Truth is something that can vary

A brief reflection for today...

Today, I share an excerpt from a fascinating book. I could have chosen any other passage, as there’s plenty to pick from in this work. Here it is for you to ponder:
 
“Many mystics from various religions have been persecuted by their respective churches, as the mystic establishes direct contact with God without the need for priests or intermediaries, thereby challenging the authority of the religious institution. In some cases, they were even sentenced to death and executed, as happened with Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake and, five hundred years later, canonized by the same Roman Church that had condemned her. This saint exemplifies the variability of the concept of truth—or rather, the influence that society and historical context exert on what is deemed true at a given time.”
(Francisco J. Rubia, "The brain deceives us)
 
P.S.: The image accompanying this text does not move. It’s our brain that deceives us, making us perceive a nonexistent motion.
 

A journey through the history of the pharmaceutical industry and one of its great laboratories that had its origins in Alfred Nobel...
“From Alfred Nobel to AstraZeneca”: https://a.co/d/9svRTuI

The five senses deceive us

We often trust that what we see, hear, touch, smell, or taste is reality, but the five senses we rely on so heavily are not as dependable as we think. They frequently deceive us. Nothing is truly as it seems—not even when our senses insist it is. 

Here’s how each of them can betray us: 
 
Sight Deceives Us
Look at the image accompanying this post: it appears to move, yet it’s a static image. Optical illusions like this show how easily our vision—and our perception of reality—can be misled. But the most surprising thing is that it's not a spiral, but rather concentric circles. Check it out!
 
Touch Deceives Us
Touch can also be deceptive. Try lightly touching an object’s surface (without discerning its shape) while blocking your other senses. You’ll find it challenging to identify what it is. Without the aid of sight or other senses, touch alone leaves us disoriented. 
 
Taste Deceives Us
Taste is no exception. For instance, have you ever had vanilla ice cream? You might think so, but you’d be mistaken. Vanilla isn’t a flavor—it’s an aroma. Yet our brain interprets it as a taste, completely fooling us. 
 
Smell Deceives Us
Smell may be the easiest sense to trick. Enter a room with a strong scent: after a few minutes, you’ll stop noticing it. The smell hasn’t disappeared—it’s an illusion. Your olfactory nerve cells become saturated and stop sending signals to your brain. Or try smelling a flower or perfume for an extended period: the scent will seem to fade, even though it remains just as strong as it was initially. 
 
Hearing Deceives Us
Auditory illusions are rarer but no less striking. A fascinating example is the Shepard Scale, discovered by psychologist Roger Shepard. It consists of a tone that repeats at intervals, yet our brain interprets it as continuously rising. You can hear this illusion on YouTube (for example, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jU1emIwaZc ). Listen to it several times: you’ll be convinced it’s an ascending scale, even though it’s the same tone repeated unchanged. To confirm, pause the audio, wait a moment, and play it again; you’ll notice the tone hasn’t shifted. But without pauses, your hearing will trick you into perceiving a rise. 
 
In short, none of our senses are entirely reliable. They remind us that our perception of the world isn’t always the truth but rather an interpretation—one that can easily be distorted. 
 

A journey through the history of the pharmaceutical industry and one of its great laboratories that had its origins in Alfred Nobel...
“From Alfred Nobel to AstraZeneca”: https://a.co/d/9svRTuI

Wien’s Law falls short

According to Wien’s Law, the energy we receive from the Sun peaks in intensity at 555 nanometers (nm), while under low-light conditions, scotopic vision reaches its maximum sensitivity at 508 nm. However, a study conducted a few years ago with the participation of Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC) proposes a new theory. It suggests that this phenomenon doesn’t depend solely on energy; the entropy of the radiation—a thermodynamic quantity tied to the amount of information we can perceive from our surroundings—must also be considered as a variable.

Since not all wavelengths (or colors) carry the same amount of information, human vision has adapted to prioritize those that provide the most insight. In other words, the human eye focuses on what delivers the greatest understanding of its environment.
 
Put simply: We see what matters to us. And this principle holds true across every aspect of our lives.
 

An enthralling story of love, friendship and honor in the Olympic Games (2,600 years ago)
“Life debt” (Vicente Fisac, Amazon): https://a.co/d/hono34C

Reality or Dream?

A little reflection for today...

Paco Padrón told us in his book "Midnight Lights".

Juan José Benítez repeated it later in his book "Pacts and Signs".

And now I say it too from this free space of thought and information:
“When we sleep, we awaken; it is upon waking that we fall into a dark dream...”

A journey through the history of the pharmaceutical industry and one of its great laboratories that had its origins in Alfred Nobel...
“From Alfred Nobel to AstraZeneca”: https://a.co/d/9svRTuI 

We might just be simple holograms

Several scientists have lent credibility to a theory first proposed at the end of the last century by Argentine theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena. According to this theory, our Universe isn’t real but rather a holographic projection. They suggest that the true action unfolds in a simpler, flatter cosmos where gravity doesn’t exist. This theory, moreover, resolves a series of inconsistencies observed between quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.

If, as they claim, this Universe we know is a hologram and not the real world we assume it to be, doesn’t that make us mere projections of thought? Could we be the dream, while our dreams are the reality? Or perhaps both we and our dreams are nothing more than mental projections?
 
What a slap in the face to our arrogance, our selfishness, our vanity—and our ignorance!
 
What’s clear, and overwhelmingly proven, is the insignificance of our lives, our problems, our ambitions, and our sense of “self”…
 

An enthralling story of love, friendship and honor in the Olympic Games (2,600 years ago)
“Life debt” (Vicente Fisac, Amazon): https://a.co/d/hono34C

Our senses deceive us... even in Advertising

Our senses can deceive us, and advertising knows how to exploit this to capture the attention and interest of potential customers. A clear example of this are some brochures I designed for a dermatological cream. These brochures were the key tool for medical representatives during their commercial visits to healthcare professionals.

First execution:
 
The brochure's cover featured a drawing of burning logs. However, the flames visible on the cover were actually printed inside the brochure, visible through a die-cut in the shape of flames. The text on the cover, designed to grab the doctor's attention, read: "Natural heat can sometimes not be so."
 
Upon opening the brochure, it was revealed that the red color initially thought to represent the burning logs actually depicted the redness of a baby's bottom. With this, we introduced a diaper rash cream in an extremely original way.
 

Second execution:
 
In another element of the same campaign, the highlighted phrase on the cover was: "A natural color can sometimes not be so." Here, the red color visible through a die-cut on the cover appeared to be that of an apple. Upon opening the brochure, we discovered that this same red color did not belong to the fruit but once again to the redness caused by diaper rash on a baby's bottom.
 
Impact of originality in Advertising:
 
Creativity in advertising not only makes it easier to capture a client's attention and interest but also ensures that the commercial proposal is memorable and directly associated with the product being advertised. This clever approach not only highlights the product but also demonstrates how sensory perception can be used to effectively communicate the advertising message.
 

A journey through the history of the pharmaceutical industry and one of its great laboratories that had its origins in Alfred Nobel...
“From Alfred Nobel to AstraZeneca” (Vicente Fisac, Amazon) is available in e-Book and print editions: https://a.co/d/9svRTuI