

How the moon stirs tension between the conscious and subconscious minds - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/19/illusions/your-brain-cant-handle-the-moon

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saalweachter
> It’s wrong, he told me, because “you can get the illusion if you have only
> one eye. Simple!”

What?

Binocular vision is used for mid-range (something like 3-6 feet) depth
perception. Other visual clues are used for further away objects, like
occlusion. His counterargument against the first hypothesis described is
invalid.

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Luc
ISS astronaut Karen Nyberg commented on this illusion (or rather the lack of
it, from space) earlier this year:

[https://twitter.com/AstroKarenN/status/441338200242393088](https://twitter.com/AstroKarenN/status/441338200242393088)

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gimboland
I don't see this illusion. I've never thought that the moon looked bigger when
it was close to the horizon. I think my girlfriend thinks I'm saying it to be
difficult but I honestly don't see it. Does anyone else have this experience?

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Luc
Not me. Do you see the Ebbinghaus illusion?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion#mediaviewer/File:...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion#mediaviewer/File:Ebbinghaus_Illusion.svg)

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mhandley
I've never really strongly seen the moon illusion either - maybe it looks just
a tiny bit bigger, but certainly not significantly bigger.

I get the same thing with the Ebbinghaus illusion you linked to - there seems
to be a very slight difference between the diameter of the two centre circles,
but only perhaps 1/4 of the width of the lines. If I stare at it for a while,
even that difference goes away. Is that what you see too, or is the effect
stronger?

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Luc
No, that's what I see too, though I can't will myself to not see it. I get a
stronger effect with the colored version on this page:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbinghaus_illusion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbinghaus_illusion)

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cmsmith
>who had constructed a perceptual model in which the sky was contiguous with
the horizon, so that the moon was placed, as it were, in front of the sky,
occluding it.

I have been looking at this sentence for a few minutes, and still have no idea
what it is saying.

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scott_s
I was confused by that as well. I think it's trying to describe this effect:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion#mediaviewer/File:...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion#mediaviewer/File:Moonillusion.png)

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mtVessel
Thanks, I was wondering about that, too. That diagram helps explain it. But I
still don't understand circle 3. According to perspective rules, shouldn't the
moon appear much, much _smaller_ , since it's so far away?

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scott_s
Circle 3 is saying that's how big the moon would look like if it was actually
proportionally sized to the cloud, and actually "in the sky" as opposed to be
238,000 miles away.

Basically, the argument here is that we judge the size of things in the sky
under the assumption that they are _in the sky_. But the moon is not; it does
not follow the perspective rules of things that are actually close to us. The
figure is saying that when we see situation 1, our brain _assumes_ situation 3
will hold.

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TrinnyLopez
Keep perpetuating the lies...

I will continue to fight you and your 'social media' buddies.

The truth: [http://whyfiles.org/2010/i-saw-a-photo-of-the-sun-rising-
abo...](http://whyfiles.org/2010/i-saw-a-photo-of-the-sun-rising-above-lake-
michigan-in-door-county/)

That image of San Francisco has huge mountains blocking the way, so you can't
even see the moon at the horizon. Ridiculous!

