#mica is unmotivated

[tired-but-motivated]

How is love?

Person A, dreamily: Person B makes me feel things. I want to know them, and spend time with them. It's love. It like we're meant to be, ya know?

Person C: No I don't. That's weird. How would you know it's love? Do you have scientific proof? I- I don't get it.

Person B, looking lovingly at Person A: Well, you just know. When you look at them, your mind just goes "ah. It's them. They're my idiot. "

Person C, grimacing: The fuck does that mean?

(A few miserable hours later)

Person D, in the distance: *tripping over a houseplant* GOLY DUCK!

Person C, in realization: Oh. I get it. I think I found my idiot.

[caesurables]

Hey Mica, do you plan to do anything for royai smut week?Your art is lovely and it would be a great addition!!Have a great day!!!

sorry nony! not this year 😅my imagination is at its all time low and I can’t seem to think of one :(( maybe some other time in the future? so sorry to disappoint ._.

[leesircc-blog]

The Theory of Apophenia

Apophenia is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data.

The term apparently dates back to 1958, when Klaus Conrad published a monograph titled Die beginnende Schizophrenie. Versuch einer Gestaltanalyse des Wahns ("The onset of schizophrenia: an attempt to form an analysis of delusion"), in which he described in groundbreaking detail the prodromal mood and earliest stages of schizophrenia. He coined the word "Apophänie" to characterize the onset of delusional thinking in psychosis. Conrad's theories on the genesis of schizophrenia have since been partially, yet inconclusively, confirmed in psychiatric literature when tested against empirical findings.

Conrad's neologism was translated into English as "apophenia" (from the Greek apo [away from] + phaenein [to show]) to reflect the fact that a person with schizophrenia initially experiences delusion as revelation.

In 2001 neuroscientist Peter Brugger referenced Conrad's terminology and defined the term as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".

Apophenia has come to imply a universal human tendency to seek patterns in random information, such as gambling.

Pareidolia is a type of apophenia involving the perception of images or sounds in random stimuli.

For example, hearing a ringing phone, while taking a shower. The noise produced by the running water provides a background from which the mind perceives the sound of a phone. A more common example is the perception of a face within an inanimate object—the headlights and grill of an automobile may appear to be "grinning". People around the world see the "Man in the Moon".

People sometimes see the face of a religious figure in a piece of toast or in the grain of a piece of wood.

Another common example is of one standing in a large crowd and perceiving that several people within the crowd are calling one's name.

Overfitting

In statistics and machine learning, apophenia is an example of what is known as overfitting. Overfitting occurs when a statistical model fits the noise rather than the signal. The model overfits the particular data or observations rather than fitting a generalizable pattern in a general population.

Gambler's fallacy

Apophenia is well documented as a rationalization for gambling. Gamblers may imagine that they see patterns in the numbers which appear in lotteries, card games, or roulette wheels.[8] One variation of this is known as the "gambler's fallacy".

Hidden meanings

Fortune-telling and divination are often based upon discerning patterns seen in what most people would consider to be meaningless chance events. The concept of a Freudian slip is based upon what had previously been dismissed as meaningless errors of speech or memory. Sigmund Freud believed that such "slips" held meaning for the unconscious mind (see The Interpretation of Dreams).

References 

Conrad, Klaus (1958). Die beginnende Schizophrenie. Versuch einer Gestaltanalyse des Wahns (in German). Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag. OCLC 14620263.

Jump up^ Hambrecht & Häfner (1993). "'Trema, apophany, apocalypse'--is Conrad's phase model empirically founded?". Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr. 61 (12): 418–23. doi:10.1055/s-2007-999113. PMID 8112705.

Jump up^ Mishara, Aaron (2010). "Klaus Conrad (1905–1961): Delusional Mood, Psychosis and Beginning Schizophrenia.". Schizophr Bull. 36 (1): 9–13. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbp144. PMC 2800156. PMID 19965934.

Jump up^ Brugger, Peter. "From Haunted Brain to Haunted Science: A Cognitive Neuroscience View of Paranormal and Pseudoscientific Thought", Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by J. Houran and R. Lange (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2001)

Jump up^ Hubscher, Sandra L. "Apophenia: Definition and Analysis". dbskeptic.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-16. Retrieved 2012-07-16.

Jump up^ Svoboda, Elizabeth (13 February 2007). "Facial Recognition – Brain – Faces, Faces Everywhere". New York Times. Retrieved 3 July 2010.

Jump up^ "Apophenia". Medical-answers.org. Retrieved 2011-06-29.[dead link]

Jump up^ May 28, 2007 at 9:49 pm (2007-05-24). "Apophenia & Illusory Correlation « Paul Xavier Waterstone". Waterstone.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2011-06-29.

Jump up^ Conrad, Klaus (1959). "Gestaltanalyse und Daseinsanalytik". Nervenarzt (30). pp. 405–410.

Jump up^ Shermer, Michael. "Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise". Scientificamerican.com. Retrieved 2011-06-29.

Jump up^ GrrlScientist (29 September 2010). "Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2011-06-29.

Jump up^ "Why Do We Need a Belief in God with Michael Shermer". 2011-08-19.

Jump up^ Luke, David. "Experiential reclamation and first person parapsychology". Journal of Parapsychology, 75, 185–199

Further Reading

Endslay, Mica R. (2004). Simon Banbury, Sébastien Tremblay, ed. A Cognitive Approach To Situation Awareness: Theory and Application (1st ed.). USA: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 0-7546-4198-8.

Gibson, William (2003). Pattern Recognition. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 978-0-3991-4986-3. OCLC 49894062

[tired-but-motivated]

Me, thinking about my characters saying goodbye to their dying friend/relative: There is no need to cry!

Character: Remember when-

Me, immediately after they say one(1) phrase: *face buried in a pillow* THERE IS A NEED TO CRY.