HES: DISC--Optical illusion that illustrates Hayek's The Sensory Order

[Steven Horwitz]

HESers,

I came across this optical illusion on a blog yesterday (hat tip to 
Radley Balko).  The blogger just thought it was a cool illusion, which 
it is, but as I watched it and listened to the explanation from the 
narrator, it became clear that it is actually evidence for the main 
argument of The Sensory Order, namely that the mind "pre-classifies" 
sensory data based on experiential learning.  That is, the mind makes 
sense of the world based on past experience, even when, in the case of 
this illusion, we can know that the actual sensory data of the world are 
different from what the mind makes us see.  The narrator's reference to 
"top down knowledge" makes it clear that it is an analog to Hayek's use 
of "model" in TSO.

Enjoy.

http://tinyurl.com/2cfgev

Steven Horwitz