While it's hard to argue against the premise of the excerpt we have in the OP with regards to the face of Mars, I don't think the other cases apply in the same way.
I'm trying to work out why. Badly, unfortunately.
I think there's a subtle difference that separates them but I'm really struggling to put it into words.
I think it might come down to how pareidolia relates to the anomaly.
Pareidolia is the face. The anomaly is an artificially created face. Pareidolia isn't the anomaly. Pareidolia is because it isn't an artificially created face (it could be an artificially created something else and it would still be pareidolia but it would also be an anomaly).
The other cases aren't the same as that. Pareidolia is the anomaly for those. Or something. But they aren't the same.
Hopefully someone catches the drift of what I'm on about and is able to put it into better words before I can.
In the other cases it's seeing artificial order where there is no order, and using "suggestion" to induce Pareidolia from weaker sources.
For instance for the Baltic sea one when crashed spaceship was suggested, my mind went to Cylon Raider rather than Millenium Falcon, but there are probably a few other sci-fi designs that are similar
I'm not saying this is wrong but it doesn't relate to not assuming anomalies are pareidolia.
To try and get my gist across, the anomaly for the face on Mars is that it's artificially created, not that it's a face. Ignoring the face aspect the sentence is saying "don't assume possibly artificially created thing is pareidolia".
There's nothing wrong with that. And we didn't with the face of Mars.
But for the other cases, let's say bone-like, it's an anomaly because it looks like bone where bones shouldn't exist. "don't assume bone looking thing is pareidolia" can't work cos it's saying "don't assume pareidolia is pareidolia".
The face of Mars could only not be pareidolia if it turned out to be an artificially created face.
It could look incredibly face like from every single angle, have been created by an intelligent life form that had never seen a face, and it would therefore be pareidolia.
"Looking like" for art/sculpture is not the same as "looking like" for other physical objects. A sculpture can look like a face and be pareidolia. A sculpture can look like a face and not be pareidolia.
This, to me, is what separates it from the other cases but I'm struggling with the exact why.
The only things we know that intentionally creates representations of faces are humans (maybe some chimps have been trained) If a human creates something that looks like a face but for whatever reason they intend to not be a face they would do so with knowledge that they were doing that, or if it emerged at random from what they were doing they would likely recognise it as so, but still I assume people have accidentally created pareidolia.
The existence of intelligences that could not have faces but accidentally created a sculpture that looks like a face is speculation of a more philosophical bent.
But for the other cases, let's say bone-like, it's an anomaly because it looks like bone where bones shouldn't exist. "don't assume bone looking thing is pareidolia" can't work cos it's saying "don't assume pareidolia is pareidolia".
I think I get you. In the case of the Face on Mars, better photos later showed that it was NOT an artificial creation, therefore it WAS a case of pareidolia. In the case of the bones, according to the authors line of reasoning as I understand it, there is no other photos to show they are NOT bones; therefore, we should not assume pareidolia because they might really be bones.
Fair enough, but as I noted upstream, this is just one little piece of a larger paper trying to make the argument we should take the authors central premise seriously. Their claim is that UAP are real and unexplainable as mundane encounters. A likely explanation is aliens, something they have claimed in other papers.
But here they're claiming aliens are not zipping in from distant star systems in FTL starships. Rather, they have been here for a long time and MIGHT be hiding in plain site amongst us.
Or the aliens are time traveling future humans, so not really aliens.
Or the aliens are an unknown lineage of other intelligent hominids or other species that evolved before us, so not really aliens.
Or the aliens are hiding in the oceans.
Or the aliens are elves and fairy folk. Seriously.
Or aliens are living in a hollow earth.
Or aliens are hiding out, or previously hid out, on the moon and Mars. This is where the pareidolia argument comes in. The author's claim is that all of the above listed explanations are just as likely, if not more likely, to explain UAPs as any other explanation. I would disagree.
