Apophenia
From Lostpedia
Apophenia is the perception of patterns, or connections, where in fact none exist. Most psychologists agree that this condition exists in everyone, to some degree; it is a bias of the human mind.
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The Show
Lost is a television show that lends itself to the creation of apophenic theories, more than most. The fact that it features a large number of central characters (and many other recurring secondary characters) is a major factor in this; if you increase the number of protagonists, it follows that the number of connections between characters can increase at an exponential rate in comparison. One of the themes acknowledged by the writers, in fact, is about the serendipitous nature of improbable meetings, i.e., the "6 degrees effect".
Fansites
Some would argue that LOST fans get carried away in their analysis of details based on this phenomenon. Whilst many connections between characters do exist, it's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that there are connections between every character. Similarly, while many minor details can bear fruit as clues and Easter Eggs for the plot, some are not meant to be analyzed; some discrepancies are just coincidences, prop or continuity errors, or simply instances where applying Occam's razor is the best attitude to adopt.
Examples in Lost
- Numbers Game: Adding or subtracting any two of the the Numbers will produce another number which attaches some significance to the plot. There are only rare examples where such arithmetic will be beyond coincidence (due to miniscule probability), such as 7418880. Likewise, any random string or set of numbers (e.g. 491239744276467345) is likely to contain one or more of the Numbers unless the producers deliberately try to avoid having them show up altogether, especially considering that two of them are single-digit numbers.
- Example taken from Jacob:
- In the Bible, Jacob had two sons with his wife Rachael: Joseph (his 11th child) and Benjamin (his 12th) 11+12=23 ("The numbers")
- Don't Quote Me On It: Searching the transcripts for any common phrase (such as "I've got it", "Let's go" or "Oh my God") will produce many potential hits, not all of which are suitable for the List of commonly spoken phrases (reserved for unusual repeated phrases which likely recur due to writer's intent/emphasis).
- Forced Connections: Believing two people of the same race or hair color to be the same person despite the fact that they are clearly portrayed by different actors; i.e. Matthew Fox (playing Jack) and Len Cordova (playing Mathias); Francois Chau (playing Dr. Marvin Candle) and Dann Seki (playing Dr. Curtis).
- Inevitable Similarities: Due to budget and location restraints (Lost is still, for the most part, filmed on the island of Oahu), certain props and locations get reused in different contexts over the course of the show, causing fans to believe the prop or location to be the same. St. Andrew's Priory, for example, represented no less than four entirely different locations during the first four seasons, such as Eddington Monastery in "Catch-22" and Oxford University in "The Constant", causing fans to misattribute a photo from "Catch-22" depicting Mrs. Hawking and Brother Campbell as having been taken in Oxford following the airing of "The Constant". The infamous Golden Pontiac is another example.
- The Rorschach Test: There have been fans who have been convinced that they saw certain unusual patterns in some screencaptures ("Execute symbol"-shaped clouds, letters in the sea after Dave jumped, Swan symbol shaved into Ben's neck), who persist in their beliefs even after they are refuted by statements in the official podcasts.
- Theoretical Free-For-All: Entering a set of words related to the show into Google and trying to form a theory from whatever results, despite lack of logical and parsimonious reasoning. Themisfitishere is a satirical spoof of this theorizing phenomenon.
- Theory Overrules Show: Some fans who came up with a theory will cling to it no matter what, even though it's not only not backed up by the show, but in fact directly refuted by it. Those fans will often insist that their theory is "obviously" what the writers had in mind, and all the established information from the show contradicting it is shrugged off as mere "continuity errors". The persistent rumor that Hurley saw Locke's fall from "The Man from Tallahassee" in "Numbers", even though neither the timeline nor any of the details match up aside from the theme of a "man falling off a building", is a prime example.
- Unobservant Fans: Sometimes theories are caused by fan inattentiveness. At the end of "Par Avion", the tattoos on Jack's inner forearm were particularly prominent due to the lighting in the scene. Many fans had never noticed these tattoos before. Some fans, concluding that they were new tattoos, speculated that the Jack Shephard seen there was a clone or alternative version. In reality, the tattoos are Matthew Fox's real tattoos and had been visible on Jack since "Pilot, Part 1", but due to their location, they are not normally prominently displayed.
- Random Errors: Because of intense scrutiny by fans, random errors in production can sometimes be taken as hidden clues. Themisfitishere also frequently spoofs this type of analysis. One example is the slightly different set dressing in the Swan between Man of Science, Man of Faith and Adrift. This led some fans to believe that there were two different timelines. In reality the producers had simply chosen to dress the set differently.
Other examples outside of Lost
Ptosis' Dog
This is a short story by Chilean novelist and movie director Alexandro Jodorowsky, about the dangers of overanalysis. It was published in the anthology Paso de Ganso (Goose Step) Ed. Mondadori, ISBN 970-05-14352-1
Synopsis: In the futurist city of Lexgopol, imagination has been eradicated, which has led to massive suicides. As a means to counter this, the Lexgopolian Dictator reinstated ludic activities. But, as every manifestation of culture had been wiped out in the Prehistoric Wars, creativeness was impossible, until a single movie was discovered; Noches de Amor en Bombay (Bombay's Love Nights). The movie was opened with great ceremony by the science community. Lexgopolians would watch the movie times and times again, cataloguing every detail, analyzing every word said, every piece of scenery, silverware, drapery, every single minutiae was carefully and painstakingly recorded in the Great Encyclopedia of Noches de Amor en Bombay. Ptosis was a citizen that wanted to become someone important, he watched the movie ten hours a day for thirty years to discover something that remained undiscovered. One day he saw through the holes of a basket an opaque body, which he concluded was a fox-terrier. His discovery made him famous and celebrated, until a rival discovered it was simply a shadow. Ptosis was deleted from history books but lived on as a popular saying; "Lest we discover another Ptosis' dog!"
Significance: The story, published in 2001, makes reference to hyper-specialized encyclopedias devoted to a single phenomenon. (it predates the boom of wikis for a couple of years), and criticizes the devotion to details, overshadowing the big picture. In some Spanish-speaking literary circles the expression Ptosis' Dog, refers to some scholar who dedicates too much time studying a single aspect of a work ignoring or neglecting everything else.
This story is a cautionary tale about the danger of overspecialization and overtly aggressive attention to details. Concentrating in small details provokes losing sight of important issues. The stereotypical geek is savvy in finding inconsistencies that are overlooked by casual viewers, creating the popular perception of a compulsive obsessive individual. (The term Trekkie addresses this stereotype). The author chose the most inane movie possible to reveal that the object of attention is not even important.
Television
- Star Trek fandom has found logic in randomly spoken stardates. [source needed]
- The movie Galaxy Quest refers to an entire civilization built around a single manifestation of culture; a TV sci-fi show that they thought was real.
See also
- The Numbers
- Psychology
- Mindf*ck
- Pi
- ThEmIsFiTiShErE
- Character Relations (for an overview of connections that are confirmed to exist).
External links
- Wikipedia articles:
