this stuff is endlessly fascinating and magicians keep coming up with new ways to fool. there are so many on Instagram that are worth following, plus all those who explain how everything works (an acquired taste). even still, my favorite magic anecdote is the one that kicks off this New Yorker article from 2013.
posted by chavenet at 12:13 PM on April 8 [5 favorites]

I met my high-school best friend when he did a particular magic trick in between classes. It intrigued me so much that I kept peppering him with questions before and after class - does it work this way? does it work that way? is it some sort of fancy mechanics or "trick" hardware? He finally relented and told me; I won't give the trick away, but it involved nothing more than a small quick movement that the viewer's eye doesn't register. To this day, decades later, I'm still slightly dazzled at the simple elegance of it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:24 PM on April 8

The bit about Amory Danek's research caught my eye and I'd like to read more--it's one thing to ask, what's going on when we're fooled by a magic trick, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to research what's going on when we figure a trick out!
posted by mittens at 12:28 PM on April 8 [3 favorites]

The illusion is thought to work because of “predictive processing”, a theory of consciousness that is gaining ground among cognitive neuroscientists, psychologists and others. This framework suggests that the brain is constantly making predictions about the world around us to inform complex simulations that help it make sense of the imperfect data gathered by our sensory organs. Our experience of reality is dictated by these mental models.

Anybody who has ever dropped that one tiny screw or spring or washer off the workbench and onto the carpet will be familiar with just how much painstaking, systematic work it takes to overcome the brain's insistence that (a) the existing view of the carpet is both detailed and complete and (b) no tiny screw is part of it.

I usually have to point my eyeballs at the place where the tiny screw eventually gets perceived about six or seven times before it finally pops into view. It's infuriating.

Most of what we take to be a detailed view of our surroundings, most of the time, is basically just a patchwork of Photoshop clone stamps. It's truthiness in visual form.
posted by flabdablet at 12:35 PM on April 8 [9 favorites]

it involved nothing more than a small quick movement that the viewer's eye doesn't register.

Anybody who has ever taken a punch to the head from somebody who really knows what they're doing will be familiar with this effect as well. It's just astonishing the way sudden pain can come from absolutely nowhere.
posted by flabdablet at 12:37 PM on April 8 [4 favorites]

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man:

The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse.

posted by Lemkin at 12:38 PM on April 8 [3 favorites]

nothing more than a small quick movement that the viewer's eye doesn't register.

Anybody who has ever taken a punch to the head from somebody who really knows what they're doing will be familiar with this effect as well.

That sounds like a really mean magic trick
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:40 PM on April 8 [3 favorites]

It's truthiness in visual form.

How about the time my brain filled in my own child sitting playing on the carpet and I asked my husband “why isn’t toddler peeps napping?” And he was like lol wut and I said she’s right here and lo and behold THERE WAS NO CHILD.

I instantly understood ghosts, visions etc etc. To this day it still gives me pause; I swear I saw her.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:40 PM on April 8 [2 favorites]

That sounds like a really mean magic trick

I have a missing molar that attests exactly how mean.
posted by flabdablet at 12:42 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

I usually have to point my eyeballs at the place where the tiny screw eventually gets perceived about six or seven times before it finally pops into view. It's infuriating.

A friend of mine gave me one of the most useful pieces of advice I ever got, and now I pass it on to you:

When you are looking for something you've dropped or just looking in general, use a flashlight. Somehow that tricks your brain into paying attention differently than usual (presumably by the brain deciding its map is out of date), but also the movement and direction of the light seems to cause the brain to see more of what you're looking at as a "moving" scene to pay attention to rather than "still" scene to ignore.
posted by tclark at 12:43 PM on April 8 [8 favorites]

mo photons, mo perception
posted by flabdablet at 12:44 PM on April 8 [3 favorites]

What is the actual destination of the first link in the FPP? Link to archives if you must, but please include primary sources because archive sites are blocked for many people.
posted by emelenjr at 1:15 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

Most of what we take to be a detailed view of our surroundings, most of the time, is basically just a patchwork of Photoshop clone stamps. It's truthiness in visual form.

You can explore this. Go out and find some grass. I find the patchy grass under a tree works best for this, but whatever. Sit there and stare fixedly at it, unblinking. Your vision will begin to grey out as the afterimage sets in. And eventually you'll start getting a kaleidoscope of whatever patch of grass you're staring at. Shift your vision a few inches to a distinctly different patch of grass or dirt or whatever and repeat, soon you'll be staring at endless repetitions of that bit of grass.
posted by egypturnash at 1:21 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

There's a SF novel called Blindsight that has the usefulness and reliableness of consciousness as a central conceit. I haven't thought of myself the same way after reading it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:31 PM on April 8 [3 favorites]

flabdablet: "That sounds like a really mean magic trick

I have a missing molar that attests exactly how mean."

