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by Terr_ 112 days ago
I often observe that humans are wired to create causal stories, whether we intend to or not, even in circumstances, we know are false.

A great example involves flipping a coin. Even people who know it's basically an independent 50/50 chance every time get drawn into thinking about "hot streaks" and "overdue for the opposite."

It's arguably a superpower that has given us lots of agriculture and tools and technology and culture, but like hunger and obesity we can't just turn it off when it gets maladaptive.

1 comments

Philosophy calls this a "just so" explanation

Humans are very good at pattern matching and explanation and that's what's given us success, but false-positive matches sometimes are the result and need to be corrected down a bit