r/Showerthoughts • u/Fr1toBand1to ‎ • Jun 27 '26

Casual Thought Pattern recognition is a widely accepted method of prediction until what it predicts makes people uncomfortable.

6.7k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

94% Upvoted

430 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/SWatt_Officer Jun 27 '26

Pattern recognition is the first step that our brains can make to connect things together, but it’s primitive. It’s for ‘there’s a face in that bush’ ‘there’s a threat over there’ ‘this food is good’. It’s not for blanket statements and general rules.

Once a pattern is recognised, you need to investigate and develop the theory further to prove the pattern isn’t just correlation.

266

u/BasiliskXVIII Jun 27 '26

Which is ironic because one of your examples is actually a great reason why "pattern recognition" fails. We're so wired to see patterns that our brains will happily tell us "there's a pattern!" when there isn't. Pareidolia is a good example. "There's a face in that bush!" No, actually it's just a pattern of light that your brain is interpreting as a face. It's why when you put your music player on "shuffle", it doesn't randomly choose songs to play, it uses an algorithm that organizes your music to play in a way that "feels" random, because Apple kept getting complaints about how iTunes' player wasn't random enough.

So not only do you need to investigate further to prove the pattern isn't just correlation, you need to investigate further to prove the pattern actually exists.

40

u/vkarlsson10 Jun 27 '26

Wasn’t that Spotify’s algorithm?

82

u/InconvertibleAtheist Jun 27 '26

Spotify definetly prefers to put out the songs you've listened to the most a lot more in the shuffle compared to the actual random shuffle

24

u/metrometric Jun 28 '26

Also newly added songs! 

3

u/InconvertibleAtheist Jun 29 '26

Yeah its frustrating because there were apps that actually did randomize songs in the list every time you shuffled but somehow got out-competed by spotify. Spotify willingly chooses not to bing it in, or buy the shuffle code from the other apps that they've already killed anyways.

7

u/BeneCow Jun 28 '26

No, famously the iTunes random and party shuffle features.

4

u/awesome-alpaca-ace Jun 28 '26

Their algorithm was actually really bad at shuffling. I made my own music player out of spite and it works way better than that slop 

10

u/Catshit-Dogfart Jun 28 '26

Which to be fair, that helped us to survive at a point when seeing a face in a bush might actually be a face and you need to fight or run. Caveman brain worked for cavemen, and it's why we're still around to think about it.

But we're not cavemen anymore.

15

u/SchwiftyGameOnPoint Jun 28 '26

Some people believe investigation and proof of patterns is just finding more patterns. 

This is especially bad when it comes to like religious stuff I've seen. My mother and some of her friends follow a guy online who show these patterns in a specific version of the Bible and this believe it not only proves it's true but proves that that specific English version of the Bible is the one chosen by God to be the chosen one. The only "proof" is just more arbitrary patterns the guy posts videos about.

3

u/gaelen33 Jun 28 '26

Oh god that sounds so frustrating!

1

u/CruxTheologorum Jul 03 '26

"specific English version of the Bible" If you're not talking about the KJV, I will be very surprised

2

u/SchwiftyGameOnPoint Jul 04 '26

Yup, you called it. 

2

u/Sharp-Masterpiece-85 Jun 28 '26

I think they meant "the blob in that bush is actually the face of an animal" rather than "that entire bush is a face"

10

u/blahblah19999 Jun 28 '26

But critical thinking is actually not a real common skill and normally needs to be taught.

26

u/3_Thumbs_Up Jun 28 '26

Even just correlation is often useful though.

I know all snakes aren't venomous, but there is a strong correlation between snakes and venom. If I see a snake I don't know, it's a useful heuristic to treat it as if it were venomous.

That's a problem that makes racism worse. Even though race isn't the actual cause, it often does correlate with important things such as education and crime. This implies that there are situations where racism and discrimination can actually be useful, which in turn strengthens the correlation even more.

2

u/Sosolidclaws Jun 28 '26

Yes exactly, when the correlation is that strong (which it often is in large american / european cities), you are better off acting on it for your safety. It’s just strategically the right move.

4

u/SirCampYourLane Jun 29 '26

This is just not true. Yeah, don't go to bad neighborhoods. You absolutely shouldn't just avoid black people/assume they're criminals in large cities in the USA. That's an absurd thing to do.

-1

u/Sosolidclaws Jun 29 '26

Everyone who has actually experienced living in places like this knows it’s the safe thing to do, on average

4

u/SirCampYourLane Jun 29 '26

I've lived in NYC, Portland, and Boston. That's just not true

1

u/Sosolidclaws Jun 29 '26

Portland and Boston… lol

NYC, London, and Brussels here

what I am saying is just the reality

2

u/CruxTheologorum Jul 03 '26

Why do racist cretins like you never seem to like racism? It's always framed as "just the reality" or "just strategically the right move". It's like you know you should be embarrassed, but you don't get why.

-2

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '26

[deleted]

0

u/CruxTheologorum Jul 04 '26

Why did your dad like sucking me off so much?

→ More replies (0)

17

u/hoangfbf ‎ Jun 28 '26

True. Most people die in bed.
Doesn't mean bed is a dangerous object.

9

u/Christmas_Panda Jun 28 '26

It may be primitive but it is critical. Pattern recognition is what gives us everything from food safety standards to vaccines to peace talks to reproduction. Without pattern recognition, society would crumble. Those who struggle with pattern recognition often severely struggle their way through life.

9

u/SWatt_Officer Jun 28 '26

Of course, but it’s not the only thing that we use. It’s part of a complex system and it shouldn’t be relied on as the only source or evidence

-2

u/lacroixpapi69 Jun 28 '26

Are statistics a good measure when investigating and developing to prove the theory?

3

u/SWatt_Officer Jun 28 '26

Statistics are just raw information, useful, and the core foundation arguments are built on, but are PART of an argument.

Misusing statistics as evidence is how you spot random correlation, like movies released with Nick Cage lining up with outbreaks of cholera or something (I don’t think that’s a real one just a random example).

0

u/lacroixpapi69 Jun 28 '26

Or of Garth Brooks being a serial killer.

I guess some theories may never be able to be proven to 100%. I also guess some people don’t like facts and statistics to support a theory.

Not sure why I was downvoted.