June 12, 2005

Word of the Day: Apophenia

Apophenia is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad, who defined it as the “unmotivated seeing of connections” accompanied by a “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness.”

To wit:

  • On Friday afternoon, after a morning of meetings for the nora project, I stop by Borders and am sold a book by a woman named—you guessed it—Nora.

  • Yesterday, while discussing the Bionic Man and Woman with Kari (don’t ask), the TV in the background begins playing a commercial featuring Lindsay Wagner shilling orthopedic mattresses.

  • In a separate TV episode, half-watching the Thomas Crown Affair (about a high society art heist) while doing some email, the film cuts away to a commercial that has someone carrying an expensive looking painting out of a house.

Notice how they come in threes?

Posted by mgk at June 12, 2005 08:51 AM
Comments


you should've taken the red pill....

And, to boost DVD sales, Col. Austen would appreciate it if you discussed him in a manner that would point directly to his eponymous program, The Six Million Dollar Man. This brings me to my favorite Mondegreen, if Kari's reading. From ZZ Top's "Got me under pressure" I had heard the growl, "She's about all I can handle" as "She's a bionic commando". For much of my early adolescence I wondered why ZZ Top never probed their interest in things cyberpunk within the rest of the Elminator album. Perhaps they foresaw the Billy Idol travesty and realized cybernetics are thing rockers should avoid.

Posted by: Midnight Platypus at June 15, 2005 06:13 PM | Link to Comment
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