Don't believe what you believe you believe

Every once in a while I run into something that is so hard to believe that the impression it makes extends well beyond my expectations. Such is the case with the below optical illusion. Believe it or not, Square 'A' and Square 'B' are the exact same color. What's so delicious about this is how hopelessly lost our brain gets in navigating the sea of relativism that's created by a shadow on a checkerboard.



More intriguing is to force the brain to release the illusion and prove the sameness of color by connecting the 2 squares to reveal a continuous shade. Like this:



If you want the leave-no-doubt-about-it version then here's a video which crunches the 2 squares together:

http://tinyurl.com/ylknlgm


It makes you wonder: If this utterly convincing distortion of perception can happen visually, then there must be equally powerful distortions in other areas of our experience that we are also unaware of. And once we acknowledge that these illusions are part of our 'input' then we must be willing to take into account at least the possibility of such occurrences in any and all situations. It's a kind of back door into the realm of humility, I guess. A realization about how utterly wrong we can be about being... right. Something to think about.
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