I’m sitting here and noticing that almost every bar tender is dancing to the almost exact beat to the music. So in general I’m wondering if anyone knows why we’re so addicted to patterns? From visual to audio and so on, what drives the brain to find and replicate patterns so much? Are other animals addicted to patterns?
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Pattern recognition is a major factor in evolution and is a major reason that our brains are so complex. We’ve almost specialized in pattern recognition.
It is why you can see faces in toast or make a conspiracy out of said face in toast. We can even find patterns where there are none and that can lead to issues when we don’t temper that pattern recognition against reality.
This is how everything from a squirrel trying to see a cat through the grass and how we could make out a tiger in a bush by seeing an eye and a few lines. Suddenly the rest of those “find the pattern” neurons start testing against previous patterns until finding the one that goes “Tiger!” It was key to survival in a world of increasing camouflage.
More, as always, here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition_(psychology)
Edited to add survival notes as someone else helpfully pointed out!
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