Deja Vu

[dr_tectonic]

I was just reading a blog entry about programming and got some serious deja vu.

And it occurred to me that there's probably nothing unusual about that. I probably have done this before.

I'm sitting in front of my computer, which is in exactly the same spot in my office it always is. I have read this same blog in the past, and it has a reasonably distinct typeface and layout; the post even follows a pattern the author has used before. I have streaming trance music playing, and since there's not an infinite supply of it, and they stream music 24/7/365, some songs (especially the popular ones) get repeated. All the environmental cues are saying "you've done this before!"

So, yeah. I guess this time it's just memory, and not some false sensation of memory due to random brainwave fluctuations.

The one thing I can't decide is: Is that more or less weird than actual deja vu?

Comments

[dpolicar]

You can't decide whether thinking you've done something before when you have is weirder than thinking you've done something before when you haven't?

Neat.

I thought I was good at not taking my brain function for granted, but you win.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Not quite. Is it weirder thinking you've done something before when you haven't? Or thinking that you're thinking you've done something before and haven't, when actually you have?

[dpolicar]

Is it weirder remembering something that didn't happen?
Or not-quite-remembering something that did happen, and mistakenly concluding that it didn't?

Admittedly, I probably do both several times a day, and there's no good reason for me to believe I do the latter more often. But my self-image as being in some non-accidental way engaged with and primarily constrained by an actual world that is singularly isomorphic to my perceptions tends to push me to that belief anyway.