As for the pareidolia and the bones, I would argue: 1. All exploration of Mars has shown negative results for life now, or in the past, especially for a large technically advanced civilization. This may change in the future, though I suspect there will not be any signs of an advanced intelligence ever found. 2. We know pareidolia is a real phenomenon and that surface of Mars has a history of producing various pareidolia events, from the Canals on Mars to the Face on Mars, which turned out to in fact be cases of pareidolia.
So, the prudent thing at this time is to say the bones are likely a case of pareidolia.
As noted above and in the other thread, the authors seek to troll out every conceivable theory about UAPs, including aliens on Mars, and then turn the burden of proof around by claiming that unless their presented theories can be DISPROVEN, they are just as likely to be true. That is, until someone PROVES the bones on Mars are NOT bones, we cannot assume pareidolia because they might really be bones. I would disagree.
Not being an artificial creation of a face, is what made it a case of pareidolia.
It could have turned out to be an artificial creation of anything other than a face and it would still be pareidolia.
It being an artificial creation wouldn't automatically have meant it wasn't pareidolia (although it's hard to imagine it being an artificial creation of anything other than a face, but it could've been). It being an artificial creation didn't rest on pareidolia.
The face of Mars could only not be pareidolia if it turned out to be an artificially created face.
It could look incredibly face like from every single angle, have been created by an intelligent life form that had never seen a face, and it would therefore be pareidolia.
OK, that's equating the Face on Mars to the outlet:
It's an artificially created thing that is not supposed to look like a face, but because of pareidolia we see a face where none was intended. In the case of the outlet, having seen the face because of pareidolia, we do not then assume the outlet is not an outlet or just some natural formation. It's still an artificially created outlet
The Face on Mars could be an artificial structure that happens to cause us to see a face because of pareidolia where no face was intended. We dismiss the structure as just a natural rock formation because we saw a face and we saw the face because of pareidolia. The artificial structure is still artificially created just like the outlet.
The Face on Mars could be an artificial structure that happens to cause us to see a face because of pareidolia where no face was intended. We dismiss the structure as just a natural rock formation because we saw a face and we saw the face because of pareidolia. The artificial structure is still artificially created just like the outlet.
Except that in the case of the Face on Mars, the ONLY reason anybody ever suspected it of being an artificial structure is because the first images looked like a face, and faces can't just happen naturally (of course they can, but this is the argument) so it MUST be artificial. Sure, it MIGHT still turn out to be an artificial structure made by aliens who like to make artificial versions of eroded hills, it's just that there is no reason to think so at all. This seems to have left those who Want to Believe (tm) with arguing, "Well look, here's something else nearby that looks like a pyramid and here are some other things that look like artificial things, so the whole area is full of artificial structures so the Hill on Mars That Looked Like a Face in a Low Resolution Image is probably an artificial structure, too!"
This is using less convincing pareidolia to make up for the collapse of the first instance of pareidolia, with nothing backing it up at all. (And note how many ambiguously shaped blobs are in that area -- is it really a surprise that some of them look vaguely like other things, such as the Scottie dog and the salamander I see to the lower right of "The City.")
Are there artificial structures on Mars? Don't know, but I'm skeptical for a number of reasons. If there are, then we'll know someday when somebody finds actual evidence and proves the case. Until then, arguing that things that look like another thing must be that thing they look like, Argumentum ad Pareidoliuim, is just an exercise in making unsubstantiated claims. Since we know hills and rocks and dunes and such exist, and since we know that our brains can play "Hidden Images" with the various shapes winds and geology can carve them into, and since we DON'T know that aliens, or time traveling humans secretly building a society on Mars or any of that exists at all, the most likely explanation is that we're seeing hills and rocks and dunes. That will be so until evidence to the contrary emerges, and no amount of finding more blobs that look like interesting stuff adds evidence at all.
Mars is a dry planet, with an old surface (much older than Earth's) and a persistent wind loaded with tiny grains. Perfect conditions for aeolian erosion to occur; this process produces a bizarre range of rock shapes and landforms out of tiny differences in density and hardness.
