WHEN PATTERN DETECTION GOES WRONG

As you know from your studies in NLP and Neuro-Semantics, we are the framers and the pattern detectors. We do this intentionally and mindfully even though this is what the brain does naturally. Our brains are forever looking for and trying to recognize patterns all around us. It’s a basic survival tendency. It began when you were a child. Your primitive form of thinking even then was on the lookout for patterns. Then if something happened twice or three times— Lo and Behold! A Pattern! You then “jumped to a conclusion,” made a learning, and created a generalization that then became part of your mental mapping about how the world works.

The problem is not about how to detect or create patterns. You naturally and inevitably do that. That’s not the problem. The problem is how to do that with sufficient accuracy, validity, relevance, and sufficiency. And that’s what critical thinking and effective learning is all about. The problem is that because you have this automatic and habitual tendency of seeing patterns— you see them and invent them where they do not even exist!