The world is a web.
Of causes.
Of effects.
Of things that seem to move together,
even if we do not know why.
We see patterns.
We feel connections.
We notice that when one thing appears,
another often follows.
And so the mind begins to wonder:
Is this coincidence—or consequence?
Does this depend on that?
Or do they simply share the same sky?
This is the space of judging correlation and contingency—
the quiet reasoning we use
to understand whether things are truly linked,
or merely close enough to seem that way.
The Seduction of Pattern
Our minds are not calculators.
They are storytellers.
They remember what stands out.
They forget what doesn’t.
When two events occur together,
again and again—
rain and headaches,
red meat and regret,
stress and sickness—
we begin to feel that one must cause the other.
But feelings are not facts.
And the mind often confuses what is present together
with what is dependent upon.
Correlation is not contingency.
Proximity is not causality.
But it often feels like it is.
What Contingency Really Asks
To judge contingency is to ask:
Does the presence or absence of one thing
actually change the likelihood of the other?
It’s not just about frequency.
It’s about difference.
- If A happens, how often does B occur?
- If A doesn’t happen, how often does B still occur?
It is in that contrast
that real connection is revealed.
Without it, we are left with noise.
With illusion.
With meaning that may not hold.
The Mind’s Common Mistakes
We tend to overweight the times when things co-occur.
We underweight the times they don’t.
We look for hits.
We forget the misses.
This is why we believe in lucky shirts.
In jinxes.
In rituals that seemed to work once,
but never truly changed the odds.
We remember the day the prayer was answered.
We forget the days it wasn’t.
And in this way, we build stories
on partial evidence.
Not because we are irrational,
but because we are human.
Learning to Think with Balance
To judge correlation wisely
is not to stop seeing patterns.
It is to learn to question them gently.
It is to ask:
- Is this happening more often than chance would suggest?
- What about the times it didn’t happen?
- Am I drawn to the memorable pairings
and blind to the rest?
It is to let the data breathe—
to give absence as much weight as presence.
To let go of the stories we want to believe,
and allow the evidence to reshape them.
A Closing Reflection
If you find yourself seeing a connection—
between two events,
two feelings,
two signs—
pause.
Ask:
- What is actually happening here?
- What does the absence tell me?
- Am I looking at the full picture,
or only the part that confirms what I already suspect?
Because to judge correlation and contingency well
is not to deny your instincts—
but to test them with care.
To step beyond story
into structure.
Beyond coincidence
into clarity.
And in the end, our judgments about what is connected
shape what we trust,
what we fear,
what we repeat.
And to judge with wisdom
is to see the world not just as it seems—
but as it truly behaves
when all the lights are turned on.