As well as Mars, there are hundreds of moons, thousands of asteroids and comets, and several other worlds where geological processes could produce pareidolia-type effects. So we can expect our future probes to beam back millions upon millions of pictures of strangely-shaped objects over the next few centuries.
Just maybe, somewhere out there among all that rock is an alien probe or some other artifact, possibly millions or billions of years old. If we get so accustomed to the phenomenon of pareidolia we assume that everything is natural, then we might miss it, which would be a shame.
I posted those images because the Owl moths 'eyes' are thought to be evolutionarily selected for to resemble eyes as a deterrent to prey, but the Death's Head Hawk moths 'skull' doesn't serve the same purpose and is probably just random chance that humans think it looks like a skull.
the most likely explanation is that we're seeing hills and rocks and dunes. That will be so until evidence to the contrary emerges, and no amount of finding more blobs that look like interesting stuff adds evidence at all.
Absolutely. I find the whole concept to be ridiculous, because while the first picture of "the face" resembled a face, that was taken on a low resolution camera in 1976. It was pretty well debunked by the time they got higher resolution pictures of it. And yet here they are, in 2024, still seeing the equivalent of faces in the clouds and still searching for more. "I see a doggie, and a fishie, and the entire second battle of Manassas being fought in those ripply clouds over there..."
Just maybe, somewhere out there among all that rock is an alien probe or some other artifact, possibly millions or billions of years old. If we get so accustomed to the phenomenon of pareidolia we assume that everything is natural, then we might miss it, which would be a shame.
To discover it, we'd need to get better evidence than just what it looks like, and if we get that proof we'll not be fooled into thinking it is just pareidolia! It's just important not to be fooled into thinking the pareidolia appearance is the proof. Circling back to the thread title, that's not a bias, that's just having a threshold for proof higher than "looks like a face to me!"
Once we get (if we get) the capability to thoroughly explore Mars, I'm down for somebody going to Sidonia and taking some core samples at the Face, the Five Sided Pyramid and the like -- if they turn out to be built by aliens that would be exciting, and worth knowing. If they are examples of alien architecture, we won't miss them, because we're interested in them, more so than some other bumps and hills on Mars that don't look like something. The pareidolia that made one of them look like a face for a minute there has made it MORE likely, not less, that if we get the chance we'll check those objects out in more detail -- made us LESS likely that we'll miss anything interesting that happens to be there.
At this point it is clear that the "face" on Mars and the "pyramids" of Cydonia are just natural features; Graham Hancock really destroyed his reputation by suggesting otherwise. I would guess that future analysis of planetary surfaces and other objects would be done by AI, using some kind of terrain modeling, looking for anomalies.
It is a question of 'false positives' and 'false negatives'. It seems very likely that there are many 'false positives' that can and do occur in the search for extraterrestrial life; this could extend to the detection of oxygen on a distant planet (which could be caused by non-biotic chemical processes) and the observation of apparently biological structures in our probe data (which could be caused by natural processes like aeolian erosion and evaporite deposition).
However, the false negatives are also worth considering - biological processes could easily mimic non-biological processes, making it hard to distinguish between the two. AI might make this confusion worse, rather than better, at least in the short run.
It is a question of 'false positives' and 'false negatives'. It seems very likely that there are many 'false positives' that can and do occur in the search for extraterrestrial life; this could extend to the detection of oxygen on a distant planet (which could be caused by non-biotic chemical processes) and the observation of apparently biological structures in our probe data (which could be caused by natural processes like aeolian erosion and evaporite deposition).
However, the false negatives are also worth considering - biological processes could easily mimic non-biological processes, making it hard to distinguish between the two. AI might make this confusion worse, rather than better, at least in the short run.
Right, this kind of thing is perplexing us now. I would hope that AI would be more finely tuned to look for other corroborating data, besides gasses, etc. for potential biosignatures or alien structures. The same problem arises when we attempt (with a good measure of confirmation bias) to look for Dyson spheres or solar sails. Science...
Oh, that's disappointing. And it means it's not pareidolia; it's been manufactured to have features that resemble a face.
