apophenia

noun /æpəˈfiːni.ə/

1. The perception of or belief in connectedness among unrelated phenomena.

   countable, uncountable

   Apophenia, Win had declared it, after due consideration and in his careful way: the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness in unrelated things. And had never, as far as Cayce knows, said another word about it.

Where it comes from

From German Apophänie, from Ancient Greek ἀποφαίνω (apophaínō, “to appear”), from ἀπο- (apo-) and φαίνω (phaínō, “appear”), coined by German psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in 1958.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry apophenia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

← apophasisaporia →

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