TIME EXPLAINED (v2.1)

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Popular

As obvious as it might seem, A and B are the same colour …

Originally Posted by cwes99_03

… neither one of us being able to tell which is clinging and which is not (except by the means I put forth of actually picking apart the picture with a photometer or a digital editing program and measuring the hue saturation and other color levels in the picture)…

As hard to believe from the evidence of our eyes, what the picture’s author (Adelson) and Popular claim is true – the actual color value being sent to your screen is the same for pixels in square A and B is the same.

An easy way to verify this (I just did, since I too couldn’t believe the claim over what my own eyes were telling me) on a Windows machine is:

1. View the picture in you browser (upper left hand corner of you screen will save hassle in later steps)
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and press the PrtSc key to copy the current screen bitmap to the clipboard
3. Run mspaint.exe (or select “Paint” in the start menus).
4. Hold down Shift and press Ins (or click Edit, Paste) to copy the clipboard to the new drawing.
5. Click to select the “Select” tool (looks like a dotted-line box)
6. Click and drag over a portion of the A square in the picture
7. Hold down Ctrl and press Ins (or click Edit, Copy) to copy the selected region to the clipboard
8. Hold down Shift and press Ins (or click Edit, Paste) to copy the clipboard to the new drawing.
9. Drag the pasted region to an unused part of the drawing
10. Repeat steps 6-9 for a portion of the B square, placing the 2 copied regions close together.

You’ll be able to clearly see that A and B are the same color.

Unless you believe that mspaint.exe has hidden software to transform the colors copied via the select tool, this exercise is compelling proof of Popular and Adelson’s claim.

Color perception illusion are an essential, necessary feature of color computer displays, print, painting, etc. Nearly all TVs, computer display, for example, actually emit mostly (or, in the case of laser screens, exactly) photons of 3 wavelengths: 0.000000625 to 0.000000760 meter red, 0.000000520 to 0.000000570 m green, and 0.000000440 to 0.000000490 m blue. Our impression that we are actually seeing photons of many different frequencies is a perceptual illusion. Animals with eyes built radically different from our own might not perceive this illusion correctly, and be quite unable to use our color TVs and computer displays.

If you really want to bathe your retinas in photons of a specific color, you’ll need to use something like the refracted light of a prism. Your retina and brain, however, can’t tell most of these photons from mixtures of the primary RGB colors, so there’s really no advantage of “pure” of “mixed” photons for displaying colors.

[Farsight]

Thanks Craig. The thing I've found very interesting about this is the "psychology of belief". To be honest I've found it rather surprising. In the latter example with the squares, people think the illusion is that A and B are the same colour. They don't appreciate that the illusion is that A and B are a different colour. I rather feel there are similar issues within physics. People "believe" in some idea or theory, but don't quite realise it how much of this is taken on faith rather than empirical open-minded logic. As a result they're far less willing to reconsider it than they think they are. For example, they will not follow the link and use the "swatch" to prove to themselves that the squares really are the same colour. Having said all that, I'm probably the same.

[niin]

If two things are objectively the same color, but you get more value from believing they are different.
Then it would be better to believe them to be different.
I think this is the reason why color illusions work.
Nature have found that it is better to believe the colors are different.

In some cases it might be better to not believe in a illusion, but i don't think this is true for all illusions.

[cwes99_03]

Originally Posted by CraigD

As hard to believe from the evidence of our eyes, what the picture’s author (Adelson) and Popular claim is true – the actual color value being sent to your screen is the same for pixels in square A and B is the same.

An easy way to verify this (I just did, since I too couldn’t believe the claim over what my own eyes were telling me) on a Windows machine is:

1. View the picture in you browser (upper left hand corner of you screen will save hassle in later steps)
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and press the PrtSc key to copy the current screen bitmap to the clipboard
3. Run mspaint.exe (or select “Paint” in the start menus).
4. Hold down Shift and press Ins (or click Edit, Paste) to copy the clipboard to the new drawing.
5. Click to select the “Select” tool (looks like a dotted-line box)
6. Click and drag over a portion of the A square in the picture
7. Hold down Ctrl and press Ins (or click Edit, Copy) to copy the selected region to the clipboard
8. Hold down Shift and press Ins (or click Edit, Paste) to copy the clipboard to the new drawing.
9. Drag the pasted region to an unused part of the drawing
10. Repeat steps 6-9 for a portion of the B square, placing the 2 copied regions close together.

