“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes” (Walt Whitman)

What are some of your contradictions, anon?

I’ll start: I’m a cold rationalist, a skeptic at heart, a party pooper for the mystics. I believe that reality is what physics is attempting to probe. I must see data and evidence. James Randi was a hero of mine.

I also love magic (like, performance of illusions based on taking advantage of perceptual biases, which you aptly pointed out here!) 

Magic helps illustrate how much of what we perceive is filtered, which is something pointed out from both scientific and spiritual perspectives