Look out, Evidentialists and Quasi-Evidentialists, for this interesting demonstration of the fallibility of the senses. (link).
Thanks be to God for Propositional Revelation,
-Turretinfan
UPDATE:
Some readers seem to think that the example in the link above is a fraud, and that the two tiles are not the same color. For their benefit, I've linked to a second, similar, illusion:
(link), as well as to a further demonstration of the original illusion (link).
Thursday, August 23, 2007
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12 comments:
Good inference regarding evidentialism!
--Godith
Thanks for the link. Glad I found your blog. I'll be adding it tom list of must read blogs.
If you are dumb enough to beleive those tiles are the same color then you probably also believe in evolution.
Godith - thanks, I think. :)
Jamie - Thanks!
Josh - That's a bizarre comment. They are, in fact, the same color, while the delusion of evolutionism remains fanciful.
-Turretinfan
If you will accept a mere man's claim that they are the same color over your God-given eyes, why would you not also accept a mere man's claim of evolution over the God-given Bible? But I am a man who doesn't believe the Earth revolves around the Sun. After all, there is not proof of such foolishness other than the heady high mindedness of so-called scientists, even as your same-color theory has zero proof other than human opinion. Undoubtedly, however, you accept the foolish notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun even though God says Gen 19:23 "The sun was risen upon the earth..." and Psa 50:1 "A Psalm of Asaph. The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof."
You are surely of those who must stop and pause "But we know today the sun does not actually rise or go down." Ah, and this you know because a man told you so? Did you see with your eyes that the Sun sits still while the Earth revolves around it? Nay. Did God tell you that it was so? Nay. Then you simply took a man's word for it? Yea.
Unless God tells me that those tiles are both the same color, I will not believe it, because they are not, regardless what high minded 'scholars' may say and what foolish philosophical arguments the sophists may pull from their bags of tricks.
Aha! Emphatic proof! Open the Image in the GIMP. Use the color picker tool. On Tile A you will see that the tile is CONSISTENTLY Red:120, Green:120, Blue:120 (HEX:787878). Now, repeat on tile B. Tile B is indeed Red:120, Green:120, Blue:120 (HEX:787878) on SOME of its pixels, but also Red:121, Green:121, Blue:121 (HEX:797979) on OTHER of it's pixels. In other words, tile A is consistently the same color, but tile B alternates between that color and other of ever so slight a difference. Because it alternates between HEX:787878 and HEX:797979, Tile B looks different than tile A which is consistently HEX:787878. Tada! Proof! No illusion at all--they ARE different colors.
on closer inspection, tile b also sometimes has rgb(119,119,119) or hex 777777. Tile A is still consistently the same color, rgb(120,120,120) or hex 787878.
Josh,
a) When I open it up in my editing tool, I don't see the same difference that you noted in GIMP. But, then again, I'm using a lower-powered tool.
b) Since you have time to check the hex codes in GIMP, you should have the time to run the following to experiments to satisfy your curiosity:
(i) Side-by-Side compare
a)Using a simple square cut-n-paste tool cut out the center sections of the tiles (don't get the borders, because the borders have been blurred by the jpeg image compression technique.
b)Place the two center pieces side-by-side so that the edge of one square cut-out aligns with one side of the other square cutout.
c)Now the two tile colors will appear to be approximately equal.
(ii) Switch-a-roo
a) Using a free cut-n-paste tool, carefully cut out the entire tile A and the entire tile B.
b) Paste tile A where tile B formerly was and paste tile B where tile A formerly was.
c) Now the relative shades of the tiles will appear to be reverse of the way they appeared in the original picture.
The point is that your senses are useful, but fallible. Haven't you ever been to a "magic" show? The magician isn't using magic - he's using illusion. He's tricking your eyes.
Our eyes are liable to deceive us: that's why we need propositional revelation - like the hex codes that GIMP provides or the oral text that the link in the post above provides.
Even if the two tiles were ever-so-slightly different colors, that is not what our eyes told us. Our eyes told us (when we first looked at the picture) that tile A was darker than tile B. In test (i) above, our eyes told us that they were basically the same color, and in test (ii) above, our eyes told us that tile B was darker than tile A.
Our brains tell us that our eyes were not right all three times. The tiles did not change colors, it's just that our eyes were "tricked" by the environment in which the tiles were placed, so that we misperceived their relative shade twice out of three times.
As for evolutionism, it's another example of man deceiving himself.
As for heliocentrism - God's discussion regarding the sun rising and setting has to do with the position of the sun in the sky, not a comment on the underlying mechanism that produces that position.
Furthermore, the Bible does hint at the heliocentricity of our solar system:
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
The stars indicate seasons by showing the tilt of the earth relative to the Sun.
Job 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
The earth hangs on nothing - and yet remains at essentially a constant distance from the Sun - by the Creation ordinace of gravity.
-Turretinfan
The fact of the matter is that tile A is grey and tile B is white, BUT the shadow cast from the cylinder turns many of the pixels in tile B grey (howbeit not all). Therefore, when you cover up portions of the image as you suggest, THEN the illusion takes places, making you think they are the same color. Now they are PARTIALLY the same color, but not wholly the same color, because tile B has some lighter hues on some of its pixels from the fact that it was wholly white before the shadow was cast but now it is partially white only due to the shadow.
"Furthermore, the Bible does hint at the heliocentricity of our solar system:
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:"
Talk about drawing at straws! This passage shows the purpose of the sun is for us to keep time, thus showing we are at the center.
As for your claim this trick shows that we need revelation, it is my point rather than yours. Without God's revelation, men would be as hopelessly lost in religion as your are on this cheap scholars' trick that asserts the illusion to be the OPPOSITE of what it is.
To bad the illusion is bogus. Print out the picture. You can easily tell that though they are almost the same, the 2 boxes indeed are very different. The real illusion is that making a few pixels lighter in one makes them look the same, when they are infact not at all. One IS lighter than the other and that is that. The difference is so minimal though, that it tricks your eyes when you use your "proof" into thinking they are the same, when there is variableness to the color of both. This effect would not exist if this picture was done in paint and both squares had the exact same color for EVERY pixel.
Josh,
The fact of the matter is that the image is computer generated - there are no tiles, only pixels. Our eyes interpret them as you suggest, which is why the illusion works.
Trick cheap or complicated, the point is that our senses are fallible.
The fallibity of the senses was my point in posting this, as you can see by the title of this post. Because our senses are fallible, we are in need of revelation that is propositional.
-Turretinfan
Jonny,
Which tile is lighter than the other tile?
Try swapping the two tiles using a graphics editing tool, and then see which is lighter.
It is an optical illusion.
-Turretinfan
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