Monday, April 27, 2015

How to Make Van Gogh's "Starry Night" Undulate

Not sure the original source of this one (maybe notbecauseitsironic on Reddit?).

First, look at the center of the image below for about 30 seconds.

Look at the center of this image for 30sec, then watch Van Gogh's *Starry Night* come to life
Then look at Van Gogh's "The Starry Night".
The technique also achieves interesting results when applied to Kincade:
[HT Mariano Aski]

4 comments:

Callan S. said...

Presume it's some compensatory image processing system that's been overloaded.

But people insist, in regards to 'experience', the data is the data. As if what we report sensing hasn't already had some filtering.

nathan said...

I've been needing a good motion aftereffect display for my Sensation and Perception class--this is great.

Multatuli said...

This is remarkably similar to what one experiences when on psychedelics like psilocybin or LSD-25--which makes me ask you a question that I've been longer willing to ask you, Professor Schwitzgebel, given your philosophical interests. Do you think there is a role for psychedelics in philosophy, e.g. philosophy of mind or metaphysics? And are there philosophers you know of who already touch upon this subject? I don't necessarily mean that philosophers should actively take psychedelics themselves--which might be a good thing nonetheless--but that they might be inspired by informing themselves about all kinds of consciousness that exist next to our normal waking consciousness, as William James famously pointed out.

Eric Schwitzgebel said...

Multatuli: Sure, I think there can be a role for many different kinds of "altered states of consciousness", whether induced by disease, sleep, drugs, unusual brain structure, hypnosis, meditation, sensory deprivation, fasting.... If we want to understand the mind, we shouldn't ignore the range of its possible conditions! I haven't looked into the recent philosophical literature on psychedelics, though there are some old classics: Huxley, Leary, and Kluever come to mind.