I can’t quite believe that there is anyone as idosyncratically enthusiastic nor as enthusiastically reckless as me, but there is and now she is easy to spot in a crowd. That’ll be Ade and she’ll be the one with the Necker Cube on her right shoulder.
On our first date two weeks ago, we discussed tattoos and her plan was to get a tesseract no doubt inspired in part by Greg Egan who rather likes them, this reminded me that i had been meaning to get the tesseract’s little 3d cousin the cube… more specifically Necker’s cube, the best visual illusion there is. A simple yet deep demonstration of perceptual integration. The brain can’t help seeing the 3d figure, but because it is ambiguous it can be seen in one of two orientation. Stare at a Necker cube and you see it flipping back and forth between orientations. (Dennett & Necker, Lame BBC Necker Cube experiment ) It is a very weird experience, almost as if the thing is being rotated in an unsee fourth dimension.. oooh!
It’s didn’t take much to psych each other up into getting matching cubes.. and on our 6th date we tried to go to Into You to get it done. They were a bit busy so we had time to go away for a day and consider whether this was a ‘sensible’ thing to do. I think we agree that it isn’t but that is another good reason for going ahead. So yesterday eve we returned and the lovely Duncan (who had done my first tattoo) began our mutual mutilation.. Three hours later and we are unalterably linked and inked.
No regrets so far!
Very nice!