Like this, (Dali, cropped) or even the Mona Lisa: If it's been made with the intention of making us "see" a face, and we see a face, it isn't pareidolia, it's a successful example of the creator's work.
We are not seeing an object, face or pattern which isn't there, or ascribing meaning where none exists.
The user of the computer art software, Like Dali and Da Vinci, intends to portray a face. The visual information is meaningful, not random, and deliberately designed to be interpreted as a face, it isn't ambiguous.
pareidolia
noun [ U ] PSYCHOLOGY specialized
UK /ˌpær.ɪˈdəʊl.jə/ US /ˌper.aɪˈdoʊl.jə/
Holy S*&t! I just saw it. When that picture was first posted, I wasn't sure what the point was. My eyes first went to the person in red, then the slew, then I started looking around for signs of AI generation, never seeing the face. Maybe I'm just a dullard, or maybe after reading that it was AI generated, I was primed to look for problems or mistakes that showed that, not some form of pareidolia, even though that's what the thread is about. Probably just a dullard.
At this point it is clear that the "face" on Mars and the "pyramids" of Cydonia are just natural features; Graham Hancock really destroyed his reputation by suggesting otherwise.
I'll politely disagree with you a bit here. Hancock went in on the Mars artifacts back in the '90s IIRC and seems to have bounced back pretty well. He's sold millions of books, is a regular on Joe Rogan, the most popular podcast ever AND got his own multi part series on Netflix to preach his ideas. He's as influential as ever.
I'm not sure if he ever formally denounced his work on the Martian artifacts. I though he did a Discovery Network show (?), maybe with Robert Bauval, who is sometimes listed as a coauthor for his 1999 book, described this way on Amazon:
In his most riveting and revealing book yet, Graham Hancock examines the evidence that the barren Red Planet was once home to a lush environment of flowing rivers, lakes, and oceans. Could Mars have sustained life and civilization?
Megaliths found on the parched shores of Cydonia, a former Martian ocean, mirror the geometrical conventions of the pyramids at Egypt's Giza necropolis. Especially startling is a Sphinx-like structure depicting a face with distinguishable diadem, teeth, mouth and an Egyptian-style headdress. Might there be a connection between the structures of Egypt and those of Mars? Why does NASA continue to dismiss these remarkable anomalies as "a trick of light"? Hancock points to the intriguing possibility that ancient Martian civilization is communicating with us through the remarkable structures it left behind
He just seems to have moved on to Atlantis, then not Atlantis but an ancient civilization, then an ancient civilization in the Americas and back to Atlantis. No harm, no foul.
.
In his most riveting and revealing book yet, Graham Hancock examines the evidence that the barren Red Planet was once home to a lush environment of flowing rivers, lakes, and oceans. Could Mars have sustained life and civilization?
I just got off the phone with my daughter. She has sometimes been asked to review miscellaneous articles concerning the supposed "features" on Mars, and tells me she has drawn up a form letter, saying, in essence, "You've got a lot of nerve wasting my time with nonsense like this."
Holy S*&t! I just saw it. When that picture was first posted, I wasn't sure what the point was. My eyes first went to the person in red, then the slew, then I started looking around for signs of AI generation, never seeing the face. Maybe I'm just a dullard, or maybe after reading that it was AI generated, I was primed to look for problems or mistakes that showed that, not some form of pareidolia, even though that's what the thread is about. Probably just a dullard.
I'll politely disagree with you a bit here. Hancock went in on the Mars artifacts back in the '90s IIRC and seems to have bounced back pretty well. He's sold millions of books, is a regular on Joe Rogan, the most popular podcast ever AND got his own multi part series on Netflix to preach his ideas. He's as influential as ever.
I'm not sure if he ever formally denounced his work on the Martian artifacts. I though he did a Discovery Network show (?), maybe with Robert Bauval, who is sometimes listed as a coauthor for his 1999 book, described this way on Amazon:
In his most riveting and revealing book yet, Graham Hancock examines the evidence that the barren Red Planet was once home to a lush environment of flowing rivers, lakes, and oceans. Could Mars have sustained life and civilization?
