"This must be a sign" - The experience of seeing meaningful patterns in meaningless data
The term Apophenia was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”, but it has come to represent the human tendency to seek patterns in random nature in general, as with gambling, paranormal phenomena and religion.
Conrad originally described this phenomenon in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has become more widely used to describe this tendency without necessarily implying the presence of neurological differences or mental illness.
- A common example of perceived, but non-existent pattern are paranormal sightings, including sightings of ghosts, UFOs, cryptozoology (as with the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot), etc., which may be due to apophenia.
- The attempt to foretell the future, present, or past by finding patterns in animal entrails, tossed sticks, or by picking random passages from a holy text are often cited as examples of apophenia. A more extreme example is the pareidolia associated with finding the faces of religious figures in pieces of toast, the grain of cut wood, or other such patterns.
- Likewise conspiracy theorists are famously prone to identify a (perhaps coincidental) pattern, and conclude that it must have great significance, although things that are important, life-changing, and even catastrophic, can occur simply out of random chance.
- Apophenia is heavily documented as a source of rationale behind gambling, with victims imagining they see patterns in the occurrence of numbers in lotteries, roulette wheels, and even cards. One variation of this is known as the Gambler’s Fallacy.
- Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity for the “simultaneous occurrence of two meaningful but not causally connected events” creating a significant realm of philosophical exploration.
“The stereotype of a chess grand master is someone who can think many moves ahead. And certainly, many chess players do strategize that way. But the grand masters retrieve from their memories not more possibilities but better possibilities because they are better at recognizing and retaining patterns or what cognitive scientists call chunks. Michael Shermer, a psychologist, historian of science, and professional skeptic – he founded Skeptic magazine — called this property of the human mind patternicity. He defined patternicity as “the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless data.” What all these examples tell me is that in society, the three kinds of minds — visual, verbal, pattern thinkers — naturally complement one another. When I recall collaborations in which I’ve successfully participated, I can see how different kinds of thinkers worked together to create a product that was greater than the sum of its parts. Yet society puts them together without anybody thinking about it. But what if we did think about it? What if we recognized these categories consciously and tried to make the various pairings work to our advantage? What if each of us was able to say, Oh, here’s my strength, and here’s my weakness — what can I do for you, and what can you do for me?”
—http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/05/silicon-valley-coders-and-autism-and-asperbergers-maybe-its-a-new-kind-of-design-thinking/
Kein Gott... oder doch nicht?
Existiert Gott? Ist das überhaupt eine sinnvolle Frage? Warum fragen wir uns das?
Es liegt in unserer Natur diese Fragen zu stellen. Hinter jedem Ablauf vermuten wir einen “Beweger” der die Reaktion ins Rollen gebracht hat.
Wenn es einen Gott gibt muss er böse sein. Wie sonst könnte man sich all das Leid in der Welt erklären? Immer wenn ich soetwas sage höre ich die Antwort “Ja, Gott hat uns ja den freien Willen gegeben. Das alles ist unsere Schuld.”
- Das ist grundlegend falsch. Zuersteinmal gibt es keinen freien Willen (s. “Der Freie Wille”). Und selbst wenn dies wahr wäre würde das Argument dem skeptischen Nachdenken nicht standhalten. Um zu demonstrieren warum brauche ich eine Analogie. Gott ist hierin der Vater und die Menschheit sein Sohn. Würdet ihr den Vater für schuldig befinden wenn er einen Autounfall seines Sohnes hat kommen, ihn problemlos abwenden hätte können, es aber nicht getan hat. Jeder Mensch der auch nur ein Fünkchen Verstand hat bemerkt, dass dies ebenfalls eine Straftat ist. Im deutschen Strafgesetzbuch gibt es sogar die Straftat der Unterlassenen Hilfeleistung:
“Wer bei Unglücksfällen oder gemeiner Gefahr oder Not nicht Hilfe leistet, obwohl dies erforderlich und ihm den Umständen nach zuzumuten, insbesondere ohne erhebliche eigene Gefahr und ohne Verletzung anderer wichtiger Pflichten möglich ist, wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu einem Jahr oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft.”
Der Strafstand der unterlassenen Hilfeleistung lässt sich exakt genau so (okay, bis auf die Freiheitsstrafe) auf Gott beziehen. Wie gut ist Gott wenn er sich nicht um seine Kinder kümmert? Denn das ist der logische Schluss, den man aus seinem Nichthandeln ziehen lässt.
Darauf hört man von fundamentalistischeren Kreisen die typische Antwort: “Ja, das Leben auf Erden ist eben ein Test. Gott will unsere Heiligkeit und Standhaftigkeit testen.”
Es sollte eigentlich nicht nötig sein weiter auf die Idee eines Vaters einzugehen, der seine Kinder absichtlich in Unfälle entwickelt, sie schlägt und misshandelt um zu testen wie sehr sie ihn lieben. Für derartige Dinge gibt es keine Entschuldigung. Soetwas ist unmoralisch, nach allen Standarts.
Und wenn man sich überlegt, dass nicht jeder Mensch die gleichen Fähigkeiten hat, dann wird die Idee noch absurder.
Es gibt also folgende Möglichkeiten:
- (1) Gott interessiert sich nicht für uns. Er ist also kein guter Gott.
- (2) Gott kann uns nicht helfen. Warum sollte man ihn dann Gott nennen?
- (3) Gott will uns nicht helfen. Er schaut gerne zu.
