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What is Déjà Vu?

cascadeco

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I'd have to think a bit about the dream piece of it, as deja vu doesn't seem to happen often for me - either that, or when it happens, I very soon forget about it so I can't think of any specific examples.

But what I DO remember is that I tend to think it's minute sensory data in that precise moment that sets it off and makes me think it's happened before. For example, the precise angle of the sunlight -- triggers a memory of a similar moment in the past where the sunlight/lighting was exactly the same, so in that moment I confuse, or tie together, the two experiences, and associate them as the same...and then have that out-of-body feeling that I'm reliving something I've already 'forseen' or experienced (and with the sensory trigger, in a way, I have). That's the only example I can think of right now (and it's probably not a very good one).
 

spirilis

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I see what you are saying, honestly. However, in my case, I don't believe it.

I know the dreams took place because the series of events before and after - within the dream - become very clear to me. Again, through a lot of practice and a really good memory, I'm able to remember a large portion of my dreams if I take the time to review them - I used to wake up every morning, sit up in bed, search my minds eye, and write down my dreams many years ago.

With that said, I still believe that this is simply Ni making connections during the dream that, on occasion, come true, in detail, during the following day or two. Additionally, I think this same thing is what makes some people think they are psychic.

Jung would call this synchronicity, and I'd call it a "type 1* synchronistic event" -- inside/outside, where an event from inside your mind (dream) corresponds strikingly well to an event outside your head, even though you know of no direct common cause between the two. That's where the explanation dives into archetypes or archetypal situations (where both your mind's dream and the external event may have been following a larger common path that both lead them to the same outcome), etc. and so forth. Honestly, calling it "Ni-inspired" sounds right to me. You could discern a common cause (might be a stretch, but still) if you looked deeply enough, but most of us have not the time. But Ni may have just done the leg-work for you.
All this trusting, of course, that you *did* in fact have the dream in question, as Jack Flak shed into question.

* type 1 = internal to your mind/external to your mind event, type 2 = external/external event (where something you see outside your head corresponds coincidentally-but-meaningfully to another event you see outside your head)
 

kuranes

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From what I understand, déjà vu is a phenomenon where you are remembering the event as it is happening.
This is an interesting concept, and for some reason inspires me to relate one that has been described as people "remembering only a memory of a memory" versus accessing the original "primary recording" or something.

Humor - a Vuja De is when you're experiencing a moment where you're absolutely sure it has never happened before.
 

Kyrielle

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This is an interesting concept, and for some reason inspires me to relate one that has been described as people "remembering only a memory of a memory" versus accessing the original "primary recording" or something.

Humor - a Vuja De is when you're experiencing a moment where you're absolutely sure it has never happened before.

Hehe.

If you look back on most events in your life, do you ever find yourself aware that what you're remembering is utterly different from the last time you remembered the event, but there is no record, at all, of the original memory?

I'm not sure how explain the awareness of the lack of an original memory. Just seems like I'm painfully alert to the perception of that memory, because I know that at the time the event happened, I would not have thought of the event in such a way. Which is a little frustrating, because when I relate the memory to someone else, it changes. Hell, it changes during the course of the conversation if I am applying possible meanings to it to try and understand the reason behind the events. By the end of the conversation, the memory is completely different, but I have trouble remembering what it was originally.

I often wonder what happens to that "primary recording." If the data in it was utterly scrapped and forgotten.
 

kuranes

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I often wonder what happens to that "primary recording." If the data in it was utterly scrapped and forgotten.
Yes, sometimes I seem to indirectly sense that something is missing. If I feel the lack strongly enough to become very conscious of it, though, I can often use that as a beginning thread to trace back to what I think is the correct memory. New theories and work suggest that our "consciousness" may be compared to a computer screen, showing only what is necessary to keep a "user" satisfied with the moment, while the actual workings of the processor are kept mostly separate. The mind can even confabulate a memory based on what it finds plausible, how much cognitive dissonance so and so will cause, and other things. It can "fill in the blank(s)", not only for "facts" remembered, but even for vision, which is how some optical illusions work as the processor feeds this to "you".

