How often do our brains make connections that don’t exist? More often than we think.
A happened and then B happened so A caused B. Really? Hmmm…
Correlation (no matter how weak/strong) and causation are two incredibly different things. Confusing the two often leads to poor decision making and erroneous conclusions.
Sometimes the outcome is trivial. Two similar back-to-back songs when a music player is set to random? Easy enough fix. To paraphrase Steve Jobs: “We’re making it less random to make it feel more random.”
The concern is when our cognitive bias leads us to make poor financial decisions. The consequences can have serious, long-term effects.
As unsatisfying as it may be we need to accept that random is just that – random.