about

Klaus Conrad coined the word apophänie to refer to a delusion in the early stages of psychosis—specifically the delusion that patterns exist in random information. Later uses imply that “apophénie” (“apophenia”) is a universal tendency of people to try to find patterns and meaning in what is actually random information.

So, by naïve back-formation, let’s use the term pophénie to describe the attempt to find patterns and meaning in what only at first appears to be random information.