MandoV/cognitive science

From the page: "In the year 1760, a Swiss naturalist named Charles
Bonnet became concerned when his grandfather Charles Lullin began to
experience a parade of "amusing and magical visions." The
eighty-nine-year-old Lullin was being visited by visions of people,
birds, carriages, and buildings, all of which were invisible to
everyone but him. Apparently these mysterious objects materialized
spontaneously among the few bits of the world he was still able to
perceive through his cataracts. [...]


Numerous similar cases have been recorded in the decades since, and
though it has long been regarded as a rare disease, recent evidence
suggests that it is much more widespread than previously believed.


For those stricken with Charles Bonnet Syndrome, the world is
occasionally adorned with vivid yet unreal images. Some see surfaces
covered in non-existent patterns such as brickwork or tiles, while
others see phantom objects in astonishing detail, including people,
animals, buildings, or whatever else their minds may conjure. These
images linger for as little as several seconds or for as much as
several hours, appearing and vanishing abruptly. They may consist of
commonplace items such as bottles or hats, or brain-bending nonsense
such as dancing children with giant flowers for heads. [...]


Human perception is patently imperfect, so even a normal brain must
fabricate a fair amount of data to provide a complete sense of our
surroundings. We humans are lucky that we have these fancy brains to
chew up the fibrous chunks of reality and regurgitate it into a nice,
mushy paste which our conscious minds can digest. But whenever one of
us notices something that doesn't exist, or fails to notice something
that does exist, our personal version of the world is nudged a little
bit further from reality. It makes one wonder how much of reality we
all have in common, and how much is all in our minds."

thanks to Jerome