Apophenia - a good word, I forget where I learned it. It's basically the word for when the pattern-recognition capabilities of we humans go -- not necessarily haywire but go overactive, seeking patterns whether they are there or not.
In the ancient times, when our ancestors were still nomadic hunter-gatherers for whom spoken language was still a cutting-edge technology, three guys might hear a rustling sound in the bush.
- Guy Number One runs away, afraid it might be a sabertooth tiger
- Guy Number Two goes closer, to find out if it is a sabretooth tiger
- Guy Number Three ignores it, figuring it must be the wind or something
I suspect most of us in today's world are descended from Guy Number One and then a few from Guys Two and Three. Why? Because Guy Number One survived and had kids.
Guy Number Two would either end up a hero for killing the tiger (and thus have lots of kids) OR as is far more likely, end up inside the tiger's belly (and have none.)
Guy Number Three was either lucky (maybe it actually was the wind.) Or the tiger was full (possibly from eating Guy Number Two)
The moral of the story is that we are (mostly) descended from people with the most active and paranoid pattern recognition.
You're making too much sense. You might want to consider doing a whole post on that. :)
Heheheh - comments are the reason why I am never worried about running out of material; almost every comment I type generates a new post idea. The magic of Steemit; collaboration happens always, even involuntarily :)