Part of an ongoing series on the issues around some of the areas of study that interest me and that make me think. You may have noticed by now that I like thinking. I believe that it is fundamental to the progress of humanity to question and wonder and think about the World and all the wonders in it. I have a broad range of interests but they do tend to have a core, or nucleus around which they orbit. This core is based around psychology, philosophy, theory of mind and perception and how we, as a species view and understand and interact with our environment. A big part of that is trying to understand how the human mind works in terms of things like pattern recognition. A good example of this is the famous image of the face on mars. This is an image of a mountain on the surface of Mars that appears to be carved into the likeness of a stylised anthropomorphic face. Further photographs of the area have shown that there is nothing other than natural processes involved in the shaping of the mountain top, and that the “face” is simply an optical illusion caused by shadow and light in an unusual configuration. What is interesting is to show this image to people and ask them about it.
Almost everyone that I have shown it to has seen a face and has questioned how this can be. This is even the case with people who are completely convinced that there is not now, nor has there ever been, life on Mars so there is absolutely no way that a mountain top could have been artificially modified to show a face. They still see a face and wonder how it got there, as distinct from immediately seeing a mountain top with interesting pattern of light and shade. This is interesting as it suggests that pattern recognition is a powerful driver in perception, and one that is powerful enough to overcome scepticism or even reality. This, for me, has implications for the whole sphere of conspiracy theory per se in that if we are conditioned to see patterns and interpret them in a way which does not rely on fact or reality, we are thereby only ever observing subjectively rather than objectively and our perception of reality is not something on which we can rely outside the most mundane areas. This is an area that is coming into greater prominence as our criminal courts begin to react to this phenomena in terms of reducing the importance placed on eye witness reports in light of evidence that even when the witness is a trained observer, the evidence is subject to interpretation and is not reliable.
When looking at conspiracy theories it is frequently suggested that there are groups who are trying to control the world by infiltration, false flag operations, misdirection, symbolism and so on, and these are often spotted as patterns, either in data or architecture or group dynamics. Of course, if we are now suggesting that pattern recognition is inherent to the extent that it causes misinterpretation of evidence then these aspects of conspiracy theory become much more difficult to assess and to hold as being credible. If we consider the Masonic/illuminati conspiracy theories that major American cities are laid out along Masonic principles and the street systems show Masonic symbols we immediately see the problem – we are conditioned to spot patterns, so thats what we do, whether they are actually there or not. In the same way, if we look at UFO conspiracies we can see that lights in the sky could potentially be a rich area for misinterpretation and erroneous observation, even when the observer is highly trained and credible. The Phoenix lights case would be a good example of this, a line of lights being misinterpreted as a triangular shape.
This is not to say that conspiracy theories are wrong, or irrelevant, but simply that reports must be viewed from the perspective of understanding that at the most fundamental level, we are conditioned to see things that are not real, and to misinterpret things that are real in such a way that it can be suggestive of large scale conspiracy in a very plausible way, when in fact there is little if any evidence. This applies to a very wide range of conspiracy theories. This is far from being the only issue, but it is a good start point to bear in mind....
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