I have long believed that the human mind is just a massive machine extremely capable of finding patterns, even when no pattern exists. It only takes a few star

I have long believed that the human mind is just a massive machine extremely capable of finding patterns, even when no pattern exists. It only takes a few stars in the sky for us to see a polygon of a greek hunter or a lion or a scorpion. We quickly forget all of the plethora of times we look at clouds and see no distinct shapes, but the second we see a human face or a dog in the tufts of cloud, we get excited and forget the likelihood of an oasis or mirage. As soon as we get some hint of signal, our brain insists that it try to rationalize it as a pattern and we must go through a painful process to let our ego down gently if we are not to believe we have found a real "signal in the noise".