Megaliths found on the parched shores of Cydonia, a former Martian ocean, mirror the geometrical conventions of the pyramids at Egypt's Giza necropolis. Especially startling is a Sphinx-like structure depicting a face with distinguishable diadem, teeth, mouth and an Egyptian-style headdress. Might there be a connection between the structures of Egypt and those of Mars? Why does NASA continue to dismiss these remarkable anomalies as "a trick of light"? Hancock points to the intriguing possibility that ancient Martian civilization is communicating with us through the remarkable structures it left behind
He just seems to have moved on to Atlantis, then not Atlantis but an ancient civilization, then an ancient civilization in the Americas and back to Atlantis. No harm, no foul.
.
Right. Ruined his reputation for some, but others still lap it up. He seems to just move on to more outrageous stuff. Scott Waring is the master of pareidolia; he sees all kinds of things in the Martian landscape.
I posted those images because the Owl moths 'eyes' are thought to be evolutionarily selected for to resemble eyes as a deterrent to prey, but the Death's Head Hawk moths 'skull' doesn't serve the same purpose and is probably just random chance that humans think it looks like a skull.
Oh, that's disappointing. And it means it's not pareidolia; it's been manufactured to have features that resemble a face.
Like this, (Dali, cropped) or even the Mona Lisa: If it's been made with the intention of making us "see" a face, and we see a face, it isn't pareidolia, it's a successful example of the creator's work.
We are not seeing an object, face or pattern which isn't there, or ascribing meaning where none exists.
The user of the computer art software, Like Dali and Da Vinci, intends to portray a face. The visual information is meaningful, not random, and deliberately designed to be interpreted as a face, it isn't ambiguous.
pareidolia
noun [ U ] PSYCHOLOGY specialized
UK /ˌpær.ɪˈdəʊl.jə/ US /ˌper.aɪˈdoʊl.jə/
It has a long history in art. There is Arcimboldo, and Dali had his paranoic-critical method (psychedelics can cause extreme pareidolia, but Dali claimed not to have used them). Da Vinci wrote about it too.
It's seemingly more nuanced, the pattern does exist and our brain is responding in the same way as it would seeing a real face or a drawn face, there is a "face" it's not what we classify as a "real" face, i.e. the actual object of a person's face or an intentional representation of a face.
So it's when a pattern appears that is close enough to trigger the part of our brains that thinks face, but it doesn't fit in a what we call a face, we have seemingly decided that that includes intentional representations of faces, that might be even more simple than some non intentional 'faces.'
No, not at all. The pareidolia is not a function of the creator's intention, but of the thought processes of the viewer. (And it seems that @jarlrmai and I have just coincided with much the same thought. )
It has a long history in art. There is Arcimboldo, and Dali had his paranoic-critical method (psychedelics can cause extreme pareidolia, but Dali claimed not to have used them).
It was always known that Dalí used a variety of methods to induce altered states of consciousness and many of these experiences were recounted in his autobiography: The Secret Life of Dalí.
Living To Tell The Tale
Dalí wrote in his autobiography that, throughout his life, he experimented with various substances. During the 1930s, the artist used mescaline, a psychedelic drug.
He also claimed to have experienced hallucinations while taking the drug, which he believed helped him access the subconscious mind and create more surreal images.
In his memoirs, Dali recounts that "the hallucinations" he experienced while taking mescal were "intense and vivid" and helped him access a "deeper level of creativity."
He also claims that mescaline gave him "access to the reality of the mind," that it allowed him to reach a "complete knowledge of the mind" and that this was his source of inspiration.
I couldn't find any thing that's an exact match to even quite modest substrings of the most obvious things to search for in this OCR'ed version: https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet...092.The-Secret-Life-Of-Salvador-Dali_djvu.txt
That version has been TEAHSLATED into English, so paraphrases and synonyms would need to be checked for too. However, many of the relavent hits I could find were quite negative towards drugs, or linking of druglike effects to non-drug causes. So your version of events seems better supported than my quoted text.
