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In class I told you that visual information goes from your retina, into your optic nerve, into a blob of cells in the middle of your head called the thalamus, and then to the very back of your brain to a place called 'occipital cortex.'
This special part of the brain sends out signals to other parts of the brain- but it also sends signals back from where they came from. Occipital cortex sends visual information BACK to the thalamus. It's like me shouting at you across an empty stadium. You can hear me, but I also hear an echo of my own voice bounce back.
Yet this is very strange. Because that means that most of what our brain sees is what our brain is telling itself. Our brain likes to fill in patterns this way.
Can you see the cube? It's sort of like the faces on the vase: it's not really there, but our brain fills it in. Try and see if you can force yourself not to see the cube, and instead just a bunch of strange circles and circle pieces.
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