Comments on: Cultivate Your Garden

By: alephbet

alephbet — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 20:59:44 +0000

An overlooked detail is that all studies do not reveal information, they require interpretation. Interpretation is everything. The pattern recognition mechanisms of mind are not observable ordinarily, so the mind creates or tries to create some sense from whatever has come to attention. The mind itself is what strives to seek meaning. When the mind cannot find some familiar point of reference in the past, it’s in a ‘no compute’ state, and that causes confusion, not necessarily a loss of control. Ex: I began to notice license tabs and noticed an attempt to make sense of the jumbled letters and numbers. It was bothersome, tedious and useless I thought. I couldn’t control the impulse or whatever it was, it kept noticing license tabs. Then one day I chanced to notice DJWANNA on a tab. Do You Want To? obviously. I had just said my name was ju-anna when that happened. Meaningful coincidence? Perfect timing? When a pattern like that continues, how will science interpret it when one incident isn’t enough? I watched the debate: Does God Have A Future. Your attitude was not unbiased, detached and respectful, in my opinion.

By: Fred H

Fred H — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:13:46 +0000

I have a fairly superstitious co-worker who came to mind while I was reading this article. Our many conversations often have a theme of lack of control in them. I will continue our conversations with a a new way to look at them.

By: kevin

kevin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:54:50 +0000

Where is your Mar 2010 Article?

By: PR Miller

PR Miller — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:08:09 +0000

Aww… I saw dragons in figure 1. Several of them. Come on, you know that’s gotta mean something!!! Tell me it means something, oh Great Reader of Minds and Meanings who knows what I am thinking and meaning by what I see in nothing!!!

My thought on this is that the “publish or perish” atmosphere at universities is what keeps research like this showing up in magazines. If psychology PhD’s and doctoral candidates want to keep their jobs, they’ve gotta come up with something for their papers that grabs attention and sounds intriguing and maybe gives insight into the “human condition.” That, and the need for grant money to keep going and eventually win tenure.

Pardon me if my world isn’t changed by this. I once saw the face of christ in a pattern in the plywood door of a bathroom stall in a filling station. On the inside of the door, facing the toilet. That’s gotta mean something profound, too, doesn’t it? Maybe I should have stolen the door and sold it on Ebay, I could be rich.

By: Ross

Ross — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:22:06 +0000

‘hidden images such as a hand, horses, a chair or the planet Saturn’

The weakness in this study (and in scientific approaches to apophenia in general) is the assumption that sensory data has inherent ‘meaning’.

In figure 2, the assumption is that we are ‘meant’ to see Saturn – that there is a ‘right’ answer. The fact that the data may have been derived from a degraded photo of ‘Saturn’ is irrelevant – it could have been randomly generated as far as the viewer is concerned.

Anyone seeing a paperclip and a coin are dismissed as ‘wrong’, as seeing something ‘illusory’.

By: John D. Draeger

John D. Draeger — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:01:37 +0000

Many people joins cults/religions when they have recently gone though an emotionally difficult time, such as a separation from a spouse, death of a loved one, loss of job, move to a different location. And at times of high physical/emotional distress people are more likely to experience hallucinations, which may encourage belief in the supernatural.

By: Gordon Cheyne

Gordon Cheyne — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:56:20 +0000

Rajesh Kher Says: “insufficient belief in GOD”

Why a singular God, Rajesh?
There are lots of them out there . . . .the more the merrier.

By: Rajesh Kher

Rajesh Kher — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:01:46 +0000

For the lay public there is no control over the predetermined future and hence does it lead to superstition of God, so that all successes can be attributed to God and failures to either bad luck or insufficient belief in GOD.