EBBINGHAUS ILLUSION
Look at the orange dot on the left compared to the orange dot on the right. Which one is larger? Who's bigger or more correct? Which one carries more power?
Do you see what's going on? It turns out they're identical. Measure them. They're both the same.
What you think you see as reality is only a perception. We can easily be fooled. We're going to go into that a bit more.
CHECKER SHADOW ILLUSION
The checker shadow illusion is an optical illusion published by Edward H. Adelson. The image depicts a checkerboard with light and dark squares, partly shadowed by a cylinder. The optical illusion is that the area labeled A appears to be a darker color than the area labeled B. However, they are of identical brightness. They can be printed with identical mixtures of ink, or displayed on a screen with pixels of the identical color.
You're fooled by the proximity of another object. You see this strategy in social media, news story-lines, and accusations without evidence. I'm talking about the big picture of Dataism. You're not going to see things the way they are, because you are distracted away from the big picture.
MY WIFE AND MY MOTHER-IN-LAW ILLUSION
This image is from a German postcard published in 1888. The ambiguous image can be perceived either as a young girl or an old woman.
NOT THE FIRST TIME SCOTOMA
Let me show you a scotoma that I've had. Here's a list of people that I respect. They have mentored me over the decades. It's because of them that I'm trying to do likewise by creating Scotomaville for you.
I discovered a scotoma in my thinking about those I'm following. I would hear a wise thought for the first time and think it was the first time they said it. Wrong. They practiced and practiced, and practiced saying it. And how do I know that? Because I'm doing the same thing. They didn't teach me that, however, I recognize that I'm mimicking them now.
THE PARAPHERNALIA ILLUSION
Paraphernalia is equipment consisting of items needed for a particular operation or expedition. How can something you need be an illusion? It's the false belief that the number of toys you have, and the property that you own, or don't yet own determines the outcome of your enterprise, your mission, or your venture. Paraphernalia is like the oxygen bottles carried up Mt. Everest. The problem is you don't know how long the journey will be, nor how many bottles to stash. Most likely, you'll run out of oxygen and be forced to go get some more. It's an ugly chase. In most cases, the chase becomes the journey, rather than the journey making you stronger.
Don't be part of the useless class. Don't let the illusion of 'bread and circuses' (food & entertainment) distract you from your mission. And don't let the illusion of paraphernalia be the thing that holds you back. Okay, I'm done with my soapbox.
DANIEL HAS IT TOGETHER ILLUSION
If you are like me, you might mistakenly think that I have my act together when it comes to shooting videos with compelling and engaging content. Nope, that's an illusion. I put a great deal of time and energy into each episode - roughly 3 hours per minute. Then a couple of days labor for each chapter in print, and on the website. You're mistaking the outcome as my first creation. Every episode has a hundred video clips, three to five clips of any paragraph or idea. The many iterations of practicing the thoughts make it look as though I have figured this out. No, I don't. I've simply said; "okay I'm ready let's go. Let's tell the story". Most of all, I remember what Glen Douglas told me about butterflies. (tease)
So an illusion is that you can map out your Personal Everest like an architect, as I used to do with buildings. I would figure out every construction step between the ground and the sky, and map it out with project management software.
You won't be successful with your journey. You don't know enough yet. It's too complicated. Like Dataism, nobody knows enough yet. It's way more complicated than humans can figure out.
YOU HAVE TIME ILLUSION
You just wait. Convergence is coming and if I dare say 'trans-humanism'. Humans will be onboarding technology as a part of the Internet of Things. There's a lot of change coming. A lot of change. And you may not think it's gonna happen.
Start telling your story. The illusion is you've got all the time in the world. I fell off a glacier. I thought I was just going up to have some fun with some friends. Life can change in an instant. Angelina was supposed to be on Trump's Apprentice season 3. Angelina's opportunity ended with a bang. She was just driving home from the studio. Everything ended in slow-moving freeway congestion. It was not even her fault.
You don't know. None of us knows. That's worth thinking about.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK JUXTAPOSITION
I didn't plan this scene. I did however spot the shadow cast by my head onto the wall. It reminded me of something I had seen decades before.
"Look at that. It's like um what's that guy that used to create thrillers? That's a weird little juxtaposition...
... and then eventually it'll be You Do, I Watch as the corpus gets built.
"He used to write thrillers. Do you know who he is? Yeah, I'll look it up and edit the video timeline with this clip, okay.
So these are the three different layers and...
Okay come to my computer and have a look. The guy's name was Alfred Hitchcock. He often had a shadow cast on the wall as he talked. His theme was to always make the audience suffer as much as possible. Right hopefully that's not the case with you guys. ('guys' meaning the 360MEN audience I was speaking to in my mind)
PRACTICING OVER AND OVER
The thing to catch with the previous scenes is that I am retelling and practicing again and again for the Scotomaville print and video series. None of the valuable content is the first thought I've had on Dataism, on illusion. I'm constantly taking three steps up, and two steps down to gain a single step forward.
REFLECTION INSIGHT
At this point of production, I had not yet articulated that...
"The Greatest Expedition You Will Ever Undertake Is The Journey To Self-Understanding".
This came about with practice on hundreds of clips in over sixty videos.
SENSOR FAULT - PROCESSOR FAULT
Please note the latest development of my thinking on Scotomaville has given me a better phraseology, and a more exact articulation of Scotomaville.
It's quite simple. I went to sleep thinking about Elon Musk and his Twitter negotiations, and all of the complexity of his communication. I sort of asked myself: "I wonder how Elon would describe Scotomaville?"
I woke up with two thoughts.
ONE: He'd say it's about 'SENSOR FAULT'
- any one of them, sight hearing smell taste touch. Sensor fault is why we don't see things the way they are we see things the way we are.
TWO: He'd also say it is about 'PROCESSOR FAULT'.
COGNITIVE BIAS CHEAT SHEET
To remember PROCESSOR FAULT I want you to practice drawing with me. Follow along and put it to memory. There are only four icons to recall processing fault.
"1) things are chaotic and we want to sort that out"
"2) we find patterns to do make sense of chaos"
"3) we conserve energy, using only 20 watts"
"4) within a very short time frame."
Got it?
"1) ball of yarn"
"2) big dipper"
"3) a 20-watt hard drive"
"4) an hourglass"
That's all you need to recall 188+ processing faults.
WATCH ME LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD
I want to thank you for watching me look back so that you can look forward.
Well done on the Reflection for Volume 1 Episode 3. By watching me look back you can look forward. That's an interesting thought.
Remember sensory fall and processor fault.
POSTSCRIPT
In a final postscript (ps) a great thanks to Adam for allowing an old man to ramble and practice new terms of sensor fault and processor fault, and four percent walled gardens, and on and on. Thank you, Adam. You're much appreciated for your attention. And well done on getting your butt out of Scotomaville. See you next episode.