3 ms·

This is a false horizon. Your eyes are seeing the reflection of the sky on the distant water or fog, making it appear the horizon is closer than it really is.

by unloco 6y ago

This is a false horizon. Your eyes are seeing the reflection of the sky on the distant water or fog, making it appear the horizon is closer than it really is. So it is an optical illusion, as your brain is what is perceiving a horizon where it is not.

russianbandit 6y ago
It’s not just one person’s brain, right? Everyone who was there would see the same thing. Surely, that means our brains are pretty much wired the same. But I wonder if some people would see the “correct” thing. What’s also mind blowing is that the camera captures the same thing your brain is interpreting!
- checker 6y ago
  This is proven to be a physical illusion because the light sensor (camera) is capturing the same image as the two light sensors in your head (eyes). So no person would see the "correct" thing because the light in the scene is actually rendering this image with minimal interpretive transformations from the mind (this is in contrast to cognitive illusions). Unless there is a person with some extreme sensitivity to the polarization or color of the reflected light but that is probably unlikely.
- danaliv 6y ago
  I don't have the reference handy but I recall reading years ago that certain classic optical illusions simply don't work on people who weren't raised in societies with rectangular housing.
rixed 6y ago
What you describe here is the usual kind of mirage, the one you see when light travels over a hot surface (desert sand, road) during summer. This particular kind of mirage ("superior mirage", as the author of the picture calls it) works the other way around: light bends away from the cold water surface. So, of I understand it correctly, the horizon appears where it really is whereas the ship appears higher up (contrary to normal mirage where the sky appears to come from the ground).
- rixed 6y ago
  Correction before x3n0ph3n3 has to do it again: indeed this does not appear to be either a normal nor a superior mirage. I can only recommand to check https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k and then https://metabunk.org/refraction/ https://metabunk.org/refraction/

by unloco 6y ago

russianbandit 6y ago

It’s not just one person’s brain, right? Everyone who was there would see the same thing. Surely, that means our brains are pretty much wired the same. But I wonder if some people would see the “correct” thing. What’s also mind blowing is that the camera captures the same thing your brain is interpreting!

checker 6y ago
This is proven to be a physical illusion because the light sensor (camera) is capturing the same image as the two light sensors in your head (eyes). So no person would see the "correct" thing because the light in the scene is actually rendering this image with minimal interpretive transformations from the mind (this is in contrast to cognitive illusions). Unless there is a person with some extreme sensitivity to the polarization or color of the reflected light but that is probably unlikely.
danaliv 6y ago
I don't have the reference handy but I recall reading years ago that certain classic optical illusions simply don't work on people who weren't raised in societies with rectangular housing.

rixed 6y ago

What you describe here is the usual kind of mirage, the one you see when light travels over a hot surface (desert sand, road) during summer. This particular kind of mirage ("superior mirage", as the author of the picture calls it) works the other way around: light bends away from the cold water surface. So, of I understand it correctly, the horizon appears where it really is whereas the ship appears higher up (contrary to normal mirage where the sky appears to come from the ground).

rixed 6y ago
Correction before x3n0ph3n3 has to do it again: indeed this does not appear to be either a normal nor a superior mirage. I can only recommand to check https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k and then https://metabunk.org/refraction/ https://metabunk.org/refraction/