Question

Discuss various types of illusions

Answer 1

One is optical illusion

Answer 2

A. Collective illusions.

There is illusion whenever a representation presents itself to consciousness, although this representation does not refer back to anything real. Illusion is a truer-to-nature form of simulacra. Insofar as many people are prepared to believe in an unfounded representation, there can be collective illusions. This means that many people will be ready to certify the validity of the interpretation of a fact which has taken place at the level of perception, while all of them have been deceived; that is that reality is not this appearance that they perceived together and towards which nevertheless their testimonies, founded on the senses, converge.
1. A magician has just given a show. One says that an illusionist gives a performance. [1]These words all well chosen since a performance is a representation, therefore a second presentation (for the audience) with respect to a first presentation (known only to the magician). We speak of prestidigitation, the prestige of what dexterous hands can achieve without anybody noticing. Clever manipulations perfectly concealed from the eyes of the audience. The magic trick is called illusionism. It essentially consists in a clever stage production, which successfully puts a representation in the head of the audience, an interpretation such that the audience can only believe what it just saw, that is what one wanted to show it. The young girl was cut in two inside a box. The rabbit came out of the hat. The rope rises if itself in the air. A number of spectators are seeing the same thing. Even the camera reveals nothing other than what they all saw. And yet things did not happen the way the spectators believe they did. The young girl was not cut in half. The rabbit did not appear “as by magic”. One says that there is some trick, but one must not reveal what it is for the performance to keep its hold on the audience. Giving it away would be revealing reality, the real process of the apparition of the phenomenon, such as it has been carefully hidden from the eyes of the spectators. The audience’s knowledge must remain incomplete, it must only be given the appearance. In this way an effect can be produced: the audience knows it has been deceived, yet it cannot figure out how it happened and how to produce such a phenomenon. The phenomenon was observed, this is undeniable, yet the mechanisms behind its apparition are unknown, hence these horrified faces and this frustration of the intelligence, which are what makes the charm of magic. The question arises: “how did he do that?” And it is left unanswered. Hence the mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon for which we do not have an explanation, for which the answers one tries to give are of a “magical” order, because we do not have a rational answer.

B. The illusion of dreams

The dream state achieves a remarkable illusion since the subject finds himself in a form of unconsciousness, which is not deep sleep, in which he would be conscious of nothing, but a false perception that is an awareness of images. Not just that: as long as the illusion is taking place, the subject experiences a succession of images as being reality. Only when he changes state of consciousness, going from the dreaming state to the waking state, can he refute the illusion upheld by dreaming. As long as the dream lasts it is experienced as waking reality. An illusion is created when there is a certain degree of unconsciousness. This would appear to suggest that it is the consciousness that falls slightly below the threshold of vigilance that will be taken in by illusion. But if a change of state reveals a lesser state as illusory, this also shows that it is the task of the subject to maintain and renew the act of waking up. This is of course valid for this sleeping life that we refer to as our waking state, in which we must repeatedly wake up to greater awareness not to fall into the pit of illusions.

C. Individual Illusion.

We shall now return to the sphere of vigilance to better understand the origin of illusion. Let us start with an Indian tale. A villager is walking in the penumbra in the middle of a wood. A sinuous black shape arises in front of him. His first thought is: “a serpent (sarpa), I have to hurry off.” Once back in the village he tells of his adventure: “Do not go that way, there is an enormous serpent.” The rumour quickly spreads: over there is a serpent! Rumour also amplifies. With time this gives: “over there is a monster thirty feet long and it has killed dozens of people”!!!
One day it so happens that a stranger walks by. He has not been conditioned by the one-says of public opinion. He takes a look at the place in question and finds…a rope someone left there! The stranger then walks back to the village and says: “Here is what you took to be a serpent. The serpent only exists in your mind.” It is only an illusion.