Some interesting work by authors on the subject.
Psyche 6(8): Review of Antonio Damasio's "The Feeling of What Happens" by Aldo Mosca
Vilayanur Ramachandran on your mind | Video on TED.com
 

copula3

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Groundhog Day

Watch "Groundhog Day" - in the film, Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event (February 2) in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. After indulging in all manner of hedonistic pursuits, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities.

189656~Groundhog-Day-Posters.jpg


Self-centered TV meteorologist Phil Connors, his producer Rita, and cameraman Larry from the fictional Pittsburgh television station WPBH-TV9 travel to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities with Punxsutawney Phil for the station. Phil, who has grown tired of this assignment, grudgingly gives his report and attempts to return back to Pittsburgh when a blizzard that he predicted would miss the area has shut down the main roads, forcing Phil and his team to stay in town an extra day. Phil wakes up to find that he is reliving February 2 again; everyone else is repeating the same actions as from what he saw the day before, seemingly unaware of the time loop, though Phil remains aware of the events of the previous day. At first he is confused, but when the loop continues, he starts to try to take advantage of the situation without fear of long-term consequences, learning secrets from the town's residents, seducing women, stealing money, and driving drunk. However, attempts to get closer to Rita are repeatedly shut down. With each passage of the loop, Phil becomes despondent; during one loop, he kidnaps Punxsutawney Phil and after a long police chase, drives over a cliff, appearing to kill both Phil and the groundhog. However, Phil wakes up in the next loop and finds that nothing has changed; further attempts at suicide are just as fruitless as he continues to find himself back at the start of February 2. Phil continues to try to learn more about Rita, and when he reveals his situation to her and the knowledge he's gained about the town's residents, she opens up to him and suggests he try to use his situation to help benefit the town. Phil uses her advice and the time loop to help as many people around town as possible, as well as bettering himself such as by learning to play jazz piano and speaking French. Phil, now engrossed with the town's celebration, is able to admit his love to Rita, and she accepts and returns her love. After the evening dance, the two retire together to Phil's room. Phil wakes up the next day, and finds the time loop has broken; it is now February 3 and Rita is still in bed with him. As the team prepare to return to Pittsburgh, Phil and Rita talk about eventually settling down in Punxsutawney.

Referring to unpleasant, unchanging, repetitive situations as "Groundhog Day" was widespread throughout the U.S. military very soon after the movie's release in February 1993. A magazine article about the aircraft carrier USS America mentions its use by sailors in September 1993. Around the same time, the movie was a favorite of soldiers in Mogadishu, who identified with the protagonist's situation. By March 1994, there was a defensive zone in Somalia called Groundhog Station. In February 1994, the crew of the USS Saratoga referred to its deployment in the Adriatic Sea, in support of Bosnia operations, as Groundhog Station. A speech by President Clinton in January 1996 specifically referred to the movie and the use of the phrase by military personnel in Bosnia. Even today in the Iraq War, "Groundhog Day" is American military slang for any day of a tour of duty in Iraq.

A few quotes from Nietzsche to help drive the point home. A quote from "The Will To Power":

"If the world may be thought of as a certain definite quantity of force and as a certain definite number of centers of force – and every other representation remains indefinite and therefore useless – it follows that, in the great dice game of existence, it must pass through a calculable number of combinations. In infinite time, every possible combination would at some time or another be realized; more: it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combinations would have to take place, and each of these combinations conditions the entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated: the world as a circular movement that has already repeated itself infinitely often and plays its game in infinitum."

"What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?"
 

LostInNerSpace

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Have you ever walking down a street or into a room and had a flashback of emotion. Maybe you hear some music you have not heard in while and get a flood of emotion coming back. Similarly, you might sometimes you look at a person and think, "where have I seen this person before?" Or hear a familiar sound and think, "where have I heard that before?"

My theory about Déjà Vu is that it is a rare confluence of these events. A time when you happen to be in a setting that puts in an emotional state of the past, and at the same time you see and or hear something that looks familiar, and you may even be doing something that has a familiar feel to it. In essence, a combination of your senses are taken back in time, but not necessarily back to the same point in time. A sensory time machine if you will, but could conceivably involve familiar thoughts patterns.
 

raindancing

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Catch-22 on the vus: :D

"Deja vu. The subtle, recurring confusion between illusion and
reality that was characteristic of paramnesia fascinated the chaplain,
and he knew a number of things about it. He knew, for example, that
it was called paramnesia, and he was interested as well in such
corollary optical phenomena as jamais vu, never seen, and presque vu,
almost seen.

