Thesis: Ambiguity & Apophenia
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My thesis explores the concept of Apophenia, a psychological error in which unrelated points of information are connected to draw inaccurate conclusions. It is commonly experienced in both visual and logical perception such as when a cloud looks like a dog, a conspiracy theory gets a bit too out of hand, or the CIA and Soviet Union try to weaponize psychics (note: not a conspiracy theory). The following books investigate and document the way Apophenia appears in our lives and to what degree we allow it to hold sway over us.
Primitive Metaphor
The first half of my thesis began with E.H. Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion. One chapter, in particular, discusses the use of stain-making techniques by Renaissance artists to inspire new compositions. It’s what Gombrich refers to as an ability to decode the natural environment to encode art.
Ancient peoples often searched for more significant meanings behind complex forms, choosing to interpret their lives through patterns in the sky and the land. Today, in our urban environments, stars are rare, and forests grow scarce, limiting our view to the clouds of smoke or water vapor and the stains beneath our feet. While we may no longer rely on purely natural forms to foresee our future, the curiosity and desire to see beyond the mundane persist. A willingness to explore the metaphorical potential of these familiar visual elements, uncovering the underlying patterns and associations that shape our perceptions of the world.
The following book, titled Primitive Metaphors, contains a collection of over 300 photographs of stains and clouds alongside my visual interpretation of their shape.
The book opens with a quote from Jed Perl “See more, think more”, a far more condensed version of the story Gombrich starts his chapter off with. The gist? Our visual experience places limits on our imagination. The more we have seen, the more we know, and the more we are then able to interpret in ambiguity. The beauty of it shows us that within the myriad of human experiences, there is an exponential number of translations. So that if we happen to see the same thing then that speaks to a shared visual language and culture. TKnow more, see more.
[ ( TEA + IMAGINATION / SKEPTICISM ) * ∞ PROBABILITY ] ≈ ‽
Having finished Primitive Metaphor, I realized that although the book spoke to the visual aspect of Apophenia, it neglected to fully delve into its logical fallacies.
In ancient times, people would have turned to local fortune-telling methods to appease their concerns about the future. Their knowledge of reality was based on a mystical understanding grounded in intuition and belief. Our problem now isn’t that we don’t know enough but that we know so much. Even as we have gained access to more information, we have yet to grow accustomed to organizing and making sense of it. We continue to string together events in our personal lives and those happening elsewhere in a way that closely mimics the desires of our ancestors. Not to mention that fortune-telling is still practiced today and is still a somewhat significant influence within certain communities.
[ ( TEA + IMAGINATION / SKEPTICISM ) * ∞ PROBABILITY ] ≈ ‽, is a made-up equation for fortune-telling. The book itself collects three methods of divination (wax, tea, and cheese) that was used to divine my own fortune. Each method was applied to a list of 10 questions, and each section is preceded by a record of the practice and a list of symbols gathered from various texts ranging from the contemporary to the occult.
Conclusion
What we make of the word has radically changed over the last few years, not to mention centuries, but how we make sense of it, the psychological tools we have at hand, have not changed at all.