Many things taken at face value in this world and beyond have been subsequently exposed as illusions over the ages.
Here are a few examples:

The earth is flat.
The earth is the focal point of the universe.
The sun and planets revolve around the earth.
The moon generates it's own light.
The earth is stationary.
Solid objects are not made of rapidly moving atomic and sub-atomic particles.
What you see when looking up at a star is the present moment instead of many years into the past. (due to the speed of light)
There are many more that can be added to this list.

Some man-made examples of illusions that can fool the senses if taken at face value could be as follows:

Watching a film and not realising it is but a rapid procession of still pictures,
that create the illusion of the fluidic motion.
Watching a t.v. screen not realising it is but a rapidly alternating series of coloured, illuminated dots that are creating the illusionary image and motion.
Viewing a rapidly rotating fan or aircraft propeller head on and seeing a partially transparent relatively motionless disc instead of two or three solid blades.

I wonder how many other illusions are still yet to be exposed in this world and beyond.
How many things regarded as unquestioned reality at the present may be exposed as mere tricks of the limited five widely recognised senses in a future time.
Merely illusions of perception after all.



[edit on 13-4-2006 by point]

I'm sure there are tons of illusions out there that we're not even aware of. Afterall this is the third dimension and our eyes fool us in a number of ways. There are also other illusions that aren't optical. This world is full of deceptive things.

I think you sort of answered your own question with the examples you gave. As your examples show, our perceptions are extremely limited. We can't see very much, hear very much, smell very much, etc. from what is available. Thus we automatically attempt to fill in the gaps, hence an illusion.
That being said, I think our biggest illusion is that of time and it's passage. If we could somehow overcome that, it would change everything.

Originally posted by ProudCanadian
There are also other illusions that aren't optical. This world is full of deceptive things.

True, my examples are merely optical in nature.
Speaking of deceptive things, here's a different example:
When one believes anothers lies, one becomes subject to an illusion, a deception.
When/if the lies are later exposed to the individual, the illusion is shattered.
The individual is freed from that illusion.
It can be said that the truth(of the deception) set the individual free from that particular illusion.

This thread has great potential...

Illusion...something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality.

People are deceived by so much in their day to day experience...we are bombarded daily by advertisements claiming marvellous capabilities in products which never quite match the spin. Then there's politicians and those promises they make which they never meant to keep.

We are awash in illusion...and ATS is the place where critical thinking is applied to this plethora of lies in the hope that truth will be found.
.

Excellent thread point! This is one of the primary reasons why holding any sort of uncompromising rigidity in regards to what we THINK we KNOW, can severely hinder our spiritual growth, and perhaps even stop it dead in it's tracks. By all means believe, but remain open to the possibility that the contrary, may just be the truth.

Originally posted by passenger
That being said, I think our biggest illusion is that of time and it's passage. If we could somehow overcome that, it would change everything.

Good point.
Time can appear to pass quickly in some instances and very slowly in others, sometimes even 'stand still'.
In a dream one may feel the apparent passing of hours only to awake and realise time in this dimension has only progressed a few minutes, or vice versa. This can also apply when one daydreams.

I have often thought that some animals perceive time differently to humans, especially the smaller fast moving animals, birds and insects.
Their quick jerky movements and reflexes can be likened to a 'sped up' version of the motions of humans or many larger mammals.
From the particular animals point of view, they may be moving and thinking and reacting to stimuli at perceived slower rate, one that is comparable to humans.
They may live faster lives in a sense.
It may work the other way for, say a giant tortice.


[edit on 15-4-2006 by point]

This makes me think of the whole Superman faster than a speeding bullet thing. He is moving so fast that others cannot notice him there at all. Faster than our brains can interpret the data. I think I remember some people saying that they really had this ability in another thread. There may be a whole other reality playing out right in front of our eyes.

Mytym,
From the perspective of someone or something moving and perceiving at that speed, the people that were operating in 'normal' time would appear to be standing still/motionless.
The first time I came across the 'Two (or more) operating speeds in the same dimension' notion was on a British childrens tv show called 'The Tomorrow People'.(apart from Superman of course)

Yeah, I actually saw this notion portrayed in a kids movie a few months ago where the father of a boy was a scientist who invented a watch that could slow down the illusion of time by speeding up that molecular rate of the wearer of the watch. Everything else external to the watch wearer was almost frozen while the subject moved at normal speed. It was an interesting concept.

