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21 September 2008
How easily we are fooled: The rotating grid illusion
Filmmaker and animator David O'Reilly (who came up with the concept for iHologram) has noticed an interesting property in this animated GIF:
He writes:
While working in 3D last year, I discovered this optical illusion: A large grid seen rotating at a certain speed will appear to group itself into smaller grids, spinning independently.
See O'Reilly's website for more examples (and his theory on why this happens).
For more optical illusions, watch Al Seckel's TEDTalk on how easily we are fooled; or Dan Dennett's talk on our gullible minds. As Dennett says, we need to understand how easily we are fooled, in order to understand the nature of consciousness itself.
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