We perceive patterns in life

We do. Every single decision, every single time. But the patterns do not come from us. We derive it from what is around us. Our world is made up of algorithms. Of structure, of routines. There are calculations and physical quantities to be defined all around us. We only extract some of it which we felt is important and we use it. It really is not perceiving patterns in life, but rather perceiving patterns of life.

When something new and random appeared or is formulated, we catagorise them, dissect them and give it a pattern which is acceptable to what we believe is possible. We make the unexplained explained by giving it a rule which our brains tell us is possible to occur.

The world is actually made up of theories. Many people have noticed this. And many more have made contributions to this. Reality is made up of laws and rules conceived by human thought and subjected to human classification. Economics is full of theories to explain how things are in the world but they do get wrong several times. Physics is a more better and philosophical example. The way we can touch , bend and push objects around us is considered classical physics. We understand the world and we invented rules which made sense to us because we "proved" it possible. The mind believes that the rule is concrete. We invented measurements, the King's Measurement, the metric system, and we believed in it to tell us about something. Measurement is a theory. A useful one. We explained how the table we study on is made up of tightly bonded atoms closely packed together making it solid. We explained how water is not as solid and we are able to pass through it because its molecules are not as tightly bonded. Then we look into the subatomic level in quantum mechanics and we discover that the world acts in a whole different way in the minuscule level. Probability confuses us and infuriates us. How electrons cannot be ascertained where they are at any one point. We want to know how. Even "probability" is invented by a person to define what is "uncertain" yet certain to occur. The man being Blaise Pascal who founded mathematical game theory when a gambler asked him for some rules to govern rational game tabling. We try to make sense of our world.

How do we learn to speak when we are young? Linguists have studied this topic for years. The first theory - then again we are dwelling on theories- put out by B. F. Skinner in his book Verbal behavior in 1957 is that we derive speech from mimicking the people around us. A mother said, "mummy... mumm... meee" and the infant miraculously replied, "mummy!". If this was right, then children should produce random approximations of adult speech and should make more or less random errors. But this is not true. Studies have shown children acquired language in a very orderly way. Consider English past tenses. {Love/loved, wash/washed, smile/smiled}. But English past tenses have irregularities. {see/saw, take/took, give/gave}. At first, children learn the irregular forms like saw, took and gave. But then they learn the other regular forms and something clicked. They begin saying taked and seed instead of took and saw. They found a rule to govern past tense naturally which is adding the -ed at the back of verbs and only after learning the irregularity rule, they learn the correct form again. Another example is the acquisition of negation in language. Ultimately, most linguists have concluded that we are born with a biological language faculty. We are born to create and perceive patterns.

An everyday example. How do we grade examinations or mark test papers? We have a "model answer". One in which we compare with and mark against based on what have been written on the sampled script. An easy way to mark is by referencing key points or key phrases between the student's work and the model script. A key point found, a mark given. The approach to answering long Economics essay questions is also similar. When I was new to Economics, I used to answer my questions by simply answering the question directly without any structure. I didn't know they had one. And obviously I scored pretty badly. I was given "sample essays" to read and I noticed a structure to write my answer. It brought me to remember how I was taught in primary school to write a composition with "A Beginning, A Body and an End." In Chemistry or Physics, even if we understood something, to explain something, we must write key words to earn that point. In some ways, a system is required for clarification or all our thoughts and answers would be "all over the place" and misunderstood by other observers. Some see this would result in conformity and a restriction on creation and innovation. But actually, the answer as we know it is already concrete. The 'model answer' or "proven theory" are understood by these key phrases as it projects a clear image of the theorised truth. If we confuse them, we are just confusing and mixing up the patterns in the "proven world". The pattern we conceive with our self understood ideas could either be a different and still correct pattern in this world or it could be a jumbled up wrong mess unworthy of being a "correct pattern".

So what about then if something new is created? Is it possible? We hate the unknown. We make sense of it. Yes, it is possible to create something "new". "New" because it was never thought and never heard of but it have existed. Or at least it have the potential to exist all this while. The newest language formed in today's world is the Nicaraguan Sign Language(NSL) formed in 1979 when the then new Nicaraguan government brought hundreds of isolated deaf children from the old regime together in a special school. In the same way any languages are created, a rudimentary and crude language is first created. A pidgin as it is called. It is limited and poor for communication but the people managed to utilise it and develop it. Then they have children and the children learn the language thus becoming its first native speakers. Soon, like NSL, it becomes sophisticated enough to be used up till this day. Similarly when Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone which revolutionised the mobile phone industry. Did we create these? Phones, languages, buildings... In my opinion, we didn't. What we did was to piece together things which have already existed and create a pattern which is conceivable and useful to us. We aligned the patterns in these world to suit and help us. We take a rudimentary algorithm already from the world and we made it more and more sophisticated. The better of us search for nicer and better patterns to a same problem. Example lifts instead of stairs. In a perspective, the world is a pre-created solution which we are just using to make newer better solutions.

The world is a pre-created entity. We form rules to understand and prove it. And we use the rules and algorithm to better our lives. There are still some things which we cannot put a law or rule to. Things which are inconceivable to our mind and esoteric to our beliefs. Miracles. Religion. God. Our Soul. One question I am curious is "Does our destiny or the future have a law to it, like a pattern or a script, complex yet solid?" If it is true, it agrees to the notion that we are where we are because we are meant to be here.  My life and what is happening is real. A person named Wan is typing this on a computer and he have a past and a present. Living. Thinking. Here. We are learning how we think. but can we find the solution why we can think in the first place? Is there an algorithm to a thought? I don't know. And maybe we will never know. But it is interesting to keep finding for the real Truth. Until then, we just continue formulating and creating more patterns and rules and hypothesis to understand and "create" this world.