be easy to spew this idea here. I know that.
Just hang in there and give me a chance.

[Soapy Sam]

Surely that hare has SIX legs, not 3.
Of course, 3 are folded up in many dimensions.

You have me hornswoggled, Quarky, Quo vadis?

(A wee story. First time I saw one of these pictures was in a shop in the Smithsonian aerospace museum. There was a Japanese girl, on vacation with her parents, looking at it in a puzzled fashion, as was I. Suddenly we both "got it". We were so hugely entertained that we looked at each other, burst out laughing and did a little dance together, leaving her parents totally baffled. It was a moment of near telepathic communication. A real fun memory. I wonder if she's okay...)

[quarky]

An interesting aspect (to me) of the stereo-grams is that some people just can't "make it happen", though nobody really suspects that it is woo. So its not a matter of believing or not believing; its more a matter of letting go of prejudice.

More on this metaphor when I wake up.

[Aepervius]

I have never *EVER* been able to make those sterogram work. I think it is a giant conspiracy of the whole world to pull a joke onto me. In reality those are random splotch of color. Just admit it !

ETA:

Originally Posted by quarky

An interesting aspect (to me) of the stereo-grams is that some people just can't "make it happen", though nobody really suspects that it is woo. So its not a matter of believing or not believing; its more a matter of letting go of prejudice.

More on this metaphor when I wake up.

I dunno of prejudice but I have always been sad not being able to catch the 3D picture...

[quarky]

Yup, pixels on a screen.

Multiple interpretations available.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The site linked to in the OP is listed on hpHosts as distributing malware: http://hosts-file.net/?s=eyetricks.com

[quarky]

bummer. Sorry about that.

[Cuddles]

Originally Posted by quarky

I have a whole raft of stuff to say about this metaphor.

Metaphor.
Optical illusions are not metaphors, so what is your point exactly?

[CNY_Dave]

I can almost always see the images in these, but interestingly instead of the image coming 'up out of the background' it seems to be 'behind' the background (there is a cutout in the shape of the image, with the cutout portion of the image placed 'further back').

Dave

[quarky]

Originally Posted by Cuddles

Metaphor.
Optical illusions are not metaphors, so what is your point exactly?

The sheet of paper (or whatever) that contains the stereo-gram is an object, thus available as a metaphor. A damn good one, too. Much as the internet provides a useful analogy for group mind fantasies.

The exactness of my point is quite less than exact.
I am leading up to the non-wooish angle on perceiving alternate realities.
I hope that's cool.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by quarky

The sheet of paper (or whatever) that contains the stereo-gram is an object, thus available as a metaphor. A damn good one, too. Much as the internet provides a useful analogy for group mind fantasies.

The exactness of my point is quite less than exact.
I am leading up to the non-wooish angle on perceiving alternate realities.
I hope that's cool.

Aren't alternative realities woo by definition?

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by CNY_Dave

I can almost always see the images in these, but interestingly instead of the image coming 'up out of the background' it seems to be 'behind' the background (there is a cutout in the shape of the image, with the cutout portion of the image placed 'further back').

Dave

You're crossing your eyes instead of letting them wander slightly apart.

[jasonpatterson]

Originally Posted by dafydd

You're crossing your eyes instead of letting them wander slightly apart.

Either one works, though it usually appears to me that front and back are swapped when I change from crossed to spread apart. Kinda fun to swap back and forth. Also, if the picture is small, it's hard to cross your eyes and still see it (at least for me.)

My favorite way to show people how to do this is to have them focus on the wall across the room, then bring the printed stereogram up in front of their vision about a foot away from their face, keeping their eyes focused on the far wall. Usually their eyes just snap to the 3d image. Starting with one like the uber-simple ones that were linked above by DaveThomasNMSR is helpful as well.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by jasonpatterson

Either one works, though it usually appears to me that front and back are swapped when I change from crossed to spread apart. Kinda fun to swap back and forth. Also, if the picture is small, it's hard to cross your eyes and still see it (at least for me.)

