My pareidolia knows no bounds.

Don't hold your breath. It will be along time before the Christians and the Muslims stop killing each other. And to top it all off, lately the Atheists have been showing a belligerent streak.

This is fascinating.

I started thinking about this a couple of days ago when Fred said something to the effect that under the definition

"pareidolia (ressler)"

<b>Pareidolia = Pattern Recognition</b>

In other words, Fred simplified it to its essence: No diseases, no hallucination (partial or otherwise) and no errors. At its core, pareidolia equals pattern recognition.

Then, when the Anomaly Hunters attempted their all out assault on the whole idea of pareidolia (any) with their insistence of reverting it back to the original and archaic "mental disorder" it all started to fit into place for me.

But first, consider the definition of <b>"temporary"</b>.

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<b>1. temporary</b> adjective \#712;tem-p#601;-#716;rer-#275;
: continuing for a limited amount of time : not permanent

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Note how the <b>amount </b> of time is not specified. It just can't be <b>permanent. </b> (More on this later.)

Take a look at this diagram, starting at the top and progressing clockwise.



1. Notice how it starts at flat-out mental disorder (patient in asylum kind of stuff).

2. Then in the <b>Modern</b> form it's softened. It's still "psychological" in form, but has softened to the point where normal people experience it. It is now something that's just an odd quirk of the human mind, where we have this tendency to try to find "order" in "chaos", "patterns" in "random noise", especially if <b>we believe they're there </b> (as proven by "The Superstitious 'S'" Study).

3. Then when we get to the third (middle) corner of the pentagon, all the negative connotations have been removed: <b>Pareidolia equals Pattern Recognition. </b> No diseases, no hallucination (partial or otherwise) and no errors. We have arrived at the essence.

****<b>Now notice what happens.</b>

4. At the fourth corner of the pentagon, as the computer's version is brought to light, we discover that there's an "error" involved, at least to the extent that computers are involved. While there's some controversy as to whether or not "error" applies to the computer's human counterpart, it is generally agreed that "error" applies at least in some cases. We have drifted away from the essence, and are now exploring the "negative" side. Here's where it gets fascinating...

5. At the fifth stop we are again looking at the "psychological" side of it, in the sense that there's some "confusion". Is it man-made? Or is it natural? But it's not the "confusion" of <b>Pareidolia (original) OR Pareidolia (modern)</b> where time is open-ended, and even quite possibly <b>permanent. </b> It's a <b>TEMPORARY </b> confusion. <b>To put it in exact terms: WE DON'T KNOW WHICH IS WHICH AT FIRST.</b>

In some cases, we will quickly determine it's one or the other. In other cases, we may have to do some research, like go to the site to see for ourselves up close, or research the history of an object to see if man (intelligence) had a hand in making the object.

In some cases we may have to fly all the way to the other side of the Earth to figure it out. In other cases we may have to (ultimately) go to Mars to figure it out. In any case <b>WE KNOW THE CONFUSION IS TEMPORARY</b> so there are no negative (sanity-wise) connotations. We simply do not know if man had a hand in it or not. We need <b>PROOF.</b>

Now look what the Anomaly Hunters are attempting to do. They are attempting to break down the <b>TEMPORARY BARRIER</b> which keeps us firmly planted in the sane, rational, healthy zone, <b>and transport us back to the 1800s to the realm of THE INSANE.</b>

But their little trick failed. <b>"TEMPORARY" IS THE FIREWALL!</b> As long as we know our confusion is only temporary due to distance to the object, and/or lack of history, we're fine.

rd

i see patterns in shadows that resemble faces such as a modern an artist would paint. i am calm, cool and collected. i think not for one second that the face is a real human face.

No response to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition_receptor

Pareidolia is a scapegoat because it is value of a higher order. We would have no immunity if not for pattern recognition deep within our cells and blood stream. Bacteria recognize patterns. All there is is a void with consciousness and pattern recognition.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by pareidoliac</i>
<br />i see patterns in shadows that resemble faces such as a modern an artist would paint. i am calm, cool and collected. i think not for one second that the face is a real human face. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That's understood. You are in the middle where there is NO confusion. That's the beauty of this.



rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by pareidoliac</i>
<br /> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition_receptor

All there is is a void with consciousness and pattern recognition.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Interesting.

I'll have to see if I have the energy to pursue this path a little. Very interesting. In a way, it figures.

rd

<b>[pareidoliac] "I see patterns in shadows that resemble faces such as a modern an artist would paint. I am calm, cool and collected. I think not for one second that the face is a real human face."</b>

I too see patterns in shadows, as well as in clouds and other non homogenous media (including but so *not limited* to the surface of Mars), that resemble faces (human and other) such as a modern artist would paint. I also see faces that are essentially photographic in quality and pretty much everything in between quality-wise. In addition to faces I see other recognizable patterns (such as my often mentioned naked girls) that also range in quality from modern art to near photographic.

I think not for one second that the face or other pattern is real. But I still see the pattern (my internal recognizer goes "DING" and draws my attention to the pattern). In some cases, but not all, a mechanical recognizer would also 'see' the pattern while another mechanical recognizer might not.

***

So, my internal recognizer says "pattern X has been detected". But I know immediately that it only looks like patten X, because independently of my internal recognizer I process other aspects of the pattern such as its context.

I call this a PRE. But some of you seem to reject this conclusion. (I hope we don't have to start parenthetically referencing definitions of the word error.)

Comments?