And just as the brain can be fooled, so can the mathematician. Sometimes, they discover that their solution doesn't work. Often, that's a matter of taste, or judgment. Chan runs into this problem constantly. Basically, it means taking a blurry image and putting it into focus using clever algorithms.
Human beings are quite good at eliminating noise using their own built-in perceptual apparatus.
Most people can maintain a phone conversation even when other people are talking around them. But blurring is harder to fix. That's why we wear glasses. Or hire mathematicians. Chan calls up a computer image depicting the planets Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.