I just got off the phone with my daughter. She has sometimes been asked to review miscellaneous articles concerning the supposed "features" on Mars, and tells me she has drawn up a form letter, saying, in essence, "You've got a lot of nerve wasting my time with nonsense like this."
The problem becomes papers like the one were discussing here and on the other thread. The contention is "real scientists" won't engage in "equally possible if far-fetched ideas" like artifacts on Mars, therefore they can't really say there NO artifacts, so it's not real science. Worse, they won't engage because it's part of a cover up. To many lay people this sounds reasonable, and I think that's point of this paper.
A bit off topic, but I think it's relevant: By most accounts Joe Rogan's Graham Hancock vs Flint Dibble debate was a mixed bag. Hancock had no real evidence and just whined about not being taken seriously by the people he mocks, and Dibble seemed to talk over most people's heads. But Hancock scored a bit of a hit when the subject of Gunung Padang came up.
Briefly, Gunung Padang is mountain in Indonesia with an archaeological site on top of it from around the 2nd to 8th century CE:
Archaeologist Lutfi Yondri from the bureau of archaeology in Bandung has estimated that the structures at Gunung Padang may have been built sometime between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, thus in the Indonesian late prehistoric period, whereas Harry Truman Simanjuntak has suggested a later date in historical times, between the 6th and 8th centuries CE.[9] Pottery fragments found at the site were dated by the bureau of archaeology in the range 45 BCE–22 CE.[10]
However, using connections and shades of Nationalism, Danny Hilman Natawidjaja claimed the entire mountain was an artificial pyramid:
Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, an Indonesian geologist, has claimed that the site had been built as a giant pyramid 9,000 to 20,000 years ago, implying the existence of an otherwise unknown advanced ancient civilization.[11][12][13]
Natawidjaja's ideas gained the attention of Indonesia's president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who set up a task force.
Hilman has been joined by a former activist-turned-politician and member of Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, Andy Arif, in pushing these pseudoarchaeological ideas.
Hilman then proceeded to "excavate" a trench into the "pyramid" where he found some organic material he claimed was the result of human activity and had it C14 dated leading to his publishing a paper claiming Gunung Padang is a 27,000 year old man made pyramid:
In October 2023, an article by Natawidjaja et al., published in Archaeological Prospection, claimed that Gunung Padang is the oldest pyramid in the world, dating as far back as 27,000 years ago.
Of course, this was all featured in S1E1 of Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix.
Enough actual archaeologist and others complained to Archaeological Prospection that there was NO evidence of human activity associated with the C14 dating and the paper was recalled.
And here is where Hancock makes his appeal to the lay person and accuses Dibble and others of a cover up. His claim is Natawidjaja presented evidence of 27,000 year old civilization, so why not engage with the evidence. If Dibble or others think the evidence is wrong, then show why it's wrong and write a rebuttle paper. That's how science works. Instead, Dibble and Big-Arch got the paper withdrawn, or possibly "hushed up". That's not science and so, Dibble and the other archaeologists are not being good scientists for any number of nefarious reasons.
As with the paper were discussing here, the claim becomes any idea as is likely as any other, so they all deserve equal attention. Failure to give attention to even bonkers ideas is closed minded and non-scientific.
In the case of Natawidjaja's paper, it was pointed out that his excavating techniques were sub-par and there was NO discernable evidence of human activity associated with whatever bit of organic material he had C14 dated, so the paper never should have been published. A C14 date for something dug up is pointless without context, so there was no real evidence to "engage" with. But again, that's not how it appears to the lay person, especially if spun by Hancock as an attempt to silence an out of the norm idea.
Unfortunately, your daughter is going to get more requests I think, giving the viral nature of this paper now.
It was always known that Dalí used a variety of methods to induce altered states of consciousness and many of these experiences were recounted in his autobiography: The Secret Life of Dalí.
Living To Tell The Tale
Dalí wrote in his autobiography that, throughout his life, he experimented with various substances. During the 1930s, the artist used mescaline, a psychedelic drug.
