seeing faces(etc) in objects like clouds and toast

[Blobbenstein]

I have been thinking about the phenomena of seeing faces and such like in clouds etc, and I was wondering if there is a mechanism that could account for this.
Take a table and a chain. They look like they are separate objects, but maybe at a deeper level, like a quantum level, they are connected.
A person and a cloud would also be connected, so maybe a face actually forms in the cloud, due to it being looked at...a feedback mechanism....a face forms in the clouds because a person is going to look at it, and then they do look at it. Same with toast.

I know it is called pareidolia, but that is just about the mind working out images from random patterns...I'm talking about the images actually being there.

Back in the 90s a damp patch appeared on the wall that looked like three skulls. The sort of thing that might be a tattoo design. It was such a good image, I was wondering if someone had got into my bedsit and put it there. I wiped whatever it was off with a damp cloth, and it was gone...I doubt the landlord would do it.

So I do believe that these things happen. One could say it was God or ghosts or something, and well it might be, but I was wondering if an actual physics mechanism could be at work...I think the spirit world has mechanism....

 

[KLS52]

I think this is a little too deep for me. Are you saying that when I look at a cloud in the sky and see a poodle, that some force is creating the image of a dog because I looked at it (the cloud)? How would that explain two people looking at the same cloud and seeing something different? Did I miss the point entirely?
It's kind of scary to think of it that way.

 

[Blobbenstein]

it depends how clear the image is.

It can be just your brain working out a shape from something random, but maybe it is some sort of feedback mechanism, whereby a cloud will take on a shape...I think.

If two people look at the same cloud and see something different, it is either their brains making sense of a random blob, or the cloud taking on a shape that means something different to the two people, maybe.

 

[Second Summer]

I don't believe there is a supernatural explanation to this. It's to do with imagination. A similar scenario is seeing things in a small child's drawings before they master the skill, and seeing images in coffee grounds in the bottom of a cup. Typically, people with a good imagination can spot images/things in such places.

 

[Dedalus]

I like your theory Blob, but I think I am in IS's camp on this one.

I think it's in our nature for us to try to attach meaning to things that fit into our world view - even when those things are just what they are. I remember a news story whereby Jesus' image appeared in the condensation of someone's bathroom window - people came from miles around to see it. Really?

Sometimes toast is just breakfast.