Pattern Recogniton

Do you see it too, or am I imagining it.

Pattern Recognition.

Something that bothers me, even makes me sad, is the lack of understanding in the world around all human actions. That seems like a big thing to expect people to have an understanding of, but I don’t feel that it is. Humans are, by evolution or design, capable of a finite number of things. There is a pervading idea that if we can conceive of something then it must be plausible for this thing to become a reality. In a sense there is some truth in this - We invented many things, cured many diseases, built civilizations and so on. In terms of science we have advanced in such a way that people like myself sit in awe at the computers we use today as we type our blogs on them. Compared to what we grew up with, they are nothing if not remarkable. And how they work, to our minds, is nothing short of magic. To the minds of those that know we might seem foolish, and uneducated.

But this is not exactly what I am referring to. Yes we have done all of these things, but that is all we can ever do. Think about an individual human. It would wake, be driven by instinct to eat food, toilet and drink, then it will wash and dress (activities which are part instinct and part learned behaviour) before then engaging in some kind of “work” like activity during the day if it is able to. It will pause, driven by instinct to do so, after a few hours to eat and drink again, before continuing with the work. Following this next period of work it will stop to eat again. After all this has been done it will rest and then eventually sleep before beginning the cycle again. We call this cycle the Day. This cycle of behavior is contained within another cycle of behavior, known as the Week, that is contained within another cycle, the Month and a further larger cycle known as a Year. Each human repeats these collection of annual cycles up to 122 times before dying, most topping out around 80 cycles.

There are of course variations within these cycles, but they are not infinite. The variations might depend on a number of factors. It could be the sex, age, ability, location, season, health or psychology of the individual that varies the patterns performed within the cycles. But even with that, people are still repeating cycles.

Also, if we look at the individual actions themselves, not just the individuals performing them, we can see that there a finite number of actions that can be taken in any given situation. These are further reduced when we factor in the above variables.

An example - A man goes to buy a newspaper from his local shop. He approaches the counter to pay for his newspaper, but as he reaches into his pocket to pull out his wallet he knocks over a display of tin cans. The cans scatter across the floor. This man will perform a series of actions based on the events precipitated by a decision he makes quickly, in that moment. He may stop to pick up the cans, and apologise to the cashier. He may ignore the fallen cans and attempt to continue with his purchase. He may lose his temper and berate the cashier for the placement of the cans. These are some of the most likely occurrences if we factor in some of the above variables and include others such as mental health, age. Less likely would be that he would burst in to tears and fall to the ground clutching his head. It is not outside the realm of possibility that he would do this, if we think about the additional variables, one might be that he is autistic and the overwhelming sensory stimulation would cause him to behave this way (not that all autistic people would, but a small number might). What would not be possible, however, would be that he turns into a strange vapor that dissipates throughout the shop causing all other people in the shop to sneeze as they inhale it. This would be outside the realm of possibility.

So there is a certain amount of predictability we can factor in if we know more about the man prior to his attending the store. If we know that he is autistic and that the falling to the ground is a potential and likely occurrence were he to knock over a set of cans due to the noise it would make then it would not be surprise to us. If we were with the man, knowing this in advance, we would then be able to prepare a contingency action to help him. The cashier however might not know this and find themselves surprised. However, were the man to return to the shop and find the same cashier in place, the cashier now would be aware that this is a potential reaction the man may have were this level of noise to occur again.

This is then the thing that is so confounding to me. Why do people not see these patterns playing out in front of them all the time? These patterns of behavior repeat over and over. Not always in the same formation, but knowing the potential possibilities we could effectively predict what will occur if we recognize the information in front of us.

In politics people often remark that we “need to learn the lessons of history” and yet, no-one ever seems to. And even if one did not learn from history, using pattern recognition of events even within their own lives they could be able to predict with reasonable accuracy what is going to occur. It is odd to me that when I see an entirely predictable result, the majority of people both inside and outside of the system are surprised at it.

In personal relationships people seem to frequently perform the same patterns of behavior but very often their closest relatives and friends will be surprised when they do.

