What's that thing called?

[Adventerprise]

There's a phenomena I don't know the proper name for, but it's when you hear a(bout) unique, obscure phrase or thing, and then you find it again shortly after in an unrelated context.

Asking because I encountered the phrase "with your shield or upon it" in the The Sky's the Limit story "Redshift", then shortly after again in the commentary notes for another non-Trek book.

Does that happen to you a lot, too? What's it called?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It's called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

 

[Adventerprise]

Huh. Also saw this which reminded me to ask.

 

[Skellington]

I think it means that the past has been changed and you're unusually sensitive to that. I'll call it Guinan Syndrome for the time being.

 

[Kor]

It's called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

Now we're going to start seeing and hearing about this everywhere.

Kor

 

[Adventerprise]

It's deja vu all over again.

 

[Zero Kelvin]

Another explanation (in which I don't believe) courtesy of Carl Jung via Sting:

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Now we're going to start seeing and hearing about this everywhere.

Kor

You're welcome!

 

[Gruß vom Krampus]

Same feeling I got when I first heard words like emoji, bae, Shawn Mendes ...

 

[Owain Taggart]

Oh definitely. I have it happen with words and topics, and sometimes locations. I think that it likely has something to do with that when we learn about something, it can stay with us for quite a while, which makes us much more apt to notice them everywhere since we're now aware and they seem to jump out at us with familiarity. Otherwise, we tend not to notice them as we're not actively conscious about such things.

 

[Australis]

I was going to say synchronicity too.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Me three.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Synchronicity sounds definitely better.
The phrase "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" is not exactly popular (in fact, never used) in Germany, both being infamous German terrorists from the 70s so that their names have different meanings to us.

I looked the phenomenon up in German psychological literature and interestingly we use a string of English terms for it:
perceptual priming = you learn the looks of a word (when you read it for the first time) and then you are able to recognize it whenever you encounter it again.
unexpected fluency / involuntary conscious memory = Every new encounter with the word deepens and intensifies the memory plus you get generally more conscious about the word and therefore detect it easier and more often.

 

[Zero Kelvin]

[BS explanation]
Maybe it's also somehow related to quantum entanglement aka "spooky action at a distance".

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1422182-quantum-physics-explains-coincidences/
[/BS explanation]

 

[thestrangequark]

"After I learned about confirmation bias, I started seeing it everywhere." - Jon Ronson

hehehe

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Asbo, that's actually a very good explanation. It might be an overlap with a different dimension or reality. Or a practical joke by Q.

 

[Zero Kelvin]

Asbo, that's actually a very good explanation. It might be an overlap with a different dimension or reality. Or a practical joke by Q.

It's the sort of explanation that makes respectable physicists' eyes roll. It would be much better if there was some way of testing it experimentally. As it stands, it's metaphysics or just plain fodder for fringe science books.

 

[thestrangequark]

Yeah, it also makes psychologists' and neuroscientists' eyes roll, because the phenomenon is completely explainable by normal brain function.

 

[Zero Kelvin]

Yeah, it also makes psychologists' and neuroscientists' eyes roll, because the phenomenon is completely explainable by normal brain function.

That's why I used the BS (bullshit science) tags. Unreproducible/unpredictable phenomena are of no interest to researchers. Perhaps there is an acausal connecting principle that moves in a mysterious way -- it ain't going to get you tenure but it's useful fodder for pop songs.

 

[thestrangequark]

That's why I used the BS (bullshit science) tags.

I'd sussed that.