There were terrifying, sudden moment when objects,
concepts and even people that the chaplain had lived with almost all
of his life inexplicably took on an unfamiliar and irregular aspect
that he had never seen before and which made them seem totally
strange: jamais vu.

And there were moments when he almost saw
absolute truth in brilliant flashes of clarity that almost came to
him: presque vu.

The episode of the naked man in the tree at Snowden's
funeral mystified him throughly. It was not deja vu, or at the time
he had experienced no sensation of ever having seen a naked man in a
tree at Snowden's funeral before. It was not jamais vu, since the
apparition was not of someone, or something, familiar appearing to him
in an unfamiliar guise. And it was certainly not presque vu, for the
chaplain did see him."

“There was no mistaking the awesome implications of the chaplain’s revelation: it was either an insight of divine origin or a hallucination; he was either blessed or losing his mind. Both prospects filled him with equal fear and depression. It was neither déjà vu, presque vu nor jamais vu. It was possible that there were other vus of which he had never heard and that one of these other vus would explain succinctly the baffling phenomenon of which he had been both a witness and a part; it was even possible that none of what he thought had taken place, really had taken place, that he was dealing with an aberration of memory rather than of perception, that he never really had thought he had seen what he now thought he once did think he had seen, that his impression now that he once had thought so was merely the illusion of and illusion, and that he was only now imagining that he had ever once imagined seeing a naked man sitting in a tree at the cemetery.”
 

Haight

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LOL

Usually, I just skim other people's threads.
 

tblood

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[...]

Let us step back and consider another interesting analogy that can be established between the double Möbius strip, its principle of unity through perpetual duality, and the DNA (Watson, Crick and Wilkins): the model of the double helix is composed of two serpent-like intertwining spirals, representing a biological reflection of the archetypal idea of time as a spiral, creating a reunion of the linear and the cyclical aspects of time as a perpetual flow. [...]

How a closed, circular bilateral ribbon can be transformed, without cutting it or creasing it, into a unilateral ribbon (or "mobius strip")?

If we were sitting face-to-face I could show you how to manipulate the bilateral ribbon so as to solve the puzzle. But it is difficult to describe that process in words, or even with a diagram. So I will do the next best thing. I will show you, by working backwards from the solution to the problem, how a unilateral ribbon (a "mobius strip") can be DISASSEMBLED so as to create a closed circular bilateral ribbon. This will literally put the answer in the palm of your hand. All you will have to do is apply the process in reverse order!

48254663tu5uy1.png


First you must make a simple (first-order) mobius strip. You'll have to once more get out a pair of scissors and a sheet of paper. This time, however, draw a rectangle that is 10 inches long and 1/4 inch wide. It is important that you use these measurements, as you will momentarily see. Now, holding one end of the ribbon stationary, twist it 180 degrees clockwise along is central axis, bring the ends of the ribbon together, and scotch tape it. If you do this correctly, you should wind up with a mobius strip -- a figure like the bottom one in the picture above. Now make a small hole in the mobius strip somewhere along its central axis (the line, in the picture, that travels lenghtwise up the middle). Cut along the central axis all the way around the strip. What kind of figure do you have now, after making the very last snip? Unless you've made a mistake with the scissors, you should have another closed circular ribbon in you hand -- although the 'circle' that it makes will be bigger (twice as big) and the ribbon will thinner (half as thin). And -- low and behold -- it is a BILATERAL ribbon. It should indeed be exactly like the one had in hand when trying to solve the puzzle if you previously constructed accordingly -- by twisting a strip 720 degrees. This is the figure that you were supposed to 'transform, without cutting it or creasing it, into a unilateral ribbon'! Only now you see that it IS possible - and precisely HOW it is possible. The solution, in other words, involves wrapping the bilateral ribbon around on itself, EDGE TO EDGE, as you have just seen!

