Humans are a pattern-seeking species. Whether there is a true line of logical causality between two similar phenomena or not, if they seem to match up we will correlate them. The science-minded among us will argue that if no logical causality can be proven, then the correlation is meaningless. Individual subjective reality, however, does not draw its power from logic.
If a rock looks like a face, then it becomes something more than a rock. We see faces in the rock, and somewhere behind that phenomenon we're tacking on a personality to the face. There's no shame in that - it's what our brains are wired to do, because seeking pattern is a big part of what's kept our species alive so far. Is that a leopard, or just the midday sun shining through leaves? We might remind ourselves, "don't be silly, it's just a rock," but that rock kind of looks like Grampa, and that makes me think of the time we went fishing when I was six...
The magic happens inside our heads, which is also conveniently where we keep the Universe. Peek-a-boo, rock people see you.
Read and see more here: I See Rock People: Mimetoliths of the World, via wired.com
(And for those of you with They Might Be Giants stuck in your heads from reading the title to this post, here is relief.)
We are wired for patterns and wired for meaning - a heady combination that breeds all sorts of irrationality. But don't let that thinking drown out that rocks are glorious, energetic, pulsing matter - not inert blobs that occasionally get our irrational overlay. I am no animist, but there's something in them rocks....
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