My favorite way to show people how to do this is to have them focus on the wall across the room, then bring the printed stereogram up in front of their vision about a foot away from their face, keeping their eyes focused on the far wall. Usually their eyes just snap to the 3d image. Starting with one like the uber-simple ones that were linked above by DaveThomasNMSR is helpful as well.

If I cross my eyes when looking at a stereogram the 3d image jumps out of the page and floats about two feet in front of it. Inside out.

[kevinquinnyo]

Originally Posted by Aepervius

I have never *EVER* been able to make those sterogram work. I think it is a giant conspiracy of the whole world to pull a joke onto me. In reality those are random splotch of color. Just admit it !

ETA:


I dunno of prejudice but I have always been sad not being able to catch the 3D picture...

solution: move in close so that your eyes are almost touching the screen (maybe 2 inches away), then slowly back away, and attempt to NOT "refocus" as you back away. Always works for me

you can thank me later, but don't get more depressed when you realize stereograms arent that cool

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by kevinquinnyo

solution: move in close so that your eyes are almost touching the screen (maybe 2 inches away), then slowly back away, and attempt to NOT "refocus" as you back away. Always works for me

you can thank me later, but don't get more depressed when you realize stereograms arent that cool

They're not really worth the bother,are they? Much like alternative realities.

[NotJesus]

I've never been able to see them either. None of the "tricks" work for me.

[Molinaro]

I've always had no trouble seeing them. Takes about 1 or 2 seconds to get them in focus. The one in the OP is a 6 legged bunny. Although the bunny is not the foreground most figure. Out from of the bunny are the rows of cats at the top and chickens at the bottom. Then you have the bunny behind them. Then you have the background. Then behind that you have the peacock feathers and the deer. The image has 4 layers.

[alfaniner]

There is always a repeating pattern. You just have to find two spots that match and concentrate on those, letting your eyes relax and cross until the patterns match again, but offset. This should bring the hidden picture into focus.

[MontagK505]

Originally Posted by NotJesus

I've never been able to see them either. None of the "tricks" work for me.

I can usually make them work. Frankly, I don't find the result worth the effort.

[Jeff Corey]

Originally Posted by DaveThomasNMSR

I've some uber-simple streograms here.

Cheers, Dave

Here's another.


.......................O...O................O..... ........................



Panum's limiting case.

[quarky]

Alternate 'realities' are woo, unless they exist.
Perhaps I should have posted this in religion/philosophy.
I wanted to take it into a new direction, using the stereo-gram as an analogy. Is analogy better than metaphor?

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by quarky

Alternate 'realities' are woo, unless they exist.
Perhaps I should have posted this in religion/philosophy.
I wanted to take it into a new direction, using the stereo-gram as an analogy. Is analogy better than metaphor?

Getting to the point is better than wasting everybody's time.

[Cuddles]

Originally Posted by quarky

The sheet of paper (or whatever) that contains the stereo-gram is an object, thus available as a metaphor.

Yeah, that's not how it works. Absolutely anything can be used as a metaphor for something, but you actually need to, you know, use it as a metaphor. All you've done is say "Look, an optical illusion". That's not a metaphor.

Quote:

A damn good one, too.

In what way?

Quote:

Much as the internet provides a useful analogy for group mind fantasies.

Again, in what way? Note that analogies are a little different from metaphors, but still require actual use. You can't just point at the internet and claim it's an analogy, that just doesn't make sense.

The basic point here is that you're not actually saying anything. You can make all the metaphors and analogies you like, but you have to actually make them and tell us about them, not just randomly state that they exist.

Quote:

The exactness of my point is quite less than exact.

So you don't actually have a point? Then why did you start a thread?

Quote:

I am leading up to the non-wooish angle on perceiving alternate realities.
I hope that's cool.

No, not really. Firstly, if you want to talk about perceiving alternate realities, you need evidence that any such thing exists and that it is possible to perceive them. Secondly, nothing you have said has actually had any meaning or point so far. You need to be actually saying something before you can be leading up to anything.

Originally Posted by quarky

Alternate 'realities' are woo, unless they exist.

