Apophenia

[ResidentDevil]

APOPHENIA

Apophenia is the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena. The term was coined by K. Conrad in 1958 (Brugger).

Soon after his son committed suicide, Episcopalian Bishop James A. Pike (1913-1969) began seeing meaningful messages in such things as a stopped clock, the angle of an open safety pin, and the angle formed by two postcards lying on the floor. He thought they were conveying the time his son had shot himself (Christopher 1975: 139).

Peter Brugger of the Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Zurich, gives examples of apophenia from August Strindberg's Occult Diary, the playwright's own account of his psychotic break:

He saw "two insignia of witches, the goat's horn and the besom" in a rock and wondered "what demon it was who had put [them] ... just there and in my way on this particular morning." A building then looked like an oven and he thought of Dante's Inferno.

He sees sticks on the ground and sees them as forming Greek letters which he interprets to be the abbreviation of a man's name and feels he now knows that this man is the one who is persecuting him. He sees sticks on the bottom of a chest and is sure they form a pentagram.

He sees tiny hands in prayer when he looks at a walnut under a microscope and it "filled me with horror."

His crumpled pillow looks "like a marble head in the style of Michaelangelo." Strindberg comments that "these occurrences could not be regarded as accidental, for on some days the pillow presented the appearance of horrible monsters, of gothic gargoyles, of dragons, and one night ... I was greeted by the Evil One himself...."

According to Brugger, "The propensity to see connections between seemingly unrelated objects or ideas most closely links psychosis to creativity ... apophenia and creativity may even be seen as two sides of the same coin." Some of the most creative people in the world, then, must be psychoanalysts and therapists who use projective tests like the Rorschach test or who see patterns of child abuse behind every emotional problem. Brugger notes that one analyst thought he had support for the penis envy theory because more females than males failed to return their pencils after a test. Another spent nine pages in a prestigious journal describing how sidewalk cracks are vaginas and feet are penises, and the old saw about not stepping on cracks is actually a warning to stay away from the female sex organ.

Brugger's research indicates that high levels of dopamine affect the propensity to find meaning, patterns, and significance where there is none, and that this propensity is related to a tendency to believe in the paranormal.*

In statistics, apophenia is called a Type I error, seeing patterns where none, in fact, exist. It is highly probable that the apparent significance of many unusual experiences and phenomena are due to apophenia, e.g., ghosts and hauntings, EVP, numerology, the Bible code, anomalous cognition, ganzfeld "hits", most forms of divination, the prophecies of Nostradamus, remote viewing, and a host of other paranormal and supernatural experiences and phenomena.

Dr. Barry Simon confirms the prevalence of apophenia in today's world. Many people claim to find hidden messages and predictions from God in the Holy Bible when it is in fact just a matter of randomness. As he so rightly points out, one can potentially find hidden messages in any written document. In my honest opinion, the reasoning behind finding hidden messages in eveything one sees or interacts only serves as fodder to conspiracy theorists and people who wish to derive financial benefits from it.

Apophenia exists in many forms; some people find shapes in clouds (Pareidoila), others are obsessed with numberology (e.g. 23 Enigma) while others find hidden Illuminati Symbols around them.

What's your take on the occurence of Apohenia? Discuss.

Edited September 10, 2009 by ResidentDevil

[Rosewin]

I believe the human mind wishes to fill in blanks when not given all the information. Thus we attach our own manufactured details to such things as memories or when seeing something that deep inside perhaps we want to actually find. Does this make the patterns not real? I am not so convinced. In either case I find those who can see patterns and connect them unusually the most interesting of all people.

[MysticOnion]

Yeah why not? All things are possible - including this. So, if I see lots of Illuminati symbolism it COULD be this, OR the people behind it know about this, and think/hope we'll just dismiss it as that, and that will be that. Its a perfect smokescreen.

[ResidentDevil]

Yeah why not? All things are possible - including this. So, if I see lots of Illuminati symbolism it COULD be this, OR the people behind it know about this, and think/hope we'll just dismiss it as that, and that will be that. Its a perfect smokescreen.

Why does the Illuminati need to hide in plain sight? We are no longer in an era where the Church persecutes scientists and artists whose works defy their fundamental beliefs.

[MysticOnion]

Technically there IS no Illuminati, that doesn't mean there's no symbolism. They hide in plain sight because they always have, its become a way of life I suppose, they aren't illuminati any more though.

[eqgumby]

This was a great idea.

It would be logical to extend the visual side of this condition, or whatever you want to call it, to aural, tactile, virtually any sensation. Expand that to include thought processes, and it explains the conspiracy theories out there too. Human nature to attempt to apply a pattern of a recognizable sort, to unrecognizable things.

[Rosewin]

It would also explain such things as religion and even romance. We fill in lots of blanks and find patterns to make sense of things as part of our regular daily lives. Even to enjoy good art we have to fill in the blanks sometimes. You might see splotches of green and lots of blue towards the top of the frame and the mind will be able to see trees and sky. The mind has evolved to find symbolism in things.

Edited September 11, 2009 by Rosewin

[Paranormalcy]

Apophenia. I had forgotten about this term. Sort of a mix of Synchronicity and Pareidolia. Interesting.

[MysticOnion]

It would also explain such things as religion and even romance. We fill in lots of blanks and find patterns to make sense of things as part of our regular daily lives. Even to enjoy good art we have to fill in the blanks sometimes. You might see splotches of green and lots of blue towards the top of the frame and the mind will be able to see trees and sky. The mind has evolved to find symbolism in things.

ER.. not quite that simple. Human beings communicate via symbolism, nature just has random shapes, those made by human beings themselves may actually be deliberate.

[eqgumby]

ER.. not quite that simple. Human beings communicate via symbolism, nature just has random shapes, those made by human beings themselves may actually be deliberate.

No one says it's THE answer.

But the example of the OP is a natural phenomena.

Our idea of romance may indeed be a reaction and an establishing of a pattern, or even invention of a pattern, to explain the biological facets of love, sex, and procreation.