All Experts Redux: Constellation Patterns in the Sky Random Or Real?

                        Some Fall constellations in Constellation Finder program

Question: Looking at the night sky and using my Constellation Finder, I am absolutely amazed at the degree of similarity between the star patterns and the objects they represent. I mean, the Big Dipper clearly looks like a dipper, no?  Isn't there more here than just random patterns?

Answer: I will give you that the Big Dipper really does have the shape and appearance of a dipper, but this is merely an optical illusion.

What you’re actually seeing is separate stars at wildly different distances simply appearing as one ensemble or pattern by coincidence of time and location. At vastly different epochs the appearance will change, i.e.  100,000 yrs. from now.

Further, the Big Dipper is not actually an official constellation; it is an asterism (a recognizable star pattern) within the larger constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear).

If you look closely you can see the Big Dipper planted in the Bear's 'tail' at the left end.

My general point here is that any and all such projections and patterns in the end amount to purely imaginary extrapolations from random groups of stars. No actual or absolute pattern conforming to any 'Big Dipper' (or Ursa Major) exists, only as it appears to a certain sub-group of humans at a given time. Indeed, the ancient Chinese saw no 'dipper' at all - but rather a cart to carry their bureaucrats!

You can think of any or all of these as a kind of cosmic 'Rorschach' - the sort of ink blot that psychologists used to show their patients to see if they "perceived" any evident patterns. The blots were such that no two people were likely to see the exact same pattern, since each person came to the observation with a different background, perceptual selection bias and so forth.

 In the end, humans just have a penchant - in their brains – to create or impose patterns. They can see "faces" in the clouds in the sky, or figures of mythological beings in the stars- and project their own meaning and interpretations onto them.

This has nothing to do with any objective findings or facts that reside in the objects themselves. Which is to say that it's no more likely plausible an actual 'Big Dipper' exists in the night sky as a Big Bear. In the end, yes we are talking about nothing more than random patterns.