How what happens when one splits unilateral ribbons is different from what happens when one splits bilateral ribbons? And also how there is a hidden similarity? One way in which DNA -- which, as everyone knows, takes the form of a double-helix (which looks like a twisted ladder) -- can replicate is by splitting the double helix up the middle into two pieces. Cut the rungs of the 'ladder', and the posts fall apart. But if the DNA is in the form of a closed circle, something interesting happens. When it is split down the middle, it will fall -- unlike our BILATERAL ribbon did -- into TWO separate closed circular ribbons.

untitlejk0wi1.jpg


You can see how that works by making a bilateral ribbon (with one "full" twist of 360 degrees). If you cut it up the middle, the two bilateral pieces it falls into will be linked like the two links of a paper chain -- with one "cross over." Furthermore, as the number of full twists in the bilateral ribbon that you start with increases, the more times the two resulting ribbons will cross over each other. When you split a bilateral ribbon with 7 full twists, you get 7 "crossovers" in the two offspring ribbons -- which will look like the figure above (the small circular figure in the diagram).

When I was playing with this I happened to be see one of Escher's paintings of a mobius

aaagl0ks0.png


strip -- the one above. It is a "second-order" mobius strip (one with three half-turns, twisted a total of 540 degrees). The curious split up the middle remindeds you of the discussion about the DNA. But the DNA book had not dealt with splitting UNILATERAL ribbons, such as this. Did the same thing happen when one splits a unilateral strip? To find out, make a simple mobius strip (with only one 180 degree half-turn -- like the one you made above, and the one in the top picture). You will be surprised to see that it does not result in two separate closed ribbons, as in the case of split bilateral ribbons, but in one only!

Would the same thing happen if the figure that was being split was a higher order mobius strip (with 3 half turns, or 5 turns, or "n" number of turns -- where "n" is any odd number)? Make a mobius strip with three half

untitlic7ud5.jpg


Make mobius strips of even higher orders, and find out that the greater the number of twists in the mobius strip, the more complex will be the knot in the resulting figure, when the mobius strip is bisected! You will begin to wonder, Is there any order to be seen in what happens as one increases the number of twists? And is there a formula that ties together what happens in the two seemingly dissimilar cases -- when unilateral ribbons and bilateral ribbons are split? As the reader who has tried to solve the original puzzle by making such a figure will have realized, these deceptively simple forms are actually rather complex. When the number of twists in the ribbon are increased, and the knots made become more complicated, the sheer complexity of the arrangements tends to defy understanding. But you will be able to come up with a fairly simple rule with respect to splitting, which seems to link the two classes of ribbon -- for at least the first 6 levels of complexity. In the following chart, "parent" means the original ribbon (before slitting up the middle), and "offspring" means the ribbon or ribbons that are created when the parent ribbon is split. The DJ number (short for "DinkelJack"), a constant associated with each case, is calculated by multiplying the respective number in the second column with the respective number in the third column:

untitilw0.jpg


What this chart shows is that the "DJ number" is the same for all ribbons whose number of full twists rounds upward to the same integer. And the DJ number seems to increase by increments of 2 as one increases the number of twists in the original ribbon. I don't know if these regularities remain for cases in which the ribbons have full twists greater than 3. In any case, the formula seems to also make some intuitive sense -- for when you cut the unilateral ribbon up the middle you get only one ribbon. But since it is twice as long as each of the two that you get when you cut the bilateral ribbon, there will be twice as many twists in it.

Psycho-Physical Isomorphism

The puzzle demonstrates that one can look at the Escher painting above in a new way. Not only can one see it as a mobius strip (a unilateral ribbon), it can also be viewed as a "supercoiled" bilateral ribbon -- achieved by winding the two-sided ribbon edge to edge with itself! Why is this of significance? Because if ccDNA (which are bilateral ribbons) can be coiled in this way, we'd have an example of a naturally-occuring biological structure which can transform itself from a "one-sided" (i.e., "paradoxical") figure into a "two-sided" ("non-paradoxical") figure by splitting -- and, conversely -- from a "two-sided" figure into a "one-sided" figure, by coiling. Such a structure may thought of as isomorphic with consciousness - which has a similar capacity, by virtue of its liminocentric structure, to be both paradoxical (at its 'extremess) and linear (under ordinary conditions).