No, alternate realities are woo whether they exist or not, because there is exactly no evidence for them and no reason to think they exist. They will only stop being woo if one of those two things is provided.

Quote:

Perhaps I should have posted this in religion/philosophy.

Probably. Although you should probably wait until you actually have something to say before you do so.

Quote:

I wanted to take it into a new direction, using the stereo-gram as an analogy. Is analogy better than metaphor?

No, because you haven't made an analogy either. It makes no difference if you call them an analogy or metaphor until you tell us what they're an analogy or metaphor for and what exactly that analogy or metaphor actually is.

[quarky]

That the pixels of data we perceive may have alternate interpretations, much like the stereo-grams. That electrons may be involved in multiple atomic configurations.
This was mentioned early on. I do have a point, Cuddles. Surely, you needn't agree with it.

[Trent Wray]

Originally Posted by Cuddles

No, alternate realities are woo whether they exist or not, because there is exactly no evidence for them and no reason to think they exist. They will only stop being woo if one of those two things is provided.

So if something exists, it can still be "woo"?

And if you're speaking of alternate realities in the sense they are referred to in MWI, are you saying there is no evidence whatsoever to even consider the MWI hypothesis (or those like it)?

[Cuddles]

Originally Posted by quarky

That the pixels of data we perceive may have alternate interpretations, much like the stereo-grams. That electrons may be involved in multiple atomic configurations.
This was mentioned early on. I do have a point, Cuddles. Surely, you needn't agree with it.

So because our brains can be fooled into seeing things that aren't actually there, you think electrons might be doing something vague and unspecified. Nope, still not enough of a point for me to agree or disagree with.

Originally Posted by Trent Wray

So if something exists, it can still be "woo"?

If something exists, but you have no evidence it exists or any other reason to believe it exists, then yes, believing in it is very much woo. That really shouldn't be a controversial statement. For example, it is certainly possible, although unlikely, that an unknown large primate is living in the forests of America. However, believing in bigfoot is woo because there is no actual evidence of such a thing.

Quote:

And if you're speaking of alternate realities in the sense they are referred to in MWI, are you saying there is no evidence whatsoever to even consider the MWI hypothesis (or those like it)?

I have no idea what sense quarky is speaking of alternate realities since he has yet to make a coherent point, but the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, assuming that's what you're referring to, really has absolutely to do with alternate realities. The whole point of it is that there is a single reality governed by a single wavefunction. See Sol's posts in here for a good explanation, particularly this:

Originally Posted by sol invictus

The MWI is essentially the statement that we should take the wavefunction literally, at face value, as a description of "reality". Since wavefunctions can be superpositions of macroscopically distinct states (cat is alive and cat is dead), that means (if we accept this interpretation) that we must accept that reality can consist of sums of distinct "worlds".

And indeed, what one finds is that starting from a wavefunction that describes one "world", we immediately evolve into one that describes multiple worlds. It's easiest to think of this process as I said before, as the evolution of an infinite ensemble of universes (which in the case I just described start off identically and then evolve differently), but mathematically what's going on is simply the unitary time evolution of the wave function.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by quarky

Alternate 'realities' are woo, unless they exist.
Perhaps I should have posted this in religion/philosophy.
I wanted to take it into a new direction, using the stereo-gram as an analogy. Is analogy better than metaphor?

Unicorns,leprechauns and pixies are woo,unless they exist. Which direction shall we take with those?

[quarky]

Cuddles,
Although you are one that is working on the most abstract data-field in all of human history, colliders, and such, I suspect you are also one that can't make the strereo-grams go 3d.

Is that true?

I have made no implication that I'm spewing fact here. I enjoy a bit of mind-expansion.
This couldn't possibly be more different than promoting the existence of big-foot.

As it turns out, you are actually quite a bit more stodgy and pedantic than your peers.
I keep up with this. You dis-allow me.
You are a fart, my friend.
Not even unique therein.

Your filter system won't permit a coherent point. That's part of the point I'm trying to make here.
It seems to escape you.

[NotJesus]

Originally Posted by quarky

Your filter system won't permit a coherent point. That's part of the point I'm trying to make here.
It seems to escape you.

