Had an apophany lately?
12 October 2026
No, not an 'epiphany'. I'm talking about its occasionally evil twin, apophenia, which is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns or connections in random or unrelated data. An 'epiphany' on the other hand is the eureka moment where a complex problem or situation suddenly makes sense from a new perspective. An 'apophany' can sometimes feel the same, but it's leading you up the garden path. Pareidolia is a specific type of apophenia where we tend to see a meaningful image, face or pattern in a random or vague visual or auditory stimulus, such as a face on mars or the moon. While that in itself is a very interesting topic, in today's exploration I want to dig into the wider pattern-seeking that feeds conspiracy theories.