A number of theoreticians, in their attempt to understand under what physical conditions consciousness comes into being, have sought to find a physical structure with which it is isomorphic. And the puzzle begins to suggest one way in which the DNA molecule might possibly be viewed as such a structure. Elsewhere in this issue we discuss the work of two men -- Herbert Read and Douglas Hofstadter -- who seek physical structures that demonstrate isomorphism with mental structures. And it is ultimately paradoxical mental structures on which they are focusing attention in their searches. Read points to the mandala, and Hofstadter to a kind of strange looping that takes place in the mental realm. It is Hofstadter's belief that the strange loops into which the mind is capable of twisting itself will "eventually turn out to be at the core of AI [artificial intelligence studies] and the focus of all attempts to understand how human minds work." So when seeking physical structures isomorphic to this one must look, he argues, for physical structures that are somehow themselves "paradoxical." He suggests several places to look --

- in the 'looping back between informational levels' that takes place in DNA;
- in the way in which viral DNA may use a suicidal "trojan horse" strategy to avoid detection and convince its host to attack itself -- a topic that has, ironically, become a major interest since the advent of AIDS, which occured many years after Hofstadter's book was published;
- and in the presence of a 'neural substrate' that would be the physical equivalent of the riddle proposed by Epimenides, the socalled "liar's paradox" -- a sentence which states, "This sentence is false."

To Hostadter's list of proposals one might add the alternative suggested by our puzzle -- bilateral ribbons supercoiled into mobius strips.
 

LostInNerSpace

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I was close to writing-off part of this thread as random blathering nonsense. Now it's getting interesting. I can't find the posts I was going to trash anyway.

Watch "Groundhog Day"

I liked this movie too. I watched it over and over again. Stories have a powerful effect on us. We use them to relate to and evaluate the "real" world. Do I have statistically verified double blind studies to backup my assertion? Can I attribute every source that contributed to that idea? I have no intention of writing papers for Elsevier. I don't see how it's possible to quantify psychological phenomena let along evaluate their significance with statistics, as one poster seemed to suggest.


It is Hofstadter's belief that the strange loops into which the mind is capable of twisting itself will "eventually turn out to be at the core of AI [artificial intelligence studies] and the focus of all attempts to understand how human minds work." So when seeking physical structures isomorphic to this one must look, he argues, for physical structures that are somehow themselves "paradoxical." He suggests several places to look --

- in the 'looping back between informational levels' that takes place in DNA;
- in the way in which viral DNA may use a suicidal "trojan horse" strategy to avoid detection and convince its host to attack itself -- a topic that has, ironically, become a major interest since the advent of AIDS, which occured many years after Hofstadter's book was published;
- and in the presence of a 'neural substrate' that would be the physical equivalent of the riddle proposed by Epimenides, the socalled "liar's paradox" -- a sentence which states, "This sentence is false."

To Hostadter's list of proposals one might add the alternative suggested by our puzzle -- bilateral ribbons supercoiled into mobius strips.

It's an interesting idea. This, however, is where some probability theory can be applied. The chance you will solve any given puzzle or explain any given phenomena with a specific theory is small. On the other hand, the chance you will find inspiration for a solution to some problem or explain some phenomena in the vast space of all possible problems and phenomena is much higher.

It is interesting to think of mental processes as looping. The bilateral ribbons, supercoiled into mobius strips seems to be a bit of a stretch.
 

kuranes

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How a closed, circular bilateral ribbon can be transformed, without cutting it or creasing it, into a unilateral ribbon (or "mobius strip")?

Hmmm. Tblood looked interesting, from this post. Too bad.
 

Haight

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Hmmm. Tblood looked interesting, from this post. Too bad.
Yeah, half his posts were alright. But if you combined all seventeen dupes, it was working at a 25% to 75% decent post to spam ratio.

I'm sure he's dumping his string theory articles and other copied and pasted text on some other unsuspecting forum as we speak.

The good trolls mixed it up, right k.
 

LostInNerSpace

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Yeah, half his posts were alright. But if you combined all seventeen dupes, it was working at a 25% to 75% decent post to spam ratio.

I'm sure he's dumping his string theory articles and other copied and pasted text on some other unsuspecting forum as we speak.

The good trolls mixed it up, right k.

I didn't get as far as string theory. Stopped reading half way.
 

Lady_X

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old thread...anyone else have anything new to add?

just had deja vu the other day...nothing important...just random but intense...so...why's it happen? what say you?
 
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