You’ll be able to clearly see that A and B are the same color.

Unless you believe that mspaint.exe has hidden software to transform the colors copied via the select tool, this exercise is compelling proof of Popular and Adelson’s claim.

First, I did not say that the picture of the checkerboard with an A and a B are not the same. I said that you cannot prove it without using a method that actually selects the sample and gives you a numerical reading of the picture.

The method you have prescribed here still only leaves you a perception of the two colors and not an accurate numerical analysis of them. For this you need a program better than paint. A program that can give you a precise measurement of the two samples and tell you with certainty what the color of the two images are.

The original post of this thread shows an illusion of two objects each with a yellow (or was it grey) center piece. However, each object has been screened by a film of colored material (one yellow, one blue). If the author understood optics, this is not an illusion. The actual wavelengths of light filtered out by each color filter mean that what reaches the eye from each side is fundamentally different. Thus when one views the picture with the filters in place, one is seeing two different colors (not their mind makes them think there are two different colors.) This can be verified with a program like cs2 which allows you to create custom color palletes by selecting a portion of an existing picture to give you an exact match to that color. This custom pallete then gives you a precise readout of the different color levels (RBG or CMYK) as well as saturation and hue and other things.

Do not leave it up to the eyes.

[Farsight]

You can prove it just by following the echalk link, or by making a small hole in a piece of paper to mask out the context. Then you see that the colours really are the same.

http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/O...erception.html

It's offline at the moment, so here's another link to something Arkain posted re the first image. He didn't quite crop them right, but you can see that the central portions are both gray.

http://hypography.com/forums/142242-post40.html

[cwes99_03]

That has been precisely my point. You can't by the methods you suggested.

The methods you suggest still leave the answer up to interpretation. The echalk link uses a computer model in which the programmer could easily have configured the flash program to gradually fade the center piece into a different color.
To use a piece of paper with a hole in it on your picture above (which is the initial frame of the echalk link) still allows for your interpretation of what your brain tells you is two identical colors. When I tried that demostration on your picture I could see two different colors in the two holes I punched in the piece of paper. Thus I suggested the only actual mechanical method of proof, a photo editing program.

Craig suggested taking screen shots.
I would gladly do that, but right now they are experiencing technical difficulties. Perhaps you could do it when the site comes online.

What I then want you to do is to take a screen shot of the beginning frame and one of the ending frame of the flash object on their website. Then edit the two screenshots and place the beginning frame side by side with the ending frame and post it here on your thread.

[Farsight]

I know but you still have to follow the links. Did you look at Arkain's screenshots? Like I said, I think they could do with a bit more cropping, and there are a few errant pixels in there. But they're demonstrably and obviously both grey rather one being yellow and one grey.

[arkain101]

popular:

I am trying to find your topic on energy explained.

I have a concept I really want to discuss and I thought I would bring it up in your thread.

Maybe a new one. I have a concept that sort of supports your idea on energy. Except I think I can show logically there is two types of energy.


Where is your thread?

[arkain101]

You’ll be able to clearly see that A and B are the same color.

Unless you believe that mspaint.exe has hidden software to transform the colors copied via the select tool, this exercise is compelling proof of Popular and Adelson’s claim.

I still dissagree. Of course the colors could be the same when you seperate them. But when you mix colors together and those frequencies compile on your retina, you get mixed information.

Color only exists in your mind, which is why what you see is always the truth. It may be a mixture of frequencies that developes a harmonic of color..

The same idea is to watch a car drive away in a very colorful enviroment, the further it gets the less you know about its exact color, your get mixed data.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Originally Posted by Popular

I thought a new version was in order to take on board some of the feedback I've had. Any comments and views will be gratefully received.

I loved it. Thanks. And thanks for the insight to the friendship between Einstein and Godel. Did not know that. I wonder if anyone ever took a picture of the two walking together. I'd like a copy to frame and hang on my wall. I'd name it, 'two doubters doubting'.
I especially liked the way you related an optical illusion to the way we see time. I am interested in that because I fear that we have other concepts that are of that category that don't really refer to anything that exists. Blindspots that we've created because of the way we regard these mental inventions.
Beautiful work. And that goes for the folks that are helping you put it together too. Exciting possibilities. Now this is forward motion.