From Illusions To Reality

Some psychologists think it is almost always wrong to deceive research subjects, while others think the use of deception is essential if significant human problems are to receive scientific study. Illusions of Reality shows how deception is used in psychological research to create illusions of reality—situations that involve research subjects without revealing the true purpose of the experiment. The book examines the origins and development of this practice that have lead to some of the most dramatic and controversial studies in the history of psychology. Social psychology may be the only area of research where the research methods sometimes are as interesting as the results. The most impressive experiments in this field produce their impact by creating situations that lead research subjects to believe that they are taking part in something other than the true experiment, or situations where subjects are not even aware that an experiment is being conducted. These illusions of reality are created by using various forms of deception, such as providing false information to people about how they perform on tests or by using actors who play roles. The research described in Illusions of Reality includes significant and controversial experiments in the history of psychology that sometimes took on the characteristics of dramatic stage productions. The ethical issues raised by this research are discussed, and the practice of using deception in research is placed in the context of American cultural values.

Look around you. Notice your surroundings. What you see seems solid and real, a fixed objective reality existing "out there" separate from you. But it's not, Ralph Strauch argues in this provocative exploration of perception, reality, and the mechanisms that link them. What you perceive are images you create, part of a grand illusion that you participate in and support. The external world is a "rich reality" -- offering far wider possibilities than most of us realize. THE REALITY ILLUSION explores the mechanisms you use to to bring the particular world you experience into focus, and explores the benefits of more fully understanding the collective illusion we call reality.

Capturing realistic images on canvas has been a staple aspiration of western art since the Renaissance development of scientific perspective. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, animated by the invention of photography and cinema, artists began attempting not only to paint realistically but also to create images that projected the ethical content of the world around them. "Illusions of Reality: Naturalist Painting, Photography and Cinema, 1875-1918" traces the development of Naturalism within painting, literature, theater, photography and film, and the relationship among these art forms, paying attention to the way painters such as Jules Adler, Thomas Anshutz, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Emile Claus, Thomas Eakins, Christian Krohg, Gari Melchers, Jules-Alexis Muenier, Fernand Pelez, Jean-Andr xE9; Rixens and Anders Zorn, filmmakers such as Andr xE9; Antoine, Albert Capellani and L xE9;on Lhermitte and photographers such as Peter Henry Emerson, used Naturalism as a vehicle for understanding the lives of ordinary people at a time of great social transformation. Practitioners of Naturalism frequently concerned themselves with the social ills created by industrialization, as well as the social responses to these problems in both public education and religion. Likewise, the transformation brought about by industrialization led many artists to focus on the loss of traditional agrarian culture as well as the political upheaval caused by working conditions in the factories. Technological advances in art, from the development of photography in the first half of the nineteenth century to the emergence of film toward the end of the century, contributed to the interaction among art forms and the attention toward social conditions. Edited by Gabriel P. Weisberg, Professor of Art History at the University of Minnesota, with essays by Weisberg, David Jackson, Willa Silverman and Maartje de Haan, "Illusions of Reality" offers a fresh interpretation of how Naturalist artists, and the aesthetic they espoused, attempted to understand and explain the rapid and profound changes of their time.

The greatest mystery in the world is its very existence. In our intellectual development, we all reach a turning point when we start asking the perennial existential questions: "What is the world?"; "What am I?"; "What is the meaning of the existence of the world and myself?". As the German philosopher Schopenhauer put it: "The lower a man stands in intellectual respects the less of a riddle does existence seem to him... but, the clearer his consciousness becomes the more the problem grasps him in its greatness." This book explores what fundamental physics tells us about the physical world and how the scientific picture of what exists often differs disturbingly from the "common sense" view based on the way our senses reflect the world. Centuries-old illusions are identified by showing that they contradict experimentally-confirmed results of modern physics, which clears the way toward deeper understanding of reality. The greatest illusion that the world exists only at the present moment of time has been realized by many great thinkers, but so far the human race has been unable to free itself from it, prompting Einstein to write this: "the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Getting rid of such stubbornly persistent illusions by open-mindedly examining the implications of modern physics for the physical world can help us rise above the fog of everyday life and see Nature the way she herself is.

Dana needs a reality check. Her cunning and ruthless way of living traps her in a illusion, making her unaware of what's real. She doesn't realize she is creating her own misery. Dana's life is filled with friends who think they have gained in life through drugs, murder, lying and cheating. Some of these friends escape the illusion while others remain trapped, victims to their lifestyles and the time they have wasted. In order to return to reality, Dana needs to change her way and thought process, not knowing exactly how much time she has left.

Are all governments—east and west, Muslim and secular, authoritarian and constitutional, Republican and Democratic—fundamentally the same, all of them under the extraordinary, growing power of “technique” and bureaucracy? Is all politics, then, just an illusory affair of lies, deception, propaganda, partisan passions, and chaos on the surface of government and party? In his vast and penetrating writings, Bordeaux sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) points in those directions. Political Illusion and Reality is a collection of twenty-three essays on Ellul’s political thought. Veteran as well as younger Ellul scholars, political leaders, activists, and pastors, discuss aspects of Ellul’s thought as they relate to their own fields of study and political experience. Beginning with his 1936 essay “Fascism, Son of Liberalism,” translated and published here in English for the first time, Ellul and these authors will provoke readers to think some new thoughts about politics and government, and think more deeply about the main issues we face in our politically divided and troubled times.

An overview of the art historical antecedents to virtual reality and the impact of virtual reality on contemporary conceptions of art. Although many people view virtual reality as a totally new phenomenon, it has its foundations in an unrecognized history of immersive images. Indeed, the search for illusionary visual space can be traced back to antiquity. In this book, Oliver Grau shows how virtual art fits into the art history of illusion and immersion. He describes the metamorphosis of the concepts of art and the image and relates those concepts to interactive art, interface design, agents, telepresence, and image evolution. Grau retells art history as media history, helping us to understand the phenomenon of virtual reality beyond the hype. Grau shows how each epoch used the technical means available to produce maximum illusion. He discusses frescoes such as those in the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii and the gardens of the Villa Livia near Primaporta, Renaissance and Baroque illusion spaces, and panoramas, which were the most developed form of illusion achieved through traditional methods of painting and the mass image medium before film. Through a detailed analysis of perhaps the most important German panorama, Anton von Werner's 1883 The Battle of Sedan, Grau shows how immersion produced emotional responses. He traces immersive cinema through Cinerama, Sensorama, Expanded Cinema, 3-D, Omnimax and IMAX, and the head mounted display with its military origins. He also examines those characteristics of virtual reality that distinguish it from earlier forms of illusionary art. His analysis draws on the work of contemporary artists and groups ART+COM, Maurice Benayoun, Charlotte Davies, Monika Fleischmann, Ken Goldberg, Agnes Hegedues, Eduardo Kac, Knowbotic Research, Laurent Mignonneau, Michael Naimark, Simon Penny, Daniela Plewe, Paul Sermon, Jeffrey Shaw, Karl Sims, Christa Sommerer, and Wolfgang Strauss. Grau offers not just a history of illusionary space but also a theoretical framework for analyzing its phenomenologies, functions, and strategies throughout history and into the future.