I'm trying to think where I read that "we create the things we look for" idea, it was central to a story. The idea that scientists and other inquisitive and creative people actually caused our 'laws' to be as they are by observing them. (And Quantum Theory does have this thing about things not happening unless they are observed, much like the bishop's tree in the forest.)
That also ties into the fractal idea, that we create the infinitely small detail by looking at it closely.
But even without that, if free will is postulated we create more information just by existing, which we then don't fully understand and in trying to understand it that generates still more.
I don't think of it as fooling ourselves, though, or at least no more so than our tendency to tell each other (and ourselves) fiction. We seem to be a creature which delights in inventing something 'false' if we haven't got enough 'real' stuff coming in (indeed, in sensory deprivation our brains generate illusions all by themselves).
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That also ties into the fractal idea, that we create the infinitely small detail by looking at it closely.
But even without that, if free will is postulated we create more information just by existing, which we then don't fully understand and in trying to understand it that generates still more.
I don't think of it as fooling ourselves, though, or at least no more so than our tendency to tell each other (and ourselves) fiction. We seem to be a creature which delights in inventing something 'false' if we haven't got enough 'real' stuff coming in (indeed, in sensory deprivation our brains generate illusions all by themselves).