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Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2013 1:08 pm
by misterdoe
I would guess yes... paradoxically.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 6:39 pm
by Slava
Today's Good Word was made up recently from Ancient Greek para "abnormal, wrong" + eidolon "ghost, apparition".
By the by, eidolon is one of our earlier Good Words: http://www.alphadictionary.com/bb/viewt ... f=1&t=3224

Now, about that "para" being abnormal or wrong. Where does that leave paralegals, paradoxes, and paramedics? :D

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 11:04 pm
by Philip Hudson
This is pare- not para-. I suppose it may have once been para-eidolia and later simplified.

The prefix para- has several meanings. As a former chemist, I usually think of the benzene ring that has ortho- meta- and para- carbon string relationships on it.

In the examples Slava gives, it means along the side of.

My dad called people not in the direct line of producing something meta-people. I think he meant they were expendable. I know he disapproved of people like insurance salesmen, bankers, and stockbrokers. He approved of farmers, welders, engineers, grocers, teachers, preachers and deep thinkers such as those who discuss things on the Agora. Alas, he died and went to Glory before the Good Doctor created the Agora. He would have loved it.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 12:13 am
by Slava
The BBC has a nice article on pareidolia today. Here it is: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2014073 ... in-objects

What do you all see in the one the author asks about? I didn't see the suggestion, but I did see something. Then I saw something else. I don't want to say just what up front, as I don't want to influence your visions.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 12:17 pm
by LukeJavan8
I see they now have a toaster that will burn your choice
of a face in any piece of bread you decide to cook.
Anything to make money.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 12:12 am
by Perry Lassiter
I miss MTC. Wonder if he got caught in one of those endless regressions. Here in Louisiana, Jesus and Mary keep showing up on cast-off refrigerater doors. I keep wondering whether they might have something else better to do. There was an outdoor sign down south somewhere battered into such a shape. Since I'm retired as a pastor, maybe it wasn't too irreverent to wonder whether He was trying to break directly into a billboard rather than just leave a signed quote.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 7:00 pm
by misterdoe
:?: I wonder if prosopagnosics can experience pareidolia.
"That looks like someone's face but for the life of me I can't remember whose..." :lol:

Though I suppose such a thing might jog the person's memory after a while. :?

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:15 am
by Dr. Goodword
The phenomenon was exploited in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. I wanted a more scholarly link, but alas, the least turgid on-line exploration of the plot I found is here.
The most vivid use of audio pareidolia may be found in Nabokov's novel Lolita. Humbert Humbert is constantly mishearing Lolita's sentences as something more risque.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:42 pm
by Perry Lassiter
I can relate to mishearing as risque. I once had a group of teenagers in a church where I was pastor who took every word possible as a double entendre. From the pulpit I. Could see almost constant smirks that I soon learned to ignore.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:52 pm
by Dr. Goodword
I can relate to mishearing as risque. I once had a group of teenagers in a church where I was pastor who took every word possible as a double entendre. From the pulpit I. Could see almost constant smirks that I soon learned to ignore.
Can names like Mike Hunt in the sentence, "Has anyone seen Mike Hunt?" be take audio pareidolia? Or is this simply a case of a
phrasal homophone? What are homophones if not audio pareidolia? I'll have to give this one a little more research and think it through. Claude Butz is another. In fact, the authors of "Books that should be written" contains many such.

Re: Pareidolia

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 7:00 pm
by Perry Lassiter
And the classic genuine author, Rider Haggard.