In terms of the psychological spandrels we discussed earlier, the tendency to make ‘false positive’ (type 1) errors is an evolved characteristic. Paranoia, pattern-seeking and agency-detection may well be the by-products.

So we assume that things are related to each other
Further we assume that they’re deliberately caused by some thinking intelligence – an agent.

This leads us to take offence that nobody meant.
This leads us to make up agents like Karma, God, ghosts or the universe.
This leads us to define places, people and events as lucky, unlucky or even cursed.

In short – this makes us all irrational and basically unfit to leave the house without adult supervision – except that we ARE the adults.

Scary, isn’t it?