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Kinda tripping over here, stopped watching the news and now my deja vu episodes are through the roof. Matrix adjusting or just less noise pollution? Let's argue.
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phoenixwood2h ago
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the_patricia1h ago
Buddy of mine once swore he predicted a phone call before it happened. Turned out he just forgot he read the caller's schedule online. Classic brain timestamp error.
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janah831h ago
People get hung up on brain glitches like deja vu, but it's just faulty wiring. Remember that time you swore you left your keys on the counter but they were in your pocket? Same basic mechanism. Cutting out news noise might make you notice it more, but that doesn't mean it's profound. It's like fixating on a typo in a novel instead of the plot. Attributing it to the Matrix is giving a simple hiccup too much credit.
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laura_schmidt821h ago
Wait, are you seriously comparing deja vu to forgetting where your keys are? @janah83, that analogy oversimplifies things to the point of absurdity. A misplaced key is a trivial annoyance, while deja vu often involves a visceral sense of familiarity that can be downright unsettling. Ryanjohnson's point about cognitive background noise makes sense, but reducing it all to faulty wiring ignores why these glitches captivate us in the first place. It's not about seeing typos, it's about the eerie feeling that the whole book might have been printed wrong. Giving the Matrix too much credit is one thing, but acting like our brains are just clumsy appliances feels equally misguided.
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ryanjohnson3h ago
Read a fascinating article in New Scientist a while back that argued deja vu is essentially a memory glitch, your brain failing to properly timestamp a current experience. When you cut out the constant barrage of news, your mind isn't juggling as many competing narratives, so those minor perceptual errors become more apparent (like hearing a faint clock tick only after the TV is off). It's not the Matrix, it's just your cognitive background processes becoming audible, for lack of a better word. That article specifically cited research on patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, where deja vu is a common aura, showing it's a hardwired neurological phenomenon. So I'm firmly in the 'less noise pollution' camp, because the alternative is giving far too much credit to a system that can't even keep its servers from lagging during prime time. Stopping the news probably just turned down the static so you can hear your own brain's radio station, complete with occasional repeats.
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