The term apophenia was coined by Klaus Conrad in 1958. According to Skeptic's Dictionary apophenia is the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena. In statistics this is called a Type 1 error, seeing patterns where none, in fact, exist. Many believe apophenia is the explanation to many unusual experiences and phenomena such as ghosts, hauntings, E.V.P., numerology, and The Dark Side of the Rainbow. Conrad described this as distortion of reality present in psychosis without really implying the presence of neurological or mental illness.
Others believe in the synchronicity, as defined by Carl Jung: a phenomenon in which coincidental events "seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality.” This theory is impossible to prove.
A big part of the psychedelic scene in the 60's was putting random film clips to unrelated music. I have even stumbled across “The Synchronicity Arkive.” (http://www.synchronicityarkive.com/) In The Dark Side of the Rainbow, Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon album is said to be in synchronicity with the visuals from The Wizard of Oz. A problem you encounter while watching this is that The Dark Side of the Moon album by Pink Floyd isn't as long as The Wizard of Oz. One theory is to put the album on repeat and let it start again. A second theory is to put on the Pink Floyd track Wish You Were Here and then finish it with PIGS from the Animals album, another song by Pink Floyd. I can remember watching the film a while back and thinking the same thing I did after watching it again. As awesome as a soundtrack as it sounds for the movie, and as many parts match, there still seems to be some gaps in between. I cannot choose a theory to support.
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Is this a research topic? Or might the topic be musical myths in general?
ReplyDeleteI believe have heard of apophenia before, just briefly, on the television show Penn & Teller's BullS***. It is definitely an interesting subject and I wish you all the luck in it. I hope to get a chance to read it.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually still debating what to narrow my topic down to. There are many music myths to follow up on. I.E. Stairway to Heaven. When you play the song backwards it is said that you hear the Stairway to Hell. The topic could be musical myths, but I might decide to get deeper into the psychological aspect of it.
ReplyDeleteI like the research topic, but it seems to cry for a specific focus... I tried watching Wizard of Oz with Dark side of the moon and found that I was seeking more that I actually saw. Perhaps the paper could be specifically about attaching significance to abstraction - finding meaning in art beyond its design.
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