Faces from the Chasmas

<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 />My purpose was to try and understand why you kept raising the 2D vs. 3D issue, when I knew that had nothing to do with the definition of pareidolia.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">As I said many messages ago, the number of dimensions has nothing to do with the definition. I still say it has nothing to do with the definition. It also doesn't appear in my proposed modification of your definition either.

If we're past that distraction now, let's continue the mainline discussion.

<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]: Do you agree or disagree that all pareidolic faces must be 2D or have a narrow range of viewing/lighting angles? Any exception would ruin the rule.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I disagree.....emphatically. Pareidolia has nothing whatsoever to do with having to be "2D or have a narrow range of viewing/lighting angles."<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">We're apparently still not past the definition thing. What does grass have to do with green? Green is a property of grass, not vice versa. Grass can also be brown or yellow. Green is just the color of normal grass.

Likewise, pareidolia is normally 2D. It doesn't have to be, it just is. And the reason is that 3D (meaning Mt. Rushmore-like faces) requires too much complexity for chance.

Your "emphatic disagreement" apparently was not with my intended question, but with your impression that I was trying to make 3D part of the definition of pareidolia. Now that you know I was not, and that I agree there could be 3D pareidolia in principle, do you agree or disagree that all known pareidolic faces are 2D or have a narrow range of viewing/lighting angles? If not, why not? Because if you can cite any exception, my proposed statistical property of pareidolia would be invalidated.

OTOH, if no known example exists, then we can apparently have high confidence that 3D faces on Mars are Rushmore-like rather than pareidolic.

Oops -- I gave away where I was going with this. [] -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />If we're past that distraction now<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">It's not exactly clear to me why you would think my clarification of an obvious misconception of yours would be a distraction.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">do you agree or disagree that all known pareidolic faces are 2D or have a narrow range of viewing/lighting angles? If not, why not? Because if you can cite any exception, my proposed statistical property of pareidolia would be invalidated.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I'm flabberghasted that you're asking this again. N......O......NO, is my answer.

Go back and look at all those postcard monuments I posted. As long as they weren't created by man (the part that makes up the face), they are 3D pareidolia. Some of them may have been made by man, but certainly not all. And there are many more, all over the Earth.

You know, as hard as this is for me to believe, I still don't think you grasp part of the definition. You seem to be adding some mystical aspect to it. Pareidolia just means a perceived face (you know the rest) that wasn't man made. So, why on God's green Earth would you thnk that all the known examples are 2D or have a narrow viewing angle.

Let me revert to the silly kind of pareidolia for the sake of this part of the argument. Even though, like I said on page 1 of the pareidolia topic, I'm not interested in this kind of pareidolia. I'm reluctant to bring this in to it, because some other people, who will remain unnamed, who might not have read every message in the pareidolia thread, are likely to say, "see this is potato head stuff, I TOLD you", and totally miss the context of why I'm being forced to use this data. But since I can't seem to get through to you, you're forcing me to do this, so I will.

Peruse a few pages of these. Many if not most are 3D, and can be viewed from as many angles as a normal human face.

www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pareidolia/

So, now, if we can get past this 2D thing, maybe I can remember where I was headed.

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 />It's not exactly clear to me why you would think my clarification of an obvious misconception of yours would be a distraction.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Now I don't know what specifically you are refering to. What misconception and what clarification? All I did was refer back to earlier messages you had apparently forgotten. I feel more uncertain than ever why you went on at length about the definition matter when, in the end, it didn't make any difference because I was never addressing the definition of pereidolia, but only a proposed property of it.

<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]: do you agree or disagree that all known pareidolic faces are 2D or have a narrow range of viewing/lighting angles? If not, why not? Because if you can cite any exception, my proposed statistical property of pareidolia would be invalidated.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I'm flabberghasted that you're asking this again.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">When you answered the first time, you apparently thought I was talking about the definition of pereidolia. After clarifying that I was not, and explaining what the question did mean, I needed to ask it again.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Go back and look at all those postcard monuments I posted. As long as they weren't created by man (the part that makes up the face), they are 3D pareidolia.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">No, they aren't. (Now who hasn't been paying attention?) I've said many times that I was using "3D" as a shorthand for "Mt. Rushmore-like", meaning that the facial features themselves (and not the terrain they are seen in or on) have a third dimension (recessed eyes, raised nose, etc.) so that they continue to look face-like with any lighting and from any viewing angle. Either actually flat or else visibile as a face from only a narrow range of lighting and/or viewing angles is what I called "2D", and seems to be an invariant property of pereidolia <i>because</i> 3D adds too much complexity to develop by random chance.

Your postcard monuments contain no such examples. They are ordinary 2D pareidolia (as just defined again).

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">You know, as hard as this is for me to believe, I still don't think you grasp part of the definition.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">What part of the definition? Where is anything about dimensions part of the definition?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">You seem to be adding some mystical aspect to it.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">In my "improved" wording, the emphasis was on intention vs. illusion. But in mine or yours, I see nothing mystical.

But I imagine you are speaking again of the dimension issue. Please note: Dimensionality is not part of the definition of pareidolia. It is a proposed statistical property to help us separate pareidolic illusions from intentionally made face-like patterns.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Pareidolia just means a perceived face (you know the rest) that wasn't man made. So, why on God's green Earth would you thnk that all the known examples are 2D or have a narrow viewing angle.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Maybe it's because there are no known counter-examples?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Peruse a few pages of these. Many if not most are 3D, and can be viewed from as many angles as a normal human face.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Look again. These support my argument because (1) none are Mt. Rushmore-like; (2) none provides a counter-example; (3) all fall into the intentional or illusional categories; (4) none of the illusions persist over all lighting and viewing angles.

Are you resisting so hard because I haven't been clear? Or because you don't like where this is headed? -|Tom|-

The comparison to Mt. Rushmore is a red herring. There's no reason wny my examples should be subjected to that standard. I'm not debating the Cydonia Face, I'm debating all the other "art".

Are you resisting so hard because I haven't been clear? Or because you don't like where this is headed?











I suppose you could say this was 2D, but that's not what you're claiming, is it?



rd

None of these but the last one survive the "narrow range of lighting/viewing angle" test. So why show more examples illustrating my point? Or do you really not get it? -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />None of these but the last one survive the "narrow range of lighting/viewing angle" test. So why show more examples illustrating my point? Or do you really not get it? -|Tom|-<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Let's trying one more:

Seed Capsules. If you can explain to me, how this wouldn't survive any "lighting/viewing angle test" that a normal human head wouldn't also survive, then you might have me convinced. Probably not though, because I still don't see what makes "Pompador Rock" in Mt. Tamalpais any different than a normal human head (albeit larger), and why that one wouldn't survive the test any more than a statue of a human head, made by man would.



rd