He also claimed to have experienced hallucinations while taking the drug, which he believed helped him access the subconscious mind and create more surreal images.
In his memoirs, Dali recounts that "the hallucinations" he experienced while taking mescal were "intense and vivid" and helped him access a "deeper level of creativity."
He also claims that mescaline gave him "access to the reality of the mind," that it allowed him to reach a "complete knowledge of the mind" and that this was his source of inspiration.
I couldn't find any thing that's an exact match to even quite modest substrings of the most obvious things to search for in this OCR'ed version: https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet...092.The-Secret-Life-Of-Salvador-Dali_djvu.txt
That version has been TEAHSLATED into English, so paraphrases and synonyms would need to be checked for too. However, many of the relavent hits I could find were quite negative towards drugs, or linking of druglike effects to non-drug causes. So your version of events seems better supported than my quoted text.
Not sure if I don't know what "equally possible" means, or I don't know what "far-fetched" means... Or perhaps the woo merchants just HOPE I don't... (Sighs internally.)
I'm not sure. The creator of the picture designed it so that it portrays a face (albeit not immediately obvious as a face).
If it's meant to be a picture of a face -and it clearly is- it isn't pareidolia. (Might be an optical illusion, I guess).
It's a distribution of picture elements on a 2D surface intended to have a resemblance to a face, as well as a street scene.
I think I'm saying you can't purposely make pareidolia, unless e.g. you scatter some small stones on the floor at random and then see faces or whatever.
A three-pin plug socket might generate pareidolia, but it hasn't been designed to do so.
The creator of the waterlogged street scene intended that a face would be visible, so it's a piece of art containing a face.
The pictorial elements that we perceive as a face have been put there to make a face. That face isn't something we perceive amongst random or unconnected picture elements.
Yes & yes, but aren't we talking about seeing apparently purposeful things in natural environments? If there is a creator of the scene, such as an illustrator, they can provoke paredolia but (as far as i'm aware) can't purposfully influence which one the viewer sees. Like with the young/old lady picture - which is arguably a picture of neither. The viewer's switching process is like that used when looking at a Necker cube and choosing which face you consider the to be the front.
But, if the scene is just a pile of rocks etc, with no creator (sorry God) then any percieved organisation (alien created thing) could be paredolia, or needs closer inspection or measurement with something else.
Also - perhaps a little off topic, UK plug sockets (below) are installed the boring "correct" way, but people in the US liked the smiley face look, so they tend to get installed with the two holes at the top, like above.
The creator of the waterlogged street scene intended that a face would be visible, so it's a piece of art containing a face.
The pictorial elements that we perceive as a face have been put there to make a face.
Parhaps common ground on this discussion would be that the same mechanism in our brains that causes us to see a face in random stuff is able to be used by artists to make us see an image of a face which they create - -and which, after all, is not an actual face, just something they want us to see as one? It may be more of a continuum of effect?
Yes & yes, but aren't we talking about seeing apparently purposeful things in natural environments? If there is a creator of the scene, such as an illustrator, they can provoke paredolia but (as far as i'm aware) can't purposfully influence which one the viewer sees.
This is one of the reasons that artists often hold critiques, with other artists providing the "new eyes" that see the inadvertent images that escaped the original artist completely. I once pointed out the white cat that occupied a position of prominence in an otherwise abstract image, and the painter, while barely acknowledging it at the time, changed the picture before it was presented at a national show. Similarly, I painted a mountain scene, with all the seams and facets to be found in such a view, only to have an artist friend point out the "Unabomber" I had accidentally portrayed at one side!
I painted a mountain scene, with all the seams and facets to be found in such a view, only to have an artist friend point out the "Unabomber" I had accidentally portrayed at one side!
It hinges on whether the object is real and accurately identified vs. a familiar object recognized within the chaos of random, ambiguous data. You can see two elephants at the circus: one working with a trainer and another in the clouds. You know the cloud isn't an elephant, but your brain's pattern-matching found something familiar and reported it back to you. That'd be pareidolia.
