eli5: If impossible figures and bi-stable images are impossible to imagine, how did we come up with them in the first place?

Question

Short while ago, I listened to a podcast about brain training through imagination. The host mentioned impossible figures and bi-stable images (for example the famous faces-vases image) and said the human brain simply can’t imagine the whole pic at once or at the same time if you will. It’s always either the faces or the vase. Same thing goes for impossible figures. After listening to that I thought to myself: how the hell did we come up with these things if we can’t visualize them in our brains?

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Answer 1

You can think about them, you just can’t create a visual picture of them in your mind, technical difference, but an important one.