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

Answer: there’s multiple reasons your brain can be tricked. For illusions one reason is because your brain doesn’t “see” in real time…nor is reality “streaming “ live. What actually happens is your brain takes snapshots of moments and then fills in the blanks to complete the picture. Whatever you are seeing has already actually happened, it’s in the past. That’s one way slight of hand magic tricks work so well, your brain completes the picture but it didn’t have the necessary information to know what the trick was so it guesses incorrectly what the completed picture is supposed to be.