Mindframe

You flip a coin three times in a row. All three times, it comes up heads. How do you predict the next toss would land? The pessimist will suggest that the pattern is bound to break. Their best guess is tails. The optimist will think, “Hey, I’m on a roll! Heads all the way, baby!” Of course, the actual answer in both cases is always the same: 50/50 for heads or tails. The mental quirk that sees patterns in coin tosses once kept us alive. Back on the  savannah, when your ancestors saw that bush rustle up ahead, their pattern-seeking brains gave them pause, calculating that if a lion had been there before, it could be there again. Maybe this time it was only the night breeze, but why take the chance? It only took one mistake to become dinner. These days, unless you live near a wildlife preserve or a low-security zoo, that rustling is pretty much always gonna be the wind. But those ancient instincts are still with us, conjuring pattern mirages from nowhere. Think Vegas; there’...