My pareidolia knows no bounds.

Despite wikipedia and others calling parking meters pareidolia- Pareidolic images are patterns made by other than man. The more important question is does the viewer form the image in any way. Do humans form what is around them in any way. The study of this phenomena could end the Cartesian dual model that has led to run away science- war- hate- will - blame- punishment- sin and other negative concepts that are man made and have nothing to do with reality any more than man made clocks have to do with pareidolia. Pareidolia shows us we are creating the universe just like Grigory Perelman says.

<b>[pareidoliac] "... does the viewer form the image in any way."</b>

Each of us experiences 'reality' in our own unique way. Color resolution, spatial resolution, curiosity, imagination, other things competing for our attention. And so on - all of these and more 'flavor' our perceptions. <ul>(Jim - this is a 'model of reality' formed by our brains/minds and we have very little idea what its rules or other properties are, nor how much those rules and properties vary from one individual to the next. You may have noticed that this model is as error prone as any that we have explicitly formed ourselves.)</ul> Fred, even if you and I sit down and agree on the 'ground rules' when we look at a thing or an image of a thing, we will not have the same experience.

Of course - you might have been talking about the image we are looking at, instead of the image we see in our minds' eyes. Neither of us will ever get a chance to see the real thing. That's not the way seeing works.

<b>[pareidoliac] "Do humans form what is around them in any way?"</b>

Yes. There is a vodka and coke right over there. I formed parts of it myself, using several well known processes.

My point is that some of your questions are vague. We would appreciate it if you tried again.

LB

Larry- You imply their is negativity attached to vagueness- but isn't reality vague with electron clouds and wave particle duality- quantum entanglement. All of our knowledge is vague in that words are categories that don't exist.
O.K. A thing and it's environment co-create each other.

<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 /> Pareidolic images are patterns made by other than man. The more important question is does the viewer form the image in any way. Do humans form what is around them in any way.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

In my opinion the first sentence is true and is the essence of this topic. This is why we rule out clocks and fire trucks.

The second statement is also true in many instances of pareidolic images, but doesn't have to be true. In other words, we <b>will</b> fill in the blanks (missing features) in our minds if there are missing features, or imagine something is in the way of the missing feature to such an extent that we "see" in our minds eye the whole image. But there is no rule that says there has to be missing features, as long as it isn't man-made in any way.

The third question has been debated for centuries, and leads to "nothing is real except what's in our mind". I prefer not to go there. I think pareidolia is a real phenomenon in and of itself. For the same reason I don't include clocks and fire trucks, I also prefer not to include existentialism in the discussion, for the simple reason that some things are obviously real. Like the guy pointing a gun to your head.

rd

Sorry, but the miss-use of the word pareidolia is a rather recent event, not something that has "evolved" over time. It was started by a guy named Joe Nickell, a writer for the skeptical inquireor (about 10 years ago), who used it as an insult. He used the word in a few articles and the $H*# hit the fan and all the obstructionist crazy TROLLS lurking on the web stated calling anything connected with finding animal formations or faces on Mars as pareidolia. I have no problem discussion the level of recognizable anatomy and facial features in any given anomaly on Mars, but to label it as pareidolia is an insult- as originally intended. Pareidolia is a highly charged-word referring to a mental disorder, where mentally ill people see faces where there aren't any, like on blank walls.

Zip Monster

Well, this is interesting.

Since we seem to be moving in the direction of what might become an actual Heated Discussion I guess I'll have to <u>Take Some Steps</u>.

<ul><li>On this message board, all previously mentioned definitions of the word 'pareidolia' are declared null and void.</li><li>Anyone who wants to can now post a definition AS LONG AS you <ul><li>reference your source ("made it up" is acceptable but won't get you very far)</li><li>post the definition here</li><li>and give it a name</li></ul></li><li>Every time anyone uses the word 'pareidolia', even if you misspell it or refer to it indirectly, you must say (parenthetically, using the 'official' name I mentioned in #2) which definition you are using.</li></ul>
Now, as the Moderator God I can do this because I gave myself the power.

(Yeah, it really is, isn't it?

But I am a benevolent God (most of the time) and I'm feeling sort of benevolent right now. So if there are any questions or objections or comments about this, please bring them up. For example it is possible that the brewing argument is about more than just the actual definition. There also seems to be some question about the evolution of that definition.

Hopefully this will become a teaching/learning event for all of us.

Unlike some other WannaBe Gods out here, I know I'm not infallible.

LB