Roulette
Apophenia is the name for our brains’ tendency to seek patterns in random data, like looking at the blinking vertical sign next to the roulette table and thinking you know what the next number is going to be. I believe it’s also the reason New York feels so special. When you cram millions of people onto a tiny island, you start noticing what seems like more than mere coincidence. In a place like New York, that wheel gets spun so much more frequently—the friction generates so much more data to pick from—that your apophenia’s working in overdrive. Sooner or later, you notice the same number come up a few times in a row and it feels like magic.