They made your molar disappear? Neat trick!
posted by chavenet at 1:49 PM on April 8 [2 favorites]

“Blindsight” made me think about consciousness and perception in ways that I still wrestle with. Highly recommend it, as both a great SciFi novel and as a sneaky mirror to look at your “self”
posted by das_2099 at 1:51 PM on April 8

Regarding photons in the moment -- I have been mugged twice. First time was in 1969 and I was hitchhiking home. I got in a car and found myself between two young gentlemen with a snub nose pistol pressed in my right side and a long barrel revolver laid on my left cheekbone. Right side guy was smooth and professional. Left side guy was chattering away about how his gun had a hair trigger. His hand was shaking and that gun barrel was tap tap tapping on my cheeks. They wanted to know if I had any money. I didn't. But I did have a paperback copy of Cordwainer Smith's The Quest for Three Worlds in my back pocket. Left side was all Bucks, you got bucks!? Right side, who was the smooth pro, said What kind of book, Karl? I said Um, science fiction... He dryly said And what value is that to us, Karl? Which was kind of funny. They eventually left me out on the overpass on 10th Avenue W over 520. Left side guy was jabbering don't turn around because he was a crack shot. I thought Really!? but complied all the same.

Second mugging was two years after when a friend and I had drinks at Ernie Steele's Bar and Grill, now Julia's on Broadway. We got two 16 oz cans of Bud and sauntered home. We got jumped by two guys near Harrison & Summit. We heard someone running fast behind us. I got whacked on the back of the head. Then there was this kid with pantyhose stretched over his insanely grinning face hopping up and down. He kicked my feet out from under me and started stomping on my head. Unfun fact: you actually see stars like in a Warner Brothers cartoon when someone stomps on your head.

Our conversation went Give me your money! I don't have any money! over and over. My glasses got shattered. And ever since I spin around when I hear a jogger be behind me.

The next day I walked back and found my glasses and a battered 16 oz can of Bud in the gutter. A street drunk was stumbling by and I gave him the beer. He was delighted: This must be my lucky day! Two days later I was walking down the Denny overpass to Eastlake. I turned the corner and ran into a very drunk and very dark skinned Ethiopian man. I had a panic attack and got lightheaded and dizzy. And get this -- he had a panic attack, too. All of a sudden the blood left his face and he turned much paler. That was a moment I will never ever forget.
Kids, don't try these things at home. Or away from home....
posted by y2karl at 1:52 PM on April 8 [2 favorites]

Ernie Steele's was something else. Boy; did they make a stiff drink. I was there another time when a guy at the bar fell off his stool flat on his side on the floor. At which point the bartender leaned over the bar and said Larry, I'm afraid I am going to have to cut you off...
posted by y2karl at 1:59 PM on April 8

Here’s the original link to the first article on the FPP (to New Scientist) — What the new science of magic reveals about perception and free will
posted by toodleydoodley at 2:32 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

The section about the three of diamonds trick seems sketchy. In my experience, mental magic tricks like that are usually mechanical in nature - you're not subliminally implanting the card into the audience member's mind, you're forcing a specific card through some other method.
posted by creatrixtiara at 3:17 PM on April 8 [2 favorites]

The five senses are not accurate for understanding much of the world. Don't be surprised when they trick you.
posted by Liquidwolf at 4:05 PM on April 8

Yeah, the "3 of Diamonds" thing is nonsense. They even namecheck Derren Brown, who constantly claims to be doing this kind of "power of suggestion" stuff but really does his tricks other ways.
posted by mmoncur at 4:13 PM on April 8 [2 favorites]

My youngest was into magic for a while. He could do a lot of great tricks. Many of them were based on props, but he was good.

And then you see Justin Willams, and it's just not possible to see how he is doing what he does. "Magic for Susans"

But as Pete Holmes said, "at least I'm not a magician"
posted by Windopaene at 5:09 PM on April 8

Experiencing the Impossible was a good book.
posted by dr_dank at 5:25 PM on April 8

chavenet: "even still, my favorite magic anecdote is the one that kicks off this New Yorker article from 2013."

I don't think that quite unseats Ricky Jay's two-dollar-bill in the shower or impromptu ice block trick for me, but it's still a great anecdote.
posted by mstokes650 at 5:35 PM on April 8

I'm thinking of a previously about Darren Brown that talked about magic tricks and how psychology about suggestion and natural instinct to confirm perception kinda twine together.

I'm not really down with the reference to Free Will, which is mostly a philosophical question about personal agency, and not really about deceptive perception.

When I think of the 3 of Diamonds, I automatically think of P&T's cemetery gravestone.
posted by ovvl at 5:35 PM on April 8

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