ABSTRACT: What if déjà vu does not merely deceive us about the past, but momentarily disclose something ordinarily hidden about the structure of time itself? This video begins from the distinctive phenomenology of déjà vu: the uncanny conviction that a singular present has already occurred in precisely this form, despite our simultaneous knowledge that no corresponding event can be located in our biographical past; the impression of foreknowledge that can extend into what has not yet happened; and the accompanying sense of automatism by which one becomes a spectator to one’s own actions.

It considers several historically important attempts to account for these features: from Augustine’s demonological theory of deceptive recollection and Freud’s psychological account of unconscious libidinal forces to Arthur Wigan’s perceptual-doubling hypothesis and contemporary neurological approaches. It then argues that each illuminates some aspect of the phenomenon without fully accounting for the full subjective effect nor its peculiar temporal structure.

The video then develops Henri Bergson’s 1908 account of déjà vu as a “memory of the present.” The central claim is Bergson’s idea that a virtual memory is co-produced contemporaneously with actual perception rather than retrospectively after perception disappears. Each present therefore divides as it occurs into an actual perception oriented toward action and a virtual memory that already belongs to the past.

Déjà vu, or more precisely déjà vécu, occurs when this normally useless “memory of the present” enters consciousness alongside perception, making an event that is genuinely occurring for the first time nevertheless appear as already lived. I connect this to Bergson’s account of the survival of the past and the actual/virtual distinction in Matter and Memory, and briefly to Deleuze’s later formulation in Cinema 2 of a past that belongs absolutely and simultaneously to its present rather than acquiring its pastness only relative to a subsequent present. The larger question I’m trying to raise is whether anomalous experiences like déjà vu should be understood simply as failures of cognition, or whether they can function as privileged disruptions through which structures ordinarily concealed by our conscious organization of experience become perceptible.

​

To begin with, let me remind you that mathematics is not a science fortunately and that it is perhaps one of the largest organized, consistent symbolic formal systems for developing something: maybe intellect, maybe a certain form of thinking, maybe someone understands more clearly what exactly mathematics develops and can tell us about it.

And whatever it develops in us, there may immediately be a temptation to say functionally: well, then mathematics is needed precisely for developing this, Robert Wide.

The difficulty is that although there are interesting things in it, such as topology, or interesting theorems and models, and especially what seems important is the economic, technological, and research contribution of mathematics,

And yet it seems that this formal system stalls a person and makes it harder for him to think outside this formal system. Of course, one can say this about logic too, and about their similarity, and in general about any old systems of thought or let us call them closed or “controlling” ones. To some, dialectics may also seem like this, though to a lesser degree, and it is precisely dialectics that sets the task of sublating contradiction and arriving at generalization and understanding, that is, in an ethical sense it is a more encompassing system of cognition in the sense of its capacity — though often in verbal form to include something else and incomprehensible in its understanding. And if we abstract from formal dialectics, if you have ever heard these expositions, then the ethical idea and, as it were, real dialectics in full non-contradictoriness and some communication, for example as metamodernism, is the same dialectics or synthesis between sincerity and so-called postmodernity or irony.

Dialectics is still an example, not a proposed answer. Although it could perhaps be one of those considered.

Returning to mathematics. Despite its outstanding economic, technological, research possibilities and achievements, and as a result also social and political ones… it still remains rather abstract. One can say that it is the most complex, or one of the most complex, games of the mind, or games within the mind, or separate games within the mind. But for the mind itself this seems like something akin to sophistry or magic, though a very useful one. Or one can say that it is a magical system, or one of the magical systems of this world. But it is almost always something very abstract: it seems to me that this is often said about philosophers too, by those who do not delve deeply into philosophy; but those who do delve in, on the other hand, can understand that we often reflect on the most important questions or phenomena that we can feel or think. As far as I understand and it is not known how much the answers may still differ mathematics is a system of ultimate formal complexity, or of ultimate complexity for thought in general, since in one way or another what we formulate as philosophers often, though perhaps difficult, has a clearer representation of reality, even if it is Lacan’s Borromean rings. In the sense that philosophy, apart from again sophistry, usually does not strive to become complicated simply for the sake of complication because why? It seems that a person, after this stage of formal logic, can also learn other possibilities of thinking. But in mathematics, complexity and possibly even not necessarily, but possibly the degree of abstraction seems literally the quintessence of content. On the other hand, of course, this may also be good. In the sense of ultimate complexity, ultimate constructiveness, ultimate abstraction, in the sense that we as a culture have some content, some achievements that we may still have to comprehend, if some of them can be so complex that there are literally 400 pages of formulas of explanation.

