{"id":59749,"date":"2018-05-23T10:54:08","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T15:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=59749"},"modified":"2018-05-29T04:42:44","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T09:42:44","slug":"yanny-vs-laurel-you-vs-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/yanny-vs-laurel-you-vs-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Yanny vs. Laurel, You vs. Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the Interwebs were thrown into a minor tizzy thanks to an audio clip<\/strong><\/a> that said \u201cLaurel.\u201d Or perhaps it said \u201cYanny.\u201d People couldn\u2019t quite seem to agree.<\/p>\n

This made people flash back to a dress that is so famous it has come to be known simply as \u201cthe dress.\u201d You know the one: the dress that some people saw as blue and black even thought it is obviously<\/em> white and gold!<\/p>\n

There are explanations for these phenomena. The New York Times<\/em> explained the dress as follows<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Our eyes are able to assign fixed colors to objects under widely different lighting conditions. This ability is called color constancy. But the photograph doesn\u2019t give many clues about the ambient light in the room. Is the background bright and the dress in shadow? Or is the whole room bright and all the colors are washed out? Different people may pick up on different visual cues in the image, which can change how they interpret and name the colors.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re used to optical illusions of various kinds but we\u2019re less used to auditory illusions. That\u2019s not to say that they should surprise us. You know how there are whistles that only dogs can hear? Well, there are also ranges of sound that only young people can hear. Some stores in malls play high-pitched tones that only the young can hear to keep teens from loitering without affecting the more mature clientele at all. Since \u201cLaurel\u201d and \u201cYanny\u201d have similar spectrograms, if you filter out frequencies that some people can\u2019t hear, you change the perception of the recording. (I also got different results on different computers based on the quality of the audio equipment.)<\/p>\n

I had planned to write about this phenomenon for an article this week, and the following kept running through my head:<\/p>\n

Shamor v\u2019zachor b\u2019dibbur echad hishmianu Keil hameyuchad.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a line from L\u2019cha Dodi<\/em>, which we recite on Friday nights, telling us that God recited a single word but He caused us to simultaneously hear both \u201cshamor<\/em>\u201d (guard the Sabbath) and \u201czachor<\/em>\u201d (remember the Sabbath). This is the explanation of the Talmud (Shevuos 20b) for the difference between the two versions of the mitzvah of Shabbos in the \u201cTen Commandments,\u201d Exodus 20:7 saying zachor<\/em> and Deuteronomy 5:11 telling us shamor<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The problem with this approach was that we don\u2019t actually hear two words simultaneously from this audio clip. Listeners hear either \u201cLaurel\u201d or \u201cYanny,\u201d which are two equally valid interpretations. This led me to the Talmudic principle of \u201ceilu v\u2019eilu divrei Elokim chayim<\/em>\u201d \u2013 two opposing opinions can both reflect God\u2019s will (Eiruvin 13b). I was still working on this when I saw that Allison Josephs had posted an article<\/strong><\/a> on Laurel and Yanny.<\/p>\n

Normally, if I\u2019m working on an article and I see someone else has written on it, I will avoid it. There are two reasons for this. First, I don\u2019t want other people\u2019s interpretations to influence what I plan to say. Second, in the event of overlap, I want to be able to honestly say that I arrived at similar conclusions independently. I couldn\u2019t do that in this case, however, because I am a regular contributor to Ms. Joseph\u2019s site, Jew in the City<\/strong><\/a>, so people would assume that I had read her piece. So I read it and, sure enough, she hit many of the same points I would have (as well as a number that I wouldn\u2019t have, so go read her article here<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

Having been beaten to press by a colleague, I despaired of expounding upon the crucial matter of Laurel vs. Yanny. However, on my Facebook post addressing this phenomenon, another friend, Dr. Eli Shapiro<\/strong><\/a>, made an insightful observation. He said, \u201cit certainly underscores the importance of perspective taking.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, for me, was quite the eye-opener.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one photograph of the dress. It contains the visual information of both blue\/black and white\/gold. Our brains filter the information and choose one of these options. There\u2019s one audio clip. It contains spectrographic information appropriate for both \u201cLaurel\u201d and \u201cYanny.\u201d Our brains filter this as well, coming to an appropriate conclusion. You can\u2019t really say that anyone is right or wrong. Everyone is exposed to the same data but our biology filters it, predisposing us to one outcome or the other, each equally valid.<\/p>\n

Might this not be the same in other areas of disagreement? Maimonides and Nachmanides read the same Torah but they came to some very different conclusions. Rashi and Tosfos studied the same Talmud and also came to differing interpretations. Same input, different output. Can we really say that either party is \u201cwrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, the dress in real life is only one color (blue and black, I\u2019m told, though I literally don\u2019t see it) and the person who recorded the audio clip only said one thing (\u201cLaurel\u201d) but we\u2019re not evaluating the objective reality. We\u2019re evaluating a reflection of reality in digital media. That small step removed is enough to affect our perceptions. Our interpretations of the reflection are equally valid even if only one resembles a reality to which we are not privy.<\/p>\n

This is what happened in the Talmud, in tractate Baba Metzia 59b, where Rabbi Eliezer invoked all sorts of miracles to prove that his opinion on a certain matter reflected God\u2019s Divine position. The bottom line was that all these proofs were irrelevant. We don\u2019t rule in matters of law based on God\u2019s point of view (to which we are not privy) but through the perspective of our human filters. To that end, the Sages cited Deuteronomy 30:12, lo baShamayim hi<\/em>, the Torah is no longer in Heaven. We can\u2019t evaluate the dress in the store window, so we evaluate the photo online. We can\u2019t interpret the Torah as it is seen in Heaven, we can only evaluate it as we understand it here on Earth.<\/p>\n

(This is also true in politics. We are all given the same information about gun control, the Middle East, the economy, immigration, etc. We can legitimately filter the information and come to different conclusions.)<\/p>\n

Someone who sees the dress differently, or who hears \u201cYanny\u201d where you hear \u201cLaurel,\u201d doesn\u2019t disagree with you because they\u2019re stupid, greedy, megalomaniacal, disingenuous or evil. They filter the data, just as you and I do, and they\u00a0legitimately perceive things differently. Similarly, someone who evaluates religious or political data and reaches a different conclusion need not be a liar, a fool, a zealot or a heretic. They just might see things differently. Or, as Dr. Shapiro put it in a subsequent comment, \u201cI think the lesson here is that by trying to hear a different perspective you can actually overcome your biological predisposition and understand and value multiple truths.\u201d<\/p>\n

We can learn a lot about ourselves \u2013 and one another \u2013 from a two-syllable audio clip.<\/p>\n

\n

Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of six books, including\u00a0The Tzniyus Book<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Taryag Companion<\/a>. His latest work,\u00a0The God Book<\/a>, is available from\u00a0OU Press<\/a>\u00a0as well as on\u00a0Amazon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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