Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to Allergy to chaos.

re: Allergy to chaos.
Robert — (archived)

I'll tread very lightly on the subject of finding patterns of bias in news reporting. There, that was it, so light was my tread. Just a nod to the venue.

I'd agree with you about pattern-seeking. That tropism for pattern served us well in our native environment, but it can malfunction in an environment different from the one we evolved in. If what we think we're learning about the underlying chaotic nature of the universe holds up, the human brain may need to go through another one of those painful episodes of rewiring in order to deal with it. Which all in all would be an improvement, I think. Imagine a world in which people could dismiss a lot of irritations and upsets with a placid "shit happens", and mean it based on certain knowledge.

OTOH, some of the respectable speculation on the frontiers about a possible interaction between consciousness and the quantum universe tells me I shouldn't assume no causation just because the presumed causation is false; maybe it goes the other way, as in maybe an unlucky person arranges things to cross paths with a lot of black cats and for the chemical bonds of the glass in mirrors to weaken and shatter...ya never know, right?

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