11/9/2007, 10:45 pm

Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise? The Australian Herald Sun presents it as the Right Brain vs Left Brain test, providing a list of the corresponding right/left brain functions. If you see the movement as clockwise, you allegedly use more of the right side and vice versa, though coming from a place where even water flushes in reverse, this can mean quite the opposite. We, however, see this optical illusion as an unexpectedly simple way to describe the complex mechanism of adding subjective spin to objective reality. It also sheds light on the darker sides of human condition and the roots of human conflicts.
Look at the spinning lady long enough and she will change direction. Ask someone near you to give it a look-see. Chances are your partner will see the Dancer turning clockwise while you - in your head only - will see the exact opposite. A few seconds later one of you will claim she has changed direction while the other will claim otherwise. Start arguing. Accuse your partner of lying. See if he or she will in turn accuse you of mental retardation. This is where you can denounce your partner as an unrepentant Trotskyite and report him or her to authorities for blatant historical revisionism, subsequently moving into your former comrade's cubicle, apartment, or dacha.
The fun part is that both of you will be fighting over something that neither of you can see - each other's individual mental perception amplified by strictly personal compensatory mechanisms that enable you to interpret the objectively linear movement as subjectively circular.
The dancing woman - let's call her Lady Objective Reality - dispassionately continues to do the same moves over and over, while our subjective perceptions assign different versions of spin to her moves at a blink of an eye - causing arguments, fights, divorces, protest marches, revolutions, drive-by shootings, and carpet bombings.

The truth is not the mathematical average, as in "The Dancer's Clockwise Progress Impeded By Left-Brain Activity." It's not the mean, the median, the mode, or the range.
Those who believe in "the truth is in the middle" theory will have to reach the insane conclusion that the dancer is spinning in all directions simultaneously or that she is standing still.
The truth is not the "scientific consensus" as in "The Dancer is moving clockwise and anyone who disagrees with this statement is a denier who must be eliminated in order to save the planet, stop divisiveness, and establish an everlasting peace."
The truth is not a compromise establishing that the Dancer keeps changing directions at equal intervals, which is a half-assed way of saying that nobody ever can be wrong in anything and that all diverse subjective perceptions are equally valid, including the ones that imply that our Universe is but a blurry illusion inside the Dancer's head caused by her excessive spinning.
The truth cannot established by political pressure, threats, marches, intimidation, boycott, sabotage, conspiracy theories, or statements like "Bush lied about the dancer's counter-clockwise movement."
So what is the truth?
The truth is that the circular movement we think we observe is our own guesswork caused by the need to imagine details we cannot see. Objective reality in this case is a mere two-dimensional image that the power of our imagination turns into a spinning Dancer. In spite of what the Dancer's pleasing curves may suggest, it's absolutely flat, has no depth, and can only move from right to left and back. She might as well be a pendulum, but that would be less entertaining.
To see what it really is - a flat picture - we'd have to turn off our imagination, but that's next to impossible. The power of our imagination gets the better of us. With great power comes great responsibility, claimed another imaginary character. Responsibility, however, has always lagged behind imagination.
The little Dancer dances all by herself inside your head, switching directions at will - and the best part is, it's between you and her only. That makes you the ultimate authority on her moves, and anyone who says she spins the other way is a damn liar.












