apophenia

apophenia's picture
:: the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term 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".

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 in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of neurological or mental illness.

In statistics, apophenia would be classed as a Type I error. Apophenia is often used as an explanation of paranormal and religious claims. It has been suggested that apophenia is a link between psychosis and creativity.

- definition courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org


"You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it." ~Art Buchwald
"Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meaning... " ~Jean Arp


The ramblings of a loose-lipped mad-woman.

:: stories from the interminable in between .... steal and my ghost will haunt you forever and ever and ever ...

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