Seeing Shapes in the Moon - Deepstash
Music and Productivity

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Music and Productivity

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Seeing Shapes in the Moon

Seeing Shapes in the Moon

Our brains are hard-wired to find meaningful images in random lines and shapes—even if those figures are on the moon.

For as long as humans have lived on Earth, the moon has been our nearest celestial companion and a rich natural canvas for the human imagination.

In Western cultures, perhaps the most familiar vision is "the man in the moon." In East Asian cultures, moon-gazers might point to a rabbit; in India, a pair of hands. From ancient times to the modern era, from different spots on the globe, a tree, a woman, and a toad have all been found hiding in the moon's shining face.

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MORE IDEAS ON THIS

The Moon and Storytelling

  • Although we see the world as this very structured, object-containing environment, it's really just a bunch of random lines and shapes and colors,
  • The reason why it's so easy to see meaningful things in nonsense shapes is that those nonsense shapes have a lot of the same featu...

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63 reads

Looking for Meaning

  • Joel Voss, a cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern University, Chicago, is studying how our brains help us ascribe meaning to otherwise random assortments of shapes and lines.
  • In studies, he has presented research participants with computer-generated squiggly lines—meaningless sh...

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70 reads

Brain Wiring

Astronomer Carl Sagan argued that perhaps recognizing faces, even in vague shapes, is evolutionarily advantageous.

Joel Voss proposes another explanation: Think of the human brain as a flexible, all-purpose machine meant to succeed in whatever random environment it inhabits...

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65 reads

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fblack

Father and husband. Midfulness nerd.

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