Saved by Anna B and
The Dangers of Apophenia: Not Everything Happens for a Reason
Apophenia : A tendency to perceive correlations between unrelated things, because your mind can only deal with tiny sample sizes and assuming things are correlated creates easy/comforting explanations of how the world works.
Morgan Housel • 100 Little Ideas
Humans are meaning-making creatures. We live with biases that look real to us and cause us to make meaning, and we have brains that look for patterns, which is why you might see Jesus on a slice of toast.
Elaine Hilides • Stop Making Meaning Matter
Coincidences are in most cases a mental phenomenon: the patterns exist in the mind, not in the world.
Meghan O'Gieblyn • God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning
collective thinking behaviors are treated as epiphenomena at best, and pathologies at worst.