Humans seem to strive for predictability. It is logical. If you can predict something, you can trust it as a constant around which actions and decisions can be oriented. Predictability is vital for scientific experimentation – maintaining a predictable baseline, a constant, allows for measurement and meaningful results. We humans, like the subjects and materials we test, are known in relation to a baseline of predictable otherness. This is all standard, and it is well and good that we seek the path of least resistance when navigating the complexity of existence. Pattern recognition has been a foundational and essential aspect of human evolution.

But patterns and predictability are sometimes most valuable when disrupted. Outliers to a pattern have the potential to define core truths. In survival, pattern recognition leads to behavior adjustment in predictable circumstances. In thriving, pattern recognition leads to behavior adjustment in unpredictable circumstances – based on the knowledge that not only may all not go according to plan, but also that all cannot be planned for in the first place and must sometimes be navigated in the here and now. Can we ever fully capture or comprehend the outlier, the anomaly, and how it relates to our individual experience?

All this to say: cognitive errors are often where poorly or incompletely defined patterns reveal themselves. We want some level of predictability as humans, but we cannot achieve adaptability in purely predictable situations – we must seek the outliers, the errors in our thinking, to move towards a more peaceful existence.