Apophenia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad,[1] 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 information in general (such as with gambling), paranormal phenomena, and religion.[2]
Meanings and forms
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.
In 2008, Michael Shermer coined the word 'patternicity', defining it as "the tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise."[3][4] In The Believing Brain (2011), Shermer defines patternicity as "the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless noise." The Believing Brain thesis also says that we have "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency", which Shermer calls 'agenticity'.[5]
[edit]Statistics
In statistics, apophenia is known as a Type I error - the identification of false patterns in data.[6] It may be compared with a so called false positive in other test situations.
[edit]Paranormal phenomena
A common example of perceived, but non-existent pattern are paranormal sightings, including sightings of ghosts, Unidentified Flying Objects, cryptozoology, etc., which may be due to apophenia.[citation needed]
[edit]Conspiracy theories
Main article: Conspiracy theory
Likewise conspiracy theorists are famously prone to identify a (perhaps coincidental) pattern, and conclude that it must have great significance,[7] although things that are important, life-changing, and even catastrophic, can occur simply out of random chance.
[edit]Religion
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.[8]
Recent real-world examples include the finding of a cross inside a halved potato;[9] the appearance of Jesus and Mary inside a halved orange;[10] and the appearance of Jesus' face on a piece of toast,[11] in the frost on a car window,[12] and inside the lid of a jar of Marmite.[13]
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