We see patterns in the clouds, in the shadows of a dark street, in the martian sands, and sometimes even in the grime of dirty vessels (I see Saturn's rings in my coffee cup right now). Like our dreams, we are free to interpret patterns in any way we want, and we usually use that freedom to get all poetic and sentimental (or violent and scary, in case you have a sinister bent of mind). On most occasions, the interpretations are bogus and devoid of any validitiy. On the occasions when it seems true, it is usualy a self-fulfilling fantasy.
I watched Batman Forever movie yesterday night for a few minutes on TV. In one particular scene, Kilmer (Batman in billionarie's garb) meets Nicole Kidman to ask about a puzzle and notices a bat-like art hanging on the wall. I was momentarily piqued by the painting but got distracted by Kidman. Today morning, I recognised what the art was. It's one of the patterns used in Rorschach inkblot test, an ambiguous and unscientific test used by psychologists to read a patient's mind. Skepdic page (linked above) is quite scathing:
The mind is a labyrinth and it is a pipe dream to think that the inkblot is Ariadne's thread which will lead the therapist to the center of the patient.
Good post.
They are completely useless as scientific tools, of course, but it's still a really pretty image.