Why can things like optical illusions “trick” our brain, even when you know for a fact what the reality is? Why is “what your brain thinks” not equal to “what you know”?

Question

Why can things like optical illusions “trick” our brain, even when you know for a fact what the reality is? Why is “what your brain thinks” not equal to “what you know”?

In: 18

Answer 1

So while this video doesn’t directly discuss optical illusions (actually deals with sound, but also talks about vision and how the ‘FPS’ of our brains affects things), it does have some interesting things to say on the way we (and other creatures) perceive the world around us which is tangentially relevant to your question. It’s pretty wild.

Not really ELI5 either, but super interesting.