Immaterial things

Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. The genre is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by overall look, feel, and theme of the individual work, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three (collectively known as speculative fiction). In its broadest sense, fantasy covers works by many writers, artists, film makers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent works embraced by a wide audience today.
Though the fantasy genre in its modern sense is less than two centuries old, its antecedents have a long and distinguished history. Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning.
Even the most fantastic myths, legends and fairy tales, however, differ from modern fantasy genre in three respects:
Modern genre fantasy postulates a different reality, either a fantasy world separated from ours, or a hidden fantasy side of our own world. In addition, the rules, geography, history, etc. of this world tend to be defined, even if they are not described outright. Traditional fantastic tales take place in our world, often in the past or in far off, unknown places. It seldom describes the place or the time with any precision, often saying simply that it happened "long ago and far away." (A modern, rationalized analog to these stories can be found in the Lost World tales of the 19th and 20th centuries.)

The second difference is that the supernatural in fantasy is by design fictitious. In traditional tales the degree to which the author considered the supernatural to be real can span the spectrum from legends taken as reality to myths understood as describing in understandable terms more complicated reality, to late, wholly fictitious fairy tales.

Finally, the fantastic worlds of modern fantasy are created by an author or group of authors, often using traditional elements, but usually in a novel arrangement and with an individual interpretation. Traditional tales with fantasy elements used familiar myths and folklore, and any differences from tradition were considered variations on a theme; the traditional tales were never intended to be separate from the local supernatural folklore. Transitions between the traditional and modern modes of fantastic literature are evident in early Gothic novels, the ghost stories in vogue in the 19th century, and Romantic novels, all of which used extensively traditional fantastic motifs, but subjected them to authors' concepts.

By one standard, no work created before the fantasy genre was defined can be considered to belong to it, no matter how many fantastic elements it includes. By another, the genre includes the whole range of fantastic literature, both the modern genre and its traditional antecedents, as many elements which were treated as true (or at least not obviously untrue) by earlier authors are wholly fictitious and fantastic for modern readers. But even by the more limited definition a full examination of the history of the fantastic in literature is necessary to show the origins of the modern genre. Traditional works contain significant elements which modern fantasy authors have drawn upon extensively for inspiration in their own works.

The modern fantasy genre first took root during the 18th century with the increased popularity of fictional travelers' tales, influencing and being influenced by other early forms of speculative fiction along the way, finally unfurling in the 19th century from a literary tapestry of fantastic stories and gaining recognition as a distinct genre (mainly due to the nigh-ubiquitous recession of fantastic elements from "mainstream" fiction) in the late 1800's.

Take a look a few fantasy photography by enchanted artist...

source: http://www.nenethomas.com

An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give, on the face of it, a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specific visual tricks that say something more basic about how human perceptual systems work.





















An illusion is a distortion of a sensory perception, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people [1]. Illusions can occur with each of the human senses, but visual illusions are the most well known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words[2]. Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles, like Gestalt, an individual's ability of depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur because of biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside of the body within one’s physical environment.

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org , http://www.frenblog.com/illusion

* Religion sucks at describing the mechanisms of the natural world. True, this was once one of its purposes– to explain things that humanity didn’t understand. And many still use it for that purpose, which is why we have a religion/science conflict. Those who still use it for that are making a mistake. Similarly, the massively outspoken atheists who think that all religious people are stupid seem to think that this still remains a (or the) core purpose of religion. (The only people who seem to think, for instance, that a literal reading of the Bible describes the beliefs of Christians are science-ignorant fundamentalists, and religion-ignorant atheists. Strange bedfellows.)
* As a corollary to the last one, evolution happened, and continues to happen. To try to deny that on any pseudo-scientific basis or on any religious basis (I’m talking intelligent design and other more extreme forms of creationism here) requires either ignorance or a massive capacity for denial. Similarly, the Universe is at least 13.7 billion years old; we know that now.
* There is an objective reality. Those who insist that the results of our science are a social construction of our western society are nutso. Sure, the expression of such results are culturally influenced, but reality itself exists independent of any social constructions or anything like that.
* Just as religion sucks at describing the natural world, science simply does not address the real topics of religion. Science isn’t going to tell you if there is a god or gods; if it could, they wouldn’t really be gods. Some extreme anti-religion atheists will tell you that science has disproved religion; they are wrong. It hasn’t proven religion, nor can it, and for some it has obviated the need (those who see religion primarily as a way of describing the unknown), but ultimately science does not address religion. This is why one can be religious and still a completely good and rigorous scientist.
* Science can, however, disprove certain claims of a religion; if that religion hangs on to those claims after they’ve been disproved, then that religion can’t be entirely correct. Creationism is the most obvious example. There was a recent study showing that third-person prayer doesn’t help people recover from illness; if your religion tells you it will, then you’re wrong about your religion. (If you object to that, think about this: why does God need you to tell him who needs his help and attention?)
* There is no “one true religion.” There is, in a sense “one true science,” in that the laws of nature are what they are, and science is seeking to uncover them. As for religion, though– I believe that Christians and Jews and Hindus and Muslims and Wiccans are all essentially looking for and talking about the same thing, but they are seeing it in different ways. If you think of those who don’t share your religious beliefs are heathens or infidels or going to hell or anything like that, then I think you have a deeply misguided and ultimately dangerous set of religious beliefs.
* Moral behavior does not require religion. There are plenty of ethical and moral agnostics and atheists out there.
* Religion has done a lot of evil, but it has also done a lot of good. It’s plain that religion is important in the lives of many. If an atheist doesn’t feel the need for any religious beliefs or practices, more power to him. However, I think it shortsighted of that atheist to then assert that any who are religious must be insane and stupid. (I do think those who use their religion to deny empirical facts about nature — like evolution — are ignorant and wrong, but one should not extend that to all of the religious!)
* Religious extremism and fundamentalism is a serious societal problem, and I’m very much afraid of it. In our country, we are all very aware of the problems that fundamentalist Islam have brought. The problem isn’t Islam, though — it’s religious extremism. And extreme fundamentalist Christianity is also bringing problems to our country and our world!
* The atheists who want to get rid of all religion and think that everybody needs to convert to atheism should take a good hard look at the Christians who want to get rid of atheism and all other religions, and who think that everybody needs to convert to Christianity. There is a disturbing similarity there. Again, the problem isn’t religion– the problem is religious extremism, and when people use their religion to deny the facts of nature. Just as Christians should tolerate moral and reasonable people of other religions, and moral and reasonable atheists, atheists should tolerate moral and reasonable Christians, and not see them as part of the Fundamentalist Threat.

Source: http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/?p=42