The animated film, Antz, depicts this diference of time perception.
The ants are moving and reacting at 'normal speed' while the humans encountered are moving in slow motion.
Obviously the makers of the film viewed this difference of perception as a probability.

What occurred on May 16, 1984 was not the death of Andy Kaufman. What occurred on May 16, 1984 was an illusion. An illusion so clever and so grand that very few have ever considered questioning it.

Excellent thread point! This is one of the primary reasons why holding any sort of uncompromising rigidity in regards to what we THINK we KNOW, can severely hinder our spiritual growth, and perhaps even stop it dead in it's tracks. By all means believe, but remain open to the possibility that the contrary, may just be the truth.

The contrary is held in scientific reasoning. For possibly well over 5,000 years now the spritual has always been the foremost believed in "truth". In all it's wonderous different systems. None of it got us anywhere though. We still have just as much proof for God as we do for Zeus. Two culture's seperated by distance and by time and by religous belief system always have different concepts of the afterlife. Yet they all claim to be the one and only truth. The leader's of these belief systems claim if you don't follow their particular belief system, you goto that particular belief systems "hell".

Today's "contrary" to these long held belief's is the one being attacked. The one being met with strong opposition. The spiritual type belief systems have always been nothing more then a tool and always will be. You say be open to the contrary and yet you practice the opposite. You ATTACK the contrary and sit there and whine about how YOU don't want to learn ANYTHING about it.

Think before you post.

Point,

I agree, there are alot of illusion's. Many people are fooled by illusions performed by regular people like you and me. They do stage tricks and are called magicians. They play mind games and are called palm readers. They create fanciful stories based off a few elements of known truth and are called clarivoyants. They claim to see thing's and are called mediums.

I think how people fool other people is the biggest illusion our species has yet to accept.

Prot0n:
That's in interesting story. I fail to see the relevance, but I enjoyed the read. You have an amazing ability to turn any argument into religious one. Just one question: Why are you giving yourself advice?

I sometimes wonder if perhaps your blind to your own words mytym. It was you who I quoted saying 'spiritual'. It was that quote I was replying to. To me and most, spiritual and religion go hand in hand. They aren't that much different from one another. Although it IS true that for over 5,000 years the 'spiritual' HAS been the most widely held belief system on this planet with "science" being the recent "contrary", if you choose to post otherwise, back up the ridiculous claim and show it as so.

Spiritual and religious are not interchangeable. Elements of religion fall into the spectrum of spirituality, but spirituality encompasses much more than the religious aspect that you seem so drawn to.

[edit on 23/4/06 by mytym]

I was looking up at the sky last night at two particular stars pondering what would happen if I could will them to collide into one another. My first thought was that it would be an interesting event if that were to happen, but then I realised it could be two solar systems such as our own that I might be destroying. The distance alone had increased the insignificance of the event to the extent that the destruction of life wasn't even a consideration at first.

I read an article once where the author compared events in relation to distance. For example the loss of one life in your own city was equivalent in perception of significance to perhaps 100 lives in a distant country.

Perhaps another instance of the illusions prevalent in this world.

P.S. Thankyou Prot0n. It's always nice to receive positive feedback from a fan. I appreciate all the kind words. Good luck with the new forum!

Here's something I read in The Holographic Universe (I think) and also heard it from David Icke... I don't know if I remember all the details but this is the general jist:

The book tells about a hypnotist who hyponotizes a woman into believing she couldn't see her daughter, who was also present. Sure enough, the woman could not see her own daughter. Next, the hypnotist places a watch in his hand and holds it agains the back of the daughter, hidden from view of the mother. The odd thing was, when the hypnotist asked the mother what was in his hand, she immediately identified it as a watch and even described it accurately. She couldn't see her daughter, because she was hypnotized, but she could see a watch being held BEHIND her daughter's back... perhaps because to her, reality was that her daughter was not there. Perhaps we're all hypnotized and the secret to it all is for us to realize that either we create our reality or we have our reality created for us.

So this illusion thing goes far deeper than false advertising. It's very interesting.