Pareidolia: the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where
none actually exists.
Mimetoliths: stones that “mimic” objects [Greek mimetes (an imitator)
and lithos (stone).
Pareidoliatic apophenia, or just plain old apophenia: the human
tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data.
In 1958, Klaus Conrad coined the word "Apophänie"
to characterize the onset of delusional thinking in psychosis. In contrast to
an epiphany, an apophany (i.e., an instance of apophenia) does not provide
insight into the nature of reality or its interconnectedness but is a
"process of repetitively and monotonously experiencing abnormal meanings
in the entire surrounding experiential field". Such meanings are entirely
self-referential, solipsistic, and paranoid — "being observed, spoken
about, the object of eavesdropping, followed by strangers". Thus the
English term "apophenia" has a somewhat different meaning than that
which Conrad defined when he coined the term "Apophänie".
Please note: "Apophany" should not be confused
with "apophony" - the alternation of sounds within a word that
indicates grammatical information (often inflectional). Example: sing, sang,
sung, song.
Pareidolia is a type of apophenia involving the perception
of images (or sounds) in random stimuli.
Above: “Image of three circles and a line, which the human brain
automatically and subconsciously recognizes as a face - despite the complete
lack of resemblance to a real human face. This is an example of how the brain
can be considered "too good" at recognizing faces.
Though some, especially if hungry, may see it as two eggs
and a strip of bacon,” or so Wikipedia believes.
Example: Figure 8 below, from “Rocks and Fossils Collected
from Mississippi Gravels” at first seemed to me to be a possible human face but
I figured that the David Dockery must have been hungry because he says it’s a “fried
egg:”
But then I realized I was looking at the wrong plate and
should have been looking #8 in this one (called momentary reader’s error, I believe):
Dockery does admit he took a pencil to #9:
Dockery also tells us that “many times a collector will find
an interesting rock that looks like an Indian artifact.” He actually means a “stone”
and is hardly being scientific by saying “looks like” when he means “could be
said to resemble,” which is pretty much the same thing but the friends who used
to talk to me about such things seem to hate the phrase “looks like,” it looks
like (Oh no I did it again: I mean “it seems”). Dockery says archaeologists
have a special term for these sort of interesting stones and is not afraid to
say “Archaeologists call these stones IR, an abbreviation for interesting
rocks.” He says nothing about why a scientist would call a stone a rock, which
I find interesting.
And I found that Dockery was more interested in fossils (except
for a stone he said “looks like a petrified egg roll”) than faces so I made
some toast because now I was hungry too and went on to look up this R. V. Deitrich
who Dockery claimed coined the negolism Mimeolith to see if I could find more
examples to go in my “stones that look like something” folder, which should
really be my “stones that could be said to resemble something” folder.
And so I hitched on over to: http://stoneplus.cst.cmich.edu/mimetoliths/
Deitrich begins by saying, “Nearly everyone has, I suspect,
looked at one thing and imagined it looked like something else. Indeed, many observations of this kind have
been recorded. -- Four examples are: the
Chinese poet Lo-tien (773-846) mentions viewing stones (see
www.bonsai-nbf.org/); Shakespeare
(1564-1616) has Hamlet exclaiming about cloud shapes that resemble "a
camel," "a weasel," and "a whale" (Hamlet -- Act iii,
scene 2); Mark Twain (1835-1910) has
Adam, in The Diaries of Adam and Eve, lamenting (e.g. when Adam asks Eve why she named a certain thing such as a lion a lion " . . . always that same pretext is offered -- it looks like the
thing (i.e. a lion)."; Robert Williams Wood
(1868-1955) in his little book How to
tell the birds from the flowers . . . (1917) provides several delightful
sketches and poetic remarks that pertain to such observations; and, there are , of course, the implications,
especially in some peoples' minds, that relate mimetoliths and pareidoliatic
apophenia.”
R.V.’s focus is on naturally occurring stones and his
gigantic illustrated list includes just two possibly humanly enhanced stones (that he
sounds a little doubtful about), but he does include this interesting photo (IP) below:
#43. Makapansgat
jasperite cobble (height ~ 8 cm). This cobble is described as a manuport
because its diverse markings have been shown by "detailed microscopic
analysis" to be natural -- i.e., neither made by nor modified
artificially. It was found in South Africa at a site to which it was carried
"either by Australophithecus africanus, or by an as yet unknown
hominid" "between two and three million years" ago. Additional
information and references about this cobble are on the web site: http://mcw.vicnet.net.au/home/portable/web/manuport.html
. (© photo by R.G. Bednarik).
Note: That link didn’t work for me but this one did: http://www.ifrao.com/manuports-and-very-early-palaeoart/
Well that’s food (a fried egg, possibly an egg roll) for
thought, isn’t it? A pre-human manuport, a stone or Interesting Rock carried to
a cave because it “looked like” a (pre)human face (or two eggs and a strip of
yet to be invented bacon).
As I approached the end of the web page, I found that I liked this R.V.
Dietrich who says, “Is it any wonder that we, usually "down to earth"
geologists, when we look at certain topography, rock exposures, rock and
mineral specimens, and beach stones sometimes think, "That looks like a ... "? -- Certainly not!!! Imagination is not only one of the
capacities that separates humans from other living beings: It is common; it is fun; and sometimes, as Burke’s (1940) lyrics go,
"Imagination is funny; it makes a cloudy day sunny . . ." {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination_(1940_song)}
Consequently, it came as a surprise -- indeed, a shock -- to
me when one of our would-be professional spokesmen dismissed practices
involving imagination exercises of the kind just mentioned in rather negative
terms: ". . . faced with the
history, the psychology, and the obtuse logic of describing minerals in
non-mineral terms, one can only conclude that it will continue despite any
complaints. The best defense may simply be to see the humor in it all"
(Wilson, 1978). -- Fortunately, I think, Wilson's attitude is not held by many
Geoscientists (especially educators).”
Pareidolia:
the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none actually
exists.
Mimetoliths: stones that “mimic” objects [Greek mimetes (an
imitator) and lithos (stone).
A neologism is the name for a relatively new or isolated
term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but
that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are
often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or
event.
A behavioral scientist will tell you inanimate objects like
stones do not have the ability to exhibit any sort of behavior such as to mimic
something, but mimetolith is easier to say that Pareidolialith...
Lots of this is just "cut and paste" from:
Lots of this is just "cut and paste" from:
There is currently a controversial debate concerning whether
unusual experiences are symptoms of a mental disorder, if mental disorders are
a consequence of such experiences, or if people with mental disorders are
especially susceptible to or even looking for these experiences. --Dr. Martina
Belz-Merk
“....nothing is so alien to the human mind as the idea of
randomness.” --John Cohen
"Apophenia is the spontaneous perception of connections and
meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena... http://skepdic.com/apophenia.html
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