But then this is also not quantifiable or easily evidenced, how many thousands of hours are spent each year on psychological research to provide no definitive method for doing so. And indeed many, many psychologists, psychotherapists, life coaches, gurus & mystics and religious people publish books and blogs trying to define this. They all have their own ideas, their own interpretation of why people behave as they do. If their theories chime with us, or are borne out in practice, we venerate them - and yet studies show that it matters not what method you pick, it is just your dedication and commitment to it that bears fruit.

Some Type-1 Autistic people feel that they have pattern recognition as an inbuilt skill, and many have shown that this is true and a common feature of the autistic spectrum. It would be interesting to know if this stood up under testing. Recently we saw a documentary on the BBC hosted by Chris Packham where GCHQ, the British governmental security and intelligence organization actively seek to employ people like me who have dyslexia for our ability to accurately predict possible outcomes in behavioral situations. This is to me reassuring that I am not alone in my abilities. And maybe this is also why I find affinity in a writer such as C.G. Jung who himself recognized that many people have this ability, that they are in a sense more connected to the “collective unconscious” within them. That thing which we call intuition may in fact be an unconscious process, an ability to bring together multiple data sets from our senses, our memory and our emotions (including empathy) in the blink of an eye to predict a certain outcome.

I often wrangle with my own self on this issue. I am aware that I am able to “read” a person in a way that others are not able to. I do not do this specifically as a judgement, and I account, to a degree, for my own prejudices and biases. I simply focus on what the person is doing, how they act, their mannerisms and behaviors, their reactions, their thought processes, how they dress and so on. This affords me a certain degree of accuracy in predicting their behaviour in other situations. As such I am able to get a good sense of their “character” and then adjust my behavior towards them to potentially influence outcomes. This, in effect, is a form of manipulation. I am aware of the implications of this.

But where the wrangle that I speak of comes in is that there is always doubt. Firstly, I experience an awareness that this may be a form of arrogance on my part, and that this may come across to others in a negative way; that I consider myself superior or even that I am always right. But secondly there is not just doubt in my character, but also in that I am doubting my predictions or analyses. They cannot be right all the time. And yet, as I get older I find more and more that I am rarely wrong. Rarely. And even if I factor in confirmation bias, I still find I am rarely wrong.

In reading the book “Mindhunter”, the inspiration for the TV series of the same name along with many other films, tv series and novels, I find that this is reflected in the career of John Douglas and how he speaks of his achievements. There is a level of grandiosity there that is quite palpable as you read it. He is certainly confident in his convictions (pun notwithstanding) and he is always at the centre of his stories even when the success was really down to one of his colleagues. What interests me here is again we see that he has this ability to recognize patterns and that he uses both cognitive and affective empathy not just with the killers themselves but the victims also. By understanding the victim’s behaviors as “prey” he is able to predict who would be hunting them. He is simultaneously able to think as killer and victim. Even more so he then goes on to develop a way of reverse engineering this to create data sets that can be used by others to identify possible perpetrators and narrow down search criteria. This work has been so successful he has become world renowned and it has become a cornerstone of the technique of profiling, a much misunderstood and maligned concept, without which many killers might still be walking free.

What is happening here? Do we all have the ability to recognize patterns if we look out for them. As mentioned in my previous blogs I certainly have a interest in Jung and his work over the course of his life. It is almost overwhelming to try to contemplate reading his entire collected works, but wherever you pick him up you notice straight away that he is trying to build a scientific framework of recognition. He sees that we repeat the same patterns, but his focus is on the symbolic nature of our thoughts, art and spirituality. His work is thus misinterpreted as being unscientific, that he believes he is an alchemist, but he is not doing this. He is analyzing why these symbols reoccur so often, why do these symbols appear in cultures that seemingly grew separate to each other, with little to no contact? It’s fascinating stuff and I often wonder why science doesn’t take this further, but then I am reminded.

Maybe I’ll go to bed with a Terrance McKenna book tonight, or maybe I’ll just read some Dawkins. Maybe the Bible, or maybe the Qur’an. Or maybe an Agatha Christie. They’re all mysteries, but at least the latter has a definitive ending.