Just watched an amazing program on the relationship between the
senses and how the brain processes information. It appears that
optical illusions are in fact beneficial to us and helps us
survive. Even as they are illusions, they allow us to make sense
(use it in a practical way) of sensory information. This may be
a hardwired genetic benefit. But it is also disconcerting as,
even when we know what we are looking at, our brain may reject
the “knowledge” and still be fooled by the image. It is
physically unable to present us with conflicting results. OTOH,
it also allows us to “see” smells, sounds, touch. They showed a
totally blind (lost sight a couple of months after he was born)
cyclist who goes bike riding everyday on a narrow forest path.
He uses sonar by clicking his tongue continuously and from the
echos he forms an actual picture in his brain of the path. Tests
showed that when he hears sounds his visual cortex is activated,
even as he has no memories of actually ever seeing anything with
his eyes. We