Rudy Garns's Library tagged magic →  View Popular, Search in Google

Behind great magic there often lies some interesting maths or computer science, buried in the secret of how the trick works.

computer magic computer-science

Philosopher Dan Dennett makes a compelling argument that not only don't we understand our own consciousness, but that half the time our brains are actively fooling us.

consciousness dennett grue cogsci magic change-blindness

For Teller (that's his full legal name), magic is more than entertainment. He wants his tricks to reveal the everyday fraud of perception so that people become aware of the tension between what is and what seems to be. Our brains don't see everything—the world is too big, too full of stimuli. So the brain takes shortcuts, constructing a picture of reality with relatively simple algorithms for what things are supposed to look like. Magicians capitalize on those rules. "Every time you perform a magic trick, you're engaging in experimental psychology," Teller says. "If the audience asks, 'How the hell did he do that?' then the experiment was successful. I've exploited the efficiencies of your mind."

magic perception grue cognitive-science cogsci brain

magic brain

Neuroscience can learn a lot by tapping the intuitive knowledge of magicians as new sources for inspiration and study. (Scientific American)

neuroscience brain magic cogsci neuroethics aapt grue

"In a paper published last week in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, a team of brain scientists and prominent magicians described how magic tricks, both simple and spectacular, take advantage of glitches in how the brain constructs a model of the outside world from moment to moment, or what we think of as objective reality." NYTimes.com

magic brains neuroscience grue