The Mars face is pareidolia because you're staring at blurry image of a rock face, but perceiving anthropomorphic features, resembling a human face. It's apparently even got it's own specific term: mimetolithic pattern -- the pareidolia seen within the patterns of eroded rocks. It reminds me of this one rock formation I saw once that I swear resembled the U.S. presidents.
I posted those images because the Owl moths 'eyes' are thought to be evolutionarily selected for to resemble eyes as a deterrent to prey, but the Death's Head Hawk moths 'skull' doesn't serve the same purpose and is probably just random chance that humans think it looks like a skull.
The "eyes" would be a form of mimicry to deter predators, not prey. It's not settled that it's the eye similarity that deters predators, though. Either way, both moths developed these features through the same process: random mutations > predator/prey adaptive responses > selective pressure > reproductive success (or failure). An "eye" or "skull" design wasn't deliberate, of course. Both seem to serve the same purpose as defensive mimicry, though.
I agree with Ann that pareidolia is reliant on the brain viewing it. However, I don't think either of these are examples of pareidolia since the anthropomorphic features we detect aren't the result of pattern-detection amid the chaos. They're evolutionarily-driven defensive traits that aren't subject to change. It's a constant output that remains, regardless of when or where we look at it, unlike an amorphous cloud shifting in the wind. Although the more I think about that distinction, the less solid I think it is, haha.
Anyway, yeah, the primary distinction is the requirement for familiar or meaningful objects to be found within a random, chaotic pattern or surface. The perception of something recognizable needs to be an unintended result from randomness where none really exists. So not from anything deliberately placed like evolutionary mimicry, optical illusions, or AI-generated stuff.
Did I hear something about mescaline? Uh-oh, someone's pushing drugs on Ann's block and she ain't going to like it. Hey, speaking of potent psychedelics, I have a really interesting molecule we should discuss...
Parhaps common ground on this discussion would be that the same mechanism in our brains that causes us to see a face in random stuff is able to be used by artists to make us see an image of a face which they create - -and which, after all, is not an actual face, just something they want us to see as one? It may be more of a continuum of effect?
Our fusiform face area is the specialized part of our brain responsible for facial detection. Regardless of what an artist does, it's always on and scanning. Our FFA lights up immediately with the same response time for an actual face as it does something resembling a face. I think it happens faster than we consciously register it (pretty cool feature). It doesn't do this for any random thing, though.
Interestingly, there are people who have facial blindness and can't remember or recognize faces. To them, it's like us viewing faces upside down; just complete confusion. I think I watched a 60 Minutes on this years back.
A feature on 60 Minutes documenting a rare condition called face blindness.
This is one of the reasons that artists often hold critiques, with other artists providing the "new eyes" that see the inadvertent images that escaped the original artist completely. I once pointed out the white cat that occupied a position of prominence in an otherwise abstract image, and the painter, while barely acknowledging it at the time, changed the picture before it was presented at a national show. Similarly, I painted a mountain scene, with all the seams and facets to be found in such a view, only to have an artist friend point out the "Unabomber" I had accidentally portrayed at one side!
Absolutely. The artist's "muse" had always been that second pair of eyes. While training, critiques from fellow students and teachers are those other eyes that keep your work on track (especially if you are a realist painter). Like AI hallucinations your work can go odd without you noticing it.
Looking at your work in a mirror will instantly show you your drawing errors. A great way to get better. Artists also paint with the work sometimes upside down; that's another way to get a fresh perspective.
Deliberate no, but "intended" maybe? it's all a thought experiment to see where people draw the line on when the phrase applies.
I don't think the Death's Head is thought to be defensive mimicry though, I was using the 2 examples as contrasting similar things where the lines start to blur.
Death's Head Moth, possibly just a random pattern or sexual selection or something else, not "intended" to look like anything, but we see a face (a small human type skull)
Owl eye, possibly evolutionarily selected to represent a face (possibly an owl) so an "intended" representation.
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