As clouds drift by

By John Kochis, Hamilton

I remember as a kid, laying out in our pasture, watching the clouds drift by. Given time I would often see something unusual. One of the clouds might take on the form of an animal, or the profile of a face. This also happened when looking at geological formations, like mountains or rocks. I even found a rock on our farm that looked like a bike seat, and recently at a friend’s place, a rock that looked like the skull of a small primate. My friend’s partner is always finding rocks that are shaped like hearts. A pattern she is especially predisposed to.

The human mind is a wonderful thing. It sometimes finds patterns where none exist. It’s this ability to see patterns that fuels our creativity, makes us great story tellers, musicians, and painters. It’s a part of our DNA. I even noticed this ability to find patterns where none really exist when it comes to thinking, rather than seeing. as in the case of clouds drifting by or rocks that look like bike seats. It had to do with a letter I received from a government entity. The envelope was formal and somewhat intimidating. I purposely decided not to open the letter and let my mind stew on its contents. As the day progressed, the letter poked at me like a sticker in my shoe. By the end of the day, I thought the letter contained a fee or something even worse. The small sticker had turned into a thorn. Finally, I opened the letter. There was nothing nefarious or worrisome contained within it. They simply needed to close off the street to paint the cross walk. My anxiety melted away.

But not entirely. I thought about how this same process could be manipulated by the unscrupulous. Used in a way to exploit our legitimate worries or create worries that never even existed. What if they created a pattern and imposed it on the other? Like the letter I received, until I opened it, I had created a narrative that was not true. The same thing could happen with our fellow humans. Talking with them would be the same as opening the letter. We will probably find the story inside is nothing like we thought.

In many cases, like the rock that looks like a bike seat, or clouds that look like animals, these patterns are harmless, even fun, but there is a dark side. Patterns can become conspiracies and can be destructive. A feed back loop can occur, and soon we are inside a Russian nesting doll, inside a rabbit hole, when one conspiracy ends, another fills the vacuum. How do we avoid fooling ourselves, or being fooled by the unscrupulous?

It’s not always easy, but there are ways that can help us navigate the conspiracy sea. Probably one of the best is the scientific method. It uses systematic observation, experimentation, measurement, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. What’s more, the results are peer reviewed, in a kind of crucible or mad max thunder dome where they are poked and prodded by recognized experts in the field. It is a brutal but very effective process in preventing us from fooling ourselves, but this is not always practical for day to day existence. So we rely on others with certified credentials who work for organizations or Academic institutions that are subject to external peer review. It’s imperfect, mistakes still happen, but on the whole it’s effective. Another useful approach is to determine the primary source of the information. Are they credentialed? Are they referencing a credentialed individual or institution? If not, then it may be wise to question the information and do further research. As the famous astronomer Carl Sagan once said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. With so much misinformation out there, this adage is more relevant than ever.