Sorry, you haven't made a coherent point. You need to start by telling us what you mean when you say "alternate realities." The fact that people can perceive the same visual stimulus in different ways due to quirks of the human visual apparatus is mildly interesting but doesn't lead us anywhere. There are also real things that we can't experience directly, like electromagnetic fields, and unreal things that we can experience, like dreams and hallucinations. Brains are weird like that. So what?

[quarky]

How can I make a coherent point?

Multi-verse theories and string hypothesis with 13 dimensions wash as legitimate areas of conjecture.

What I'm up to here is much less than a hypothesis, much less a theorem.
I'm not the crop-circle guy here.

I'm, in fact, someone whom is contacted frequently by the best of the best engineering firms on the planet; for their take on the matter.
Back to the metaphor:

Some people, unable to shift their focal point to perceive the 3d aspect of the stereo-grams, might claim that there is no 3d image hiding in the 2d pixels.

That's what I'm up against here. Calling Cuddles a "fart" may have been uncalled for...yet, he/she has insulated me in a more fundamental way.

Never mind that.

Who feels like expanding their out-looks?
I had much more to express here; even suggested moving it to religion/philosophy; though evidently, I'm beneath that as well.

Do you hear yourselves?
I'm not seeking respect.

I simply had an interesting thought.

[alfaniner]

Kind of like the machine instructions in Contact. They made no sense until formed into a 3-dimensional cube. (or at least, a 2D projection thereof).

[NotJesus]

Originally Posted by quarky

How can I make a coherent point?

Multi-verse theories and string hypothesis with 13 dimensions wash as legitimate areas of conjecture.

What I'm up to here is much less than a hypothesis, much less a theorem.
I'm not the crop-circle guy here.

I'm, in fact, someone whom is contacted frequently by the best of the best engineering firms on the planet; for their take on the matter.
Back to the metaphor:

Some people, unable to shift their focal point to perceive the 3d aspect of the stereo-grams, might claim that there is no 3d image hiding in the 2d pixels.

That's what I'm up against here. Calling Cuddles a "fart" may have been uncalled for...yet, he/she has insulated me in a more fundamental way.

Never mind that.

Who feels like expanding their out-looks?
I had much more to express here; even suggested moving it to religion/philosophy; though evidently, I'm beneath that as well.

Do you hear yourselves?
I'm not seeking respect.

I simply had an interesting thought.

Sorry. I still have no idea what you're talking about.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by quarky

Cuddles,
Although you are one that is working on the most abstract data-field in all of human history, colliders, and such, I suspect you are also one that can't make the strereo-grams go 3d.

Is that true?

I have made no implication that I'm spewing fact here. I enjoy a bit of mind-expansion.
This couldn't possibly be more different than promoting the existence of big-foot.

As it turns out, you are actually quite a bit more stodgy and pedantic than your peers.
I keep up with this. You dis-allow me.
You are a fart, my friend.
Not even unique therein.

Your filter system won't permit a coherent point. That's part of the point I'm trying to make here.
It seems to escape you.

It sounds like you've been using lots of mind expanders.

[dafydd]

Originally Posted by quarky

How can I make a coherent point?

Multi-verse theories and string hypothesis with 13 dimensions wash as legitimate areas of conjecture.

What I'm up to here is much less than a hypothesis, much less a theorem.
I'm not the crop-circle guy here.

I'm, in fact, someone whom is contacted frequently by the best of the best engineering firms on the planet; for their take on the matter.
Back to the metaphor:

Some people, unable to shift their focal point to perceive the 3d aspect of the stereo-grams, might claim that there is no 3d image hiding in the 2d pixels.

That's what I'm up against here. Calling Cuddles a "fart" may have been uncalled for...yet, he/she has insulated me in a more fundamental way.

Never mind that.

Who feels like expanding their out-looks?
I had much more to express here; even suggested moving it to religion/philosophy; though evidently, I'm beneath that as well.

Do you hear yourselves?
I'm not seeking respect.

I simply had an interesting thought.

Nope,no idea of what you are rabbiting about. What thought was that?