A meaning found

[redbird]

I found a definition and discussion of apophenia in Follow Me Here:

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

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., 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.

(And so to bed).

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

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.

Fascinating. Dopamine is the other neurotransmitter my SSRI works on in addition to seritonin. As it's the only one to maintain effectiveness over a long period it's probably safe to say I've a dopamine as well as seritonin shortage. And I'm the one who finds it impossible to believe, no matter how badly I want to.

Is there anything in my character that isn't biochemical? Absolutely fascinating.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I heard about the dopamine part of this theory when hanging around with ericmvan last fall. The underlying assumption that perceived connections do not always exist reminds me very much of the very smart kids in high school who never quite understood how to go about looking for symbolism and other patterns in literature. Perhaps some of those kids just weren't wired properly to be able to look for and see that stuff. (Whether those things appear in a piece of fiction from the author's deliberate intent is another question entirely.)

I think that I'd rather be able to see lots of connections than none at all. I also like hard research, when possible, to verify those plausible-sounding theories (e.g., perusing pornography generates violent behavior — not!).

[jodawi.livejournal.com]

mittelschmertz sends jodawi a link...

>
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/redbird/248616.html
>

you try to tempt me to the Ljness? i no LJ for the many long months! to do the works instead!

well, i shall consider it just "a link" to "a web page" and quote this comment:

"The underlying assumption that perceived connections do not always exist reminds me very much of the very smart kids in high school who never quite understood how to go about looking for symbolism and other patterns in literature."

if i were one who could reply on this "LJ", i might say something like:

The opposite may be the tendency to assert that no pattern exists when one does exist (ie, skepticism that's not balanced by science, or skepticism of skepticism), and that therefore anyone who claims to see patterns in things is filtering out anything that contradicts the pattern they are imposing. At the same time, this is embracing a pattern, "people who see patterns in things are really just fooling themselves", so it turns back on itself. So both views are both 'right' and 'wrong'. Rather than struggling to convince oneself and others that one of the views is 'right' and one is 'wrong', instead realize that this is an artificial/imposed distinction. But that realization is also an artificial/imposed distinction, and it is both right and wrong, depending on how you look at it. Lather, rinse, repeat for the previous statement. When you get tired of lathering and rinsing and repeating, think instead about what's useful instead of what's true.

Consider linear superposition of waves. You can take an arbitrary sound wave, such as a piece of music, and decompose into a superposition of pure sine waves. This is called a Fourier transform, and converts something that varies in time to something that varies in frequency. You could say then that "the sound you hear is really just Illusion, and the True sound is the set of sine waves that add to create that sound". As proof, you might remove the high frequencies, and show that that has reduced some of the noise in the music, making it more pleasant to listen to. Another might say "the frequencies are just Illusion, and the True is what you experience directly, ie the sound waves hitting your ear". Or, you could say "Here's how to do a Fourier transform, that can be Useful for noise reduction, but you might pay a cost in getting rid of some high frequencies that you want to hear. But you can do this trick called Dolby noise reduction which is Useful for decreasing high frequency noise without getting rid of so much of the desired high frequencies.

You might also find out that it's not necessary for the waves to be pure sine waves, and in fact there are an infinite number of fundamental wave forms that you can use which will add up to the sound that you hear. These are orthogonal functions, blah blah, matrix transforms, blah blah blah. Here's other Useful tricks. You might even start deciding all of this mathematics is the True nature of things, and any particular view is just Illusion. But then you might get whacked on the head by the cane of a zen master or physicist, and realize that the mathematics is also just a Useful tool and not the True reality.

'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.' -- To assert that the True is that there is no pattern is to devolve into dogma. To assert that the True is that there is a pattern is to devolve into dogma. Instead, one can ask "Is it Useful to view these sticks as forming letters?", or "Is it Useful to analyze the sticks to determine all the letters they might potentially be forming, and see if the number of options are so great that no Useful information is communicated by the sticks?", or Etc. If you have pre-set answers to those questions and are congratulating yourself on your intellect, then you haven't been paying attention.

It is now Useful for me to go take a piss, and mail some stuff.

[carandol.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that word. It explains a whole genre of conspiracy theory books, and the sort of people who see the face of the Virgin Mary in a Danish pastry.

I mean, I'm good at noticing patterns in things, but I don't have to believe their validity. For instance, as this page was loading, I noticed my PC clock said 2112, the name of an album by '70s rock band Rush, who came from Canada, where you're going at the weekend. Now, I know people who would have said "oooo, spooky..." to that.

Actually I'm reminded of a lovely story I read a few years ago. I think it took place in Mexico; somewhere Latin American, anyway. The faint face of Christ was seen emerging from the flaking paint on the side of a building. Slowly, it became clearer, and pilgrims began to visit the site. A bearded face slowly materialised, becoming more and more sharp and clear as the months went by. Obviously a miracle; it was so clear that no-one could deny it was a face. Eventually it revealed itself further -- as an old poster for a Willie Nelson concert.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*seeble* in regard to the believing bit -- if you mean believe in the sense of faith.

obviously i ought to more seriously investigate switching to wellbutrin. (thanks, redbird -- fascinating; new word and new theory all at once!)

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I think that's the first time anyone has seebled me over the believing thing. Most people just think I'm really weird.

As it turns out I was wrong about Effexor. It affects noreprinephrin rather than dopamine. I don't know why I can't remember that..

MKK

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

"seeble"?
[*]

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Apophenia has so much entertainment value (poetry, art) but it seems it's only real significance is in revealing the mind of the perceptor.

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

As long as we're on the topic of Strindberg's psyche, I highly, highly recommend this website:

<a href="http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/>http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/</a> It took me weeks to stop saying "Hellll" and "Heeelium" as I walked around the house.

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

Sorry about those missing quote marks:

http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/ (http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/)