Elaborate Pareidolia and other Mysteries

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I am sorry this was never followed up. If we have any hope of finding a way to tell pareidolic from artificial, it surely rests with using terrestrial examples where we have some hope of finding ground truth.

This Pompador Rock case was interesting because there might be an outside chance that it was a true artifact and not a product of nature. Either way, we seem to have another (tentative) criterion for eliminating pareidolia as an explanation: true three dimensionality (i.e., details that persist through a large range of both lighting and viewing angles). -|Tom|-<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">For the record I want to say that I finally agree with this statement that The Pompador Rock may (and I stress "may") be the only example of pareidolia produced so far that would qualify as statue-like. I'm going to follow up with Mt. Tamalpais to see what more I can learn about it, and possibly take a drive there to take pictures.

I have to say, though that the Bob Dylan lyrics I posted are really very apropos to what's been going on for the past months. Talk about "talking past each other". If it wasn't for Larry's comment that "you can't go around and see the other cheek" I'm not so sure if it would have ever occured to me that when you said 3D you were only talking about statues or sculptures (after all, why would I?), and not using the word in the literal mathematical sense.

When you spoke of 2D, I took it literally. Like a two-dimensional plane that the face features (the illusions of face features) were on. Sort of like shadows on a foam board. That's two-dimensional. When I look at Alexander Boe's photos of rock faces, I don't think of them as two-dimensional. To me, they are 3D depictions of the profile of a face. They are in fact quite three-dimensional. The Z direction (coming out in the direction of the camera) could be as much as 6 to 12 inches or more. In some cases much more.

Plus, to make matters worse, while Tom was on the subject of statue-like objects and how to tell if something was artificial or pareidolia, I was really just talking about the issue of whether or not elaborate pareidolia existed. We had tons of material to work with, in that respect. The 3D part, and the issue of which was which was merely a distraction to that point (no offense, Tom).

Ok, so now we have that straight. If we're talking about how to tell if something is artificial or pareidolia, absent any historical records, then I tend to agree with this quote so far:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">But we still have only two indicators for which secondary images are artificial rather than pareidolic --
(1) the absence of a noisy background and a pool of shapes from which our minds can form faces; and
(2) 3-dimensionality, or persistence through a broad range of lighting and viewing angles. --Tom<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

If we're talking about the question: does elaborate pareidolia exist, well I stand by every thing I've said up to this point, that there are numerous examples and they've already been shown.

Main Entry: stat·ue
Pronunciation: 'sta-(")chü
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French estatue, statue, from Latin statua, from statuere to set up -- more at STATUTE
: a three-dimensional representation usually of a person, animal, or mythical being that is produced by sculpturing, modeling, or casting


rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />If we're talking about the question: does elaborate pareidolia exist, well I stand by every thing I've said up to this point, that there are numerous examples and they've already been shown.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You were arguing that with Neil, but not with anyone else that I can recall. My last comment on the subject was in the "My pareidolia" topic:<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">[tvf]: So when we see something elaborate on Mars, such as "First Family", we haven't yet found a way to prove it isn't pareidolia, but are suspicious that it is artificial because finding things with that level of elaborateness is so easy on Mars and so hard on Earth.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That of course refers to flat images.

I'm glad to have the source of our previous miscommunication identified. I'll try to remember that "statue" was the missing key word. My thanks to Larry for helping get us past that particular communication breakdown. -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">people have gotten so used to seeing faces everywhere that sensitivity to them is high enough to produce constant false positives.
Their sensitivity got so high that they saw them even when there was nothing there
The cost of missing a face is higher than the cost of declaring a nonface to be a face.
Non face objects may have certain features that are weakly triggering these face cells,” she said. “If you go above a certain threshold, the monkeys might think that they’re seeing a face
His studies of learning processes show that after the brain is bombarded with a stimulus, it continues to perceive that stimulus even when it is not present.
it represents a critical evolutionary adaptation, one that dwarfs side effects like seeing Beelzebub in a crumpled tissue. [Rich]

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Interesting theory, but the evidence is ephemeral or weak at best, and no one doubts that we see faces in clouds for some of the reasons mentioned. But this says nothing about the issue of whether frequent elaborate pareidolia is a fact of nature or faked. Only good science will decide that issue. When Michaelangelo saw "God and Adam's faces" in the clouds, it gave him the idea for the theme of the Sistine Chapel. But your "logic" (and theory) seems to be saying that there is no way to tell the real Sistine from the "cloud faces."

