De ja Vu

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

This is a bit old, but this has nagged me.

Of course, Cecil has an awful habit of slamming anything that can’t be proven by science. But one has to wonder his take on De Ja Vu.

**What causes déjà vu? Almost all who’ve studied the subject have come up with their own explanations, and hey, why not? Our knowledge of the brain is so fragmentary that no explanation can be definitely discounted. Still, the chances that déjà vu is a sign of telepathy, reincarnation, or visitations by one’s astral body, as some have suggested, seem pretty slim.

Among the quasi-scientific explanations, what might be called the split-image school holds that two parts of the brain participate simultaneously in the process of perception. If for some reason the impression from part A arrives in one’s consciousness out of sync with the impression from part B, one has the sensation of experiencing the the thing twice. ** – Emperor Cecil

Cecil admits that the knowledge of the human brain is relatively small. Yet, as always, he discounts the metaphysical. He offers no viable solution or suggestion to this phenomena.

His explanation makes no sense. Are you going to tell me that someone was having their brain scanned right at the moment when they experienced De ja vu? Therefore, brain activity showed similar results that agree that the mind suddenly went out-of-sync?

**There are lots more theories, but you get the idea ** – Emperor Cecil

No, you don’t get the idea. You cannot claim to write an article on De ja Vu, then push out a bunch of theories. Either you know it or you don’t, which obviously, you don’t. Your entire article on De Ja Vu: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_113.html made it painfully evident that you knew nothing of the matter. Except of course, that it wasn’t metaphysical, right?

Someone of your reputation should know better not to make such wild assumptions. Especially about a subject that you admittedly know nothing about – well aside from your theories. :rolleyes:

It’s long been known that prolonged or frequent episodes of déjà vu are associated with various psychiatric or neurological disorders. Some now consider déjà vu, in conjunction with other symptoms, to be diagnostic of a type of epilepsy. Researchers have found that electrical stimulation of the brains of epileptic patients in some cases can trigger the déjà vu phenomenon. – Emperor Cecil

I rest my case.

Regards,

B. Williams

2

Thank you for your comment. We’re all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.

3

You rest what case? The case that Cecil knows not how déjà vu might work? I think he pretty much admitted that much himself. I don’t think you’ve made any “case” here. You’ve presented no facts, no arguments, nor any conclusions; your post is merely a critique of a column. If you have an opinion as to the method(s) by which déjà vu might work, post 'em. Then you can begin to make a “case.”

Nor, did Cecil dismiss the supernatural out of hand as you seem to be implying. He merely said the chance of supernatural causes is slim.

4

Well, at least Cecil offers a couple of theories, and at least there is some avenue of investigation.
What is your metaphysical explanation, and how would one go about testing it?

And it’s deja vu, not de ja. Or déjà if you want to stick to the original language.

5

Honesty, keep in mind the theories put forth are not Cecil’s. Cecil is not out researching psychological phenomena, or brain behavior, etc. Cecil finds information from a variety of hard to locate sources and puts the information in one place to address the question for the person who doesn’t know how to go about finding those answers. And the rest of us read the column and learn, because we didn’t even think to ask the question.

You complain that the split-image school explanation makes no sense. It does seem rather strange. I think that would be why Cecil labeled it as quasi-scientific. I think he agrees is sounds rather bizarre.

As for those that consider “déjà vu, in conjunction with other symptoms, to be diagnostic of a type of epilepsy”, again that is not Cecil’s theory. He is reporting what is in the scientific literature.

As for metaphysical explanations, evidence for those phenomena are pretty thin and fall apart when able to be put under scrutiny. Thus to posit that the experience of déjà vu is due to a seemingly non-existent phenomenon like telepathy is more of a stretch than to suggest it may be related to something akin to perception flaws in the way the brain works. We know there is a brain. We know it is the processor for experiences and perception. We even know it has two hemispheres that are able to function independently in absorbing and processing sensory data, and collaborate to give the overall interpretation. That is much closer to an explanation than “ghosts told me”. While the answer is incomplete, it has some merit based upon what we’ve learned from medical experiments.

Finally, despite Cecil’s best efforts, sometimes the answer truly is unknown, and he can only give a summary of what has been investigated and considered, and why those may or may not be good answers.