The Neuroscience of the Unexplained
The Neuroscience of Coincidence
Apophenia, probability neglect, Bayesian inference and the brain's compulsive search for causal connections in random events
1,158-word article with 10 Harvard references.
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The human brain is not designed to appreciate randomness. It is designed to find patterns, assign causes and construct narratives, even when the events in question are statistically inevitable and causally unrelated. This article examines apophenia, probability neglect, the law of truly large numbers and the neuroscience of causal reasoning to explain why coincidences feel meaningful and why the brain cannot stop itself from searching for connections that are not there.
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