That was an awesome pic!!!

I seriously thought it was some troll at first...

Same here. I was resistant to stare as well until it came back up (this is the third time)

I don't have much to contribute, but thanks OP. Great post.

That is one cool image. I had to look in the comments to find the circles.

Great point and I want that image an wall paper in my room.

And this is why similar definitions and understandings of them are needed, because if we're talking about defined shapes, there are only squares. There are several squares in which an entire unified solid color is defining its shape with borders. There are no circles if we use this same understanding, as no circles are drawn out.

cool post and cool image.

relating to the idea of disagreement. here's the thing. what is communication? it's mutual agreement on terms. it starts with that seed - common language - which is just agreement on terms. if you have a more complicated idea to express and you can't find agreement, you just have to break the idea down into its components and find agreement on how you'd both describe the components. rinse repeat. keep doing this until you have agreement on what you are describing.

communication is the process of finding agreement of terms.

how can you communicate effectively? be accurate in your language.

the root of most disagreement is poor communication.

You know what’s interesting? My first glance was dismissive - I didn’t want to spend time getting trolled looking for circles that weren’t there. However, for some reason, I trusted that you said there WERE circles, so I changed my perspective, literally and figuratively and looked for a crumb- any curved lines. Voila! They popped into view.

I think most of us are here because we are skeptical. That is a blessing and a curse. Trust is a precious commodity.

Interesting exercise. Thanks.

I saw them both.

However, there are SOME people who will disagree with you not because their perception is different, but because they like standing out. Attention-seeking.

Important to tell the difference between who genuinely has a different perspective and who just likes being difficult.

I was about to fight someone like, "wtf, there aren't circles!" then I looked in the comments too and could see both circles and squares simultaneously.

I find it interesting that once you can see the circles, you always see both afterwards. You can't go back to seeing only squares again.

Great post, OP. Thank you.

The image is actually made up of horizonal stripes & vertically striped circles. The squares you see don't exist at all; they're an illusion.

The difference is in the analysis, the deconstruction. For my part it makes for a great analogy about conspiracy in that when we remove the circles altogether & see that there are only stripes; we realize all along we were only seeing what the image was designed to make us see.

What do I say to the guy arguing with me who thinks HIV is fake?

He did cut n paste quotes from fringe medical papers.

And it isn't all viruses apparently... just hiv that is fake.

Good lord, what does he think all those people are dying/have died of?

I asked. He didn't answer.

Ugh... when talking with anti-vaxxers ( not the same, just similar arguments) I find they run short of answers when I ask the core questions like: "why?", "to what end?", "who's profiting?". Certainly money is being made in antivirals for hiv patients, but there'd be the same money even if they called the disease something else. Just like vaccine makers would be making more money treating those diseases than preventing them.

It dawned on me while conversing with this guy is that he might be in denial. Maybe he got some bad news from a doctor lately.

Could be. Or even abt someone he knows/knew. Because of the stigma it's not at all uncommon for families to lie abt what their loved one had. A person I knew lost his life to aids & his family said it was cancer.

True. Pneumonia is a other one. That's what got Rock Hudson.

I asked. He didn't answer.