Correlate or Bust!

Since having started this blog I have found myself reading far more news than I used to, more for some inspiration in writing next the post.  What I have across is seeming unrelated news items that look like they are connected.  One of my favourite authors H.P. Lovecraft said in one of his novels:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

As a concept he may be on to something although in this day and age of mass media it should be easier to correlate the data using data- mining tools and the computers can go insane with the knowledge.

The problem with coincidences is that nobody takes into account all of the other data out there, two news items just over week apart with similar circumstances would suggest they are related in some way but how about all the other incidents that were not reported because either they were not considered to be news worthy enough or that they happened to individuals.

Am I paranoid or just unable to correlate enough information to create a proper view of what is a coincidence and what is an anomaly.  If I am paranoid then I would be entering the heady domain of conspiracy theories.  What is odd about conspiracy theories is the extremes they go to for their explanations, a simple answer is better than a vastly complicated one and yet those that believe in conspiracy theories seem to prefer the complex ‘truths’ as opposed to the simple ones.

Conspiracy theorists say: They want to believe!

Well I prefer to know!  Belief takes us into the realms of religion which have no place in science.

I have read a far number of conspiracy theory websites and watched several on Youtube normally when I have been playing the Youtube game of bouncing between videos from the related videos pane. In some cases it only requires a couple of links before you find a video about a conspiracy theory from a start point of scifi shorts (no surprise).  Although Yubtube does seem to be somewhat saturated in them.  Their evidence either lacks body or basic common sense more often than not both. Much of their science is pseudoscience based upon misinterpreted concepts which I have done the same myself, it is quite easy to do.

I never take anything as true especially it is something I read or seen on the Internet, you should always fact check from as many sources as possible.  In the antique trade it is like having provenance for an item except in this case instead of an object we are looking at truths about the world.

Too often people watch a TV ‘documentary’ and assume everything said is true just because it is meant to be a factual programme.  Nobody questions the ‘facts’ of the programme.  Questioning seems to be going out of style but then I am generalising like I always do.

As I have often said: The Truth has Become an Urban Myth