When skeptics learn to tell the diffierence between this and a (real undoctored) face in the clouds they will be one step closer to understanding what it is we are doing.



Neil

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I would be interested to know how one could falsify the theory that there is sentient life outside our planet. It is a theory that may be confirmed, but not falsified. It is therefore not a scientific theory.[JR]<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I overlooked this point when it was originally made (I usually read JR's posts carefully-sorry). This is a partially valid point and a good question. The idea that a scientific theory must be "falsifiable" is attributed to the philosopher Carl Popper, and it is a relatively recent formulation and one that I only partially agree with. The 19th century philosopher of science JS Mill for instance, would also agree with it only in part. My considered opinion is that falsifiability is only one of several ways that a scientific theory can be proven. The essential idea, IMO, is that to be scientific, a theory must be provable. Proof by confirmation, induction, deduction, verification, substantiation, and preponderance of evidence, in addition to mathematical proofs, are all parts of science.

Put simply (not for JR’s sake but for some others who may be interested), religious theories are not given to any kind of proof (though there have been some questionable and specious logical attempts at proofs for the existence of God in the history of philosophy), and must be accepted on faith. Scientific theories are capable of being proven and/or disproved (i.e., falsified). The hypothesis that there is life, including sentient life, extraterrestrial, is a scientific hypothesis. Since one cannot search the entire universe to falsify this theory, it must be proven by confirmation.

Neil

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />I overlooked this point when it was originally made (I usually read JR's posts carefully-sorry). This is a partially valid point and a good question. The idea that a scientific theory must be "falsifiable" is attributed to the philosopher Carl Popper, and it is a relatively recent formulation and one that I only partially agree with. The 19th century philosopher of science JS Mill for instance, would also agree with it only in part. My considered opinion is that falsifiability is only one of several ways that a scientific theory can be proven. The essential idea, IMO, is that to be scientific, a theory must be provable. Proof by confirmation, induction, deduction, verification, substantiation, and preponderance of evidence, in addition to mathematical proofs, are all parts of science.

Put simply (not for JR’s sake but for some others who may be interested), religious theories are not given to any kind of proof (though there have been some questionable and specious logical attempts at proofs for the existence of God in the history of philosophy), and must be accepted on faith. Scientific theories are capable of being proven and/or disproved (i.e., falsified). The hypothesis that there is life, including sentient life, extraterrestrial, is a scientific hypothesis. Since one cannot search the entire universe to falsify this theory, it must be proven by confirmation.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I've stated before that I consider the rationale of the Martian art proponents the same as those of the Intelligent Design adherents. Those who understand what I am talking about will see Neil's response as confirmation of the correctness of this proposition.

I'm sorry that I am not going to provide a point by point rebuttal for those who haven't been following this debate closely, but I've grown very tired of having to repeat the same points over and over again. I honestly don't know how Tom does it.

JR

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by jrich</i>
<br />I've stated before that I consider the rationale of the Martian art proponents the same as those of the Intelligent Design adherents. Those who understand what I am talking about will see Neil's response as confirmation of the correctness of this proposition.

I'm sorry that I am not going to provide a point by point rebuttal for those who haven't been following this debate closely, but I've grown very tired of having to repeat the same points over and over again. I honestly don't know how Tom does it.JR<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">My take on it is that Tom's good at it, so he doesn't mind doing it. Sort of like a Chess Master who plays forty games at one time with opponents of all different levels.

I don't blame you for having had enough of it, though. Personally, I find that the "confirmation" and "disconfirmation" biases are so strong among the other advocates, that they merely ignore anything and everything that shines a common sense light on their theories. I call it the "Bill Clinton" argument, and it goes something like this: Deny, deny, ignore, repeat, ignore, repeat, attack, attack.

It's kind of hard to go any farther into it without getting ad-hominem, so it's best to just leave it alone with the following prediction:

I don't expect to see any "smoking gun" of a Martian Civilization in our lifetime. Sure, they might find some more evidence of life imbedded in rocks (microrganisms), but a Civilization that left behind massive artworks and the like.....I think not.

rd