Ich glaube keiner dieser Möglichkeiten ergeben Sinn. Gott, so sagt man, kann man nicht begreifen. Er ist über unserer Wahrnehmung. Selbst die Logik (die er selbst ja anscheinend erfunden hat) kann ihn nicht erfassen. Das ist nur eine Antwort ohne jegliche Substanz, ohne Argument. Das ist schlichtweg Ignoranz. Das Ziel dieses Argumentes ist Gott vor Kritik zu schützen.
Ich denke tief in sich wissen diese Menschen, dass es einfach irgendwie keinen Sinn macht was sie glauben, denn in Wahrheit schafft kein Gott das ‘Gute’ und das ‘Böse’, denn Gott existiert nicht. Unsere Probleme sind unsere eigenen und wir müssen sie alleine lösen. Ob uns das gefällt oder nicht, niemand kommt um uns zu helfen. Jeder der denkt, dass ein böser Mann im Himmel ihm helfen würde stellt sich aktiv gegen die Lösung unserer Probleme.
”Ist Gott willens böses zu verhindern, aber nicht fähig dazu? Dann ist er nicht allmächtig. Ist er fähig dazu, aber nicht willens? Dann ist er boshaft. Ist er fähig und willens? Woher kommt dann das Böse? Ist er weder fähig noch willens? Warum sollte man ihn dann Gott nennen?”
- Epicurus (341-270 v.Chr.)
Patternicity
The Most Serene RepublicThis song is really good, I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve given it a listen
The Biology of Belief: Patternicity
P = CTI < CTII
Patternicity (P) will occur whenever the cost (C) of making a Type I error (TI) is less than the cost (C) of making a Type II error (TII).
Imagine that you are a hominid walking along the savanna of an African valley three million years ago. You hear a rustle in the grass. Is it just the wind or is it a dangerous predator? Your answer could mean life or death.
If you assume that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator but it turns out that it is just the wind, you have made what is called a Type I error in cognition, also known as a false positive, or believing something is real when it is not. That is, you have found a nonexistent pattern. You connected (A) a rustle in the grass to (B) a dangerous predator, but in this case A was not connected to B. No harm. You move away from the rustling sound, become more alert and cautious, and find another path to your destination.
If you assume that the rustle in the grass is just the wind but it turns out that it is a dangerous predator, you have made what is called a Type II error in cognition, also known as a false negative, or believing something is not real when it is. That is, you have missed a real pattern. You failed to connect (A) a rustle in the grass to (B) a dangerous predator, and in this case A was connected to B. You’re lunch. Congratulations, you have won a Darwin Award. You are no longer a member of the hominid gene pool.
Our brains are belief engines, evolved pattern-recognition machines that connect the dots and create meaning out of the patterns that we think we see in nature. Sometimes A really is connected to B; sometimes it is not. The baseball player who (A) doesn’t shave and (B) hits a home run forms a false association between A and B, but it is a relatively harmless one. When the association is real, however, we have learned something valuable about the environment from which we can make predictions that aid in survival and reproduction. We are the descendants of those who were most successful at finding patterns. This process is called association learning and is fundamental to all animal behaviour, from C. elegans to H. sapiens. I call this process patternicity, or the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless noise.
Unfortunately, we did not evolve a baloney-detection network in the brain to distinguish between true and false patterns. We have no error-detection governor to modulate the pattern-recognition engine. The reason has to do with the relative costs of making Type I and Type II errors in cognition.
Excerpt from The Believing Brain, by Michael Shermer; The Biology of Belief, Patternicity.
So for art class we get to pick 3 graphic designers or artists or s/t and write about them
So I will write about Patternicity, Piratenkoenigin, and Grooooms.
I also like how I met them all on the same website.
The first being… porn?
Naturally.
Changes
I actually had a really good day! It was the first one in a long time.
I didn’t have to do much work and I started setting up my new laptop.
I went to the last showing of Hairspray (which i’ve honestly been waiting to see for so long) and i’m amazed at how good some people can sing.. I sound like a dying cow. Honestly, i’m envious of people with a voice.
Then I saw my friend for a few minutes before getting ice cream with Kyle… Fucking granola in my coffee ice cream. BUT I had a good time, i guess. Talking about school made me realize how far away i’m going ~ but also how lucky I am to be going to such an expensive school with such an amazing scholarship.
NYU is exactly what I need and I can’t wait to be there. 12 days, guys. 12 days.
maybe i should actually start blogging about what i do during the day. hmph.
Any notable injury stories?
Not really, but one time my fever spiked suddenly and I hallucinated that I was an evil alien with a second head on my stomach flying through space on a comet and screamed at the top of my lungs for ten minutes and then fell out of bed and threw up that was fun.
URL: 10/10
Posts: 9/10
Theme: 9/10
Overall: 9.5/10
No more please and thank you!
patternicity replied to your photo: It’s going to take 4ever to organize and rename…
Dude, use Automator. Best app ever for this sort of thing
oh bless you in the name of the heavenly Father, I forgot about that thing
thank you!!
http://patternicity.tumblr.com/faq
patternicity.tumblr.comWhipped up a preliminary FAQ page so you anons can stop asking me repeat questions. Go me.
Short sides and longer top seems to be the trend. I think you could rock it.
that’s actually what I was thinking. I think I’ll give it a try.
Thanks! =]
Haha, I purged who I was following not long ago so that I was only following “creators”, but since that doesn’t matter much right now and my dashboard is slow as fuck, I need to follow some people back, and you’re cool so !
if you’re sure dude, but hurry and tumblr savior #nge , #neon genesis evangelion , #evangelion , and #kawoshin because that’s my newest thing i spam about.
