Pattern Recognition

“Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition. Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect.”

“We have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile. ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition”

“I've had 20 years, 25 years of running business. I've been well trained by a number of amazing organizations and I've got a lot of implicit, subconscious pattern recognition on how to make business decisions.”

“The movie Koyaanisqatsi shows non-commented time-lapse footage and focuses our attention on the very rhythm of our civilized modern life and nature. A marijuana high can do something for a user similar to what this time-lapse footage does. The enhancement of episodic memory and the acceleration of associative streams of memories can alter and enhance our recognition of patterns in our lives in various ways. If we are presented with quick associative chains of past experiences, we can see a pattern in a body of information that is usually not at once presented to our “inner eye” as such.”

“A great deal of creativity is about pattern recognition, and what you need to discern patterns is tons of data. Your mind collects that data by taking note of random details and anomalies easily seen every day: quirks and changes that, eventually, add up to insights.”

“But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.”

“Ignorance and its denial will, sad to say, lead us down the same road as it did in all past history.”

“You need to be so careful when there is one simple diagnosis that instantly pops into your mind that beautifully explains everything all at once. That's when you need to stop and check your thinking...Beware of the delirious guy in the emergency unit with the long history of alcoholism, because you will say, 'He's just drunk,' and you'll miss the subdural hematoma.”

“Let's define listening as making meaning from sound. It's a mental process, and it's a process of extraction. We use some pretty cool techniques to do this. One of them is pattern recognition.”

“I believe we must pursue mastery for who we become along the way in its achievement. When we progress in Jiu Jitsu, that newfound experience and wisdom transcends into all areas of our lives. We use Jiu Jitsu as the vehicle for growth, but that growth radiates over all of human activity. Someone who devotes time and energy in learning this skill is learning far more than how to subdue an opponent. The student learns persistence, perseverance, pattern recognition, problem solving, and most importantly, learning how to learn. In the arena of life, these virtues are far more valuable than any guard pass.”

“Stories people told themselves were biased by the availability of the material used to construct them...what people remember about the past, [Kahneman and Tversky] suggested, is likely to warp their judgement of the future. "We often decide that an outcome is extremely unlikely or impossible, because we are unable to imagine any chain of events that could cause it to occur. The defect, often, is in our imagination.”

“The job market of the future will consist of those jobs that robots cannot perform. Our blue-collar work is pattern recognition, making sense of what you see. Gardeners will still have jobs because every garden is different. The same goes for construction workers. The losers are white-collar workers, low-level accountants, brokers, and agents.”

“A successful person isn't necessarily better than her less successful peers at solving problems; her pattern-recognition facilities have just learned what problems are worth solving.”

“Creativity and insight almost always involve an experience of acute pattern recognition: the eureka moment in which we perceive the interconnection between disparate concepts or ideas to reveal something new.”

“To solve the Cube, you need special skills and understanding. For example, pattern recognition is very important to solve the Cube.”

“A number of Donald Trump's supporters told me during the campaign they had faith that he would be a good president because he would be helped by the experts around him. But the president's improvisation saps experts of their key skill: pattern recognition.”

“The human brain has an amazing ability for pattern recognition, sometimes even better than a computer.”

“When the world throws you too much information, the only way you can stay sane or survive is to look for pattern recognition. Amidst all the blurs, is there a constellation that emerges, is there a straight line that's emerging?”

“The pattern recognition theory of mind that I articulate in this book is based on a different fundamental unit: not the neuron itself, but rather an assembly of neurons, which I estimate to number around a hundred. The wiring and synaptic strengths within each unit are relatively stable and determined genetically—that is the organization within each pattern recognition module is determined by genetic design. Learning takes place in the creation of connections between these units, not within them, and probably in the synaptic strengths of the interunit connections.”

“Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.”