Compressed Experience

Pattern recognition is arguably one of the most underrated forms of intelligence we possess.

I won't necessarily consider it a skill as it's more so something that we do almost subconsciously over time on domains that we're interested in.

For example, and in my case, it's almost a bit like a second nature with observing how the early shape of something, a conversation, project, relationship, etc. tends to contain the whole of what it becomes, if you know what to look for.

I think certain aspects of intuition are just refined aspects of pattern recognition developed over a long period of time. Sometimes, a "gut feeling" in a given domain is often compressed experience that hasn't been consciously unpacked yet.

Bug or feature?

With instincts, I'm not so sure there are developments during one's existence that meaningfully add to it in the way learning does.

It's just something coded into the human software and constantly triggered based on certain factors happening in the outside environment.

Eventually, we could well get a software upgrade that patches this bug(?) in the system?

My train of thought here is between actually stepping above this layer of instincts through some form of enlightenment, say a kind of meta-awareness that lets you observe the reaction before becoming it, or creating artificial systems that break this chain process of reactions the moment they emerge.

The latter is quite dystopian if those systems are external to the person and controlled by others.

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I can und the argument for thinking of this instinctive layer as a feature instead of a bug in the system via its role in survival and rapid decision-making under uncertainty.

Maybe it's both, as in we still need the instinct as raw signal, but no longer surrender to it unconditionally, to the degree that it overrides judgment.

Back to pattern recognition.

Assumptions

For it to click, in terms of really recognizing the deeper structure beneath the surface noise, a lot of intentionality could be put into getting on a basic level that you are always looking through a lens, and that the first act of real pattern recognition is recognizing the lens itself.

Patterns are only visible to the degree that you're not distorting them through unexamined assumptions. I mean, I've time and again noticed moments when I was most wrong about a pattern are simultaneous with having moments of emotional investment in a particular conclusion. It's a feverish need to direct something that's quite indifferent to my preferred outcome.

Nature doesn't bluff, I guess

And this does look even more interesting when you look at the difference between natural and man-made patterns.

The former is in my view very much easier to study and understand than the latter, which has so much noise centred around the different set of parties involved.

The branching of trees, river deltas, lung tissue can be perceived as patterns that emerge without intent, shaped by constraints and tend toward efficiency and repeat the same logic whether you zoom in or out.

The difference with man made patterns is intent, i.e actors trying to exploit or conceal the patterns they're part of. Favourite example is in markets and social dynamics. Amanda knows of a gatekeeper who knows the weight of a secret held over the person who thinks they’re in charge.

It becomes almost adversarial, hence the reasoning behind reading people and their created systems is so much harder than reading nature.

The role of anomalies also makes the signal-to-noise ratio shift violently, as a single outlier can invalidate a thousand data points of 'normal' pattern behavior.

Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.

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