But, like, why?

And returning to what we were talking about, this seems like ultimate sophistry or thinking in idle, in the sense for thought itself and for man, although culturally it brings enormous social results: both economics and technology and research and efficiency.

And even if we assume that mathematics is integral thinking rather than specific thinking, then although it is clear why mathematics should be developed: so that there can be a further possibility of development…

What for, and what from mathematics, and should it and it or they even be present in education?

Because even if we may have grounds to think so but even if mathematics is connected with integral, that is, general thinking, that is, as it were, some generalized function of it, the mathematicality of education then creates a situation in which a person tries to wipe the sofa with a processor without imagining what a sofa is.

And if not, and mathematics is more specific thinking, that is, in the sense that it also remains there and in a constant submetacognitive state: in the sense that it fundamentally cannot leave the box and its language and its formality or formalization… then such thinking is good for producing human-computers useful for working with ordinary computers, for example in a bank or somewhere else. As a result, man has, as it were, given his brain to mathematics, and how is he supposed to live further? Well, that is, then perhaps also the market, where this mathematized brain may be valued higher than the self-esteem or self-understanding of such a person, and so the puzzle comes together: successful recruiting into a successful company.

I will say right away that simply “progressive studies,” which may even be not thinking but to some extent dogmatic propaganda or propaganda at the expense of education hours, trying to lean on Marxism or performatism according to Butler, are, as it were… Well, people can learn something valuable, but on the whole it seems that this is simply the disintegration of education, or rather almost its absence, or its replacement by propaganda so that in an economic-political sense these people could be ever more perfect agents of this very propaganda, possibly even without fully understanding it. And how lucky we are that we can look at this from the outside, unlike the people and economies that this “progressive” propaganda may further repress. And the main complaint against it is probably economic, because a society simply without technical specialties loses economic opportunities; only oligarchs remain, and they would most quickly move to a new place. And in a universal human sense, this is potentially the next target and problem for the next intellectual stratum that will try to do something about this repressiveness. If, in general, there will be anyone left to do anything there.

In general, why was this clarification about “progressive” or agenda-driven education? So that this question is not in support of that very agenda, and, as it were, we understand in advance some of the existing difficulties there and have described them.

And still, the question: is mathematics needed? And such mathematized, formalized thinking — and then we are surprised by further formalizations and the resulting difficulties, such as bureaucracy and media simplification and corruption in many senses.

Additionally:

Maybe the form of my question is a bit of Soviet thinking or a way of thinking about something, and if you understand another or other better ways of asking or thinking about this, you can say so.

A couple of disclaimers! I know Baudrillard would probably reject using this as a framework for multiple reasons, but I still found his Precession of Simulacra to be useful for mapping out new Simulacra. I also know that I am not an objective observer and at the same time doing this is a simulation of a simulation and a part of hyperreality.

I'll be using The Precession of Simulacra to analyze the aftermath of the bombing of Yandex's Sasovo hub and ultimately how the event was absorbed into hyperreality.

For Stage 1, the faithful reflection of "reality", we have raw unedited footage of the event.

For Stage 2 we have a denatured version of "reality." Examples of this are the news article I linked, press releases by Yandex, and exaggerations/spins by both governments

Stage 3, this is where we break completely from "reality." On social media a narrative started that the Russian bots were gone and that there was less division and hate. This is despite no evidence showing this. This also is Stage 3 of a separate precession of simulacra with stage 1 being the raw data of *all* bot activity from the data center decreasing and Stage 2 being the news of that bot activity. At the same time, the idea of Russian bots no longer being an issue gives people the false sense of a more real internet. Masking the fact that it never was real in the first place

Stage 4 / A New Stage 1 For Future Simulacra

Stage 4, a full simulation, this starts with a separate precession of simulacra. That being from the Speed/Usage limits of Starlink in Ukraine. At the data center's Stage 4, this is Starlinks Stage 3. Stage 4 is the political narratives and conversations about the believed reduction in Russian bots on Social Media. Some of these narratives include the idea that Elon Musk and Donald Trump shut down Starlink because Russia removed their propaganda network.

Effects

There are a few effects of this new simulacrum. One being that for many people this is their lived reality. The other being that this affects several existing signs. For example, signs like Elon Musk and Donald Trump/MAGA/Right Wing are further associated with Russian bots. The sign of Ukraine/Zelensky is associated with freeing the internet from Russian bots giving them a hero status. Because of this (and previous precessions) these signs evoke different emotions out of people that feel incredibly real.

Recently came across Clara Mattei. Shes doing work in Tulsa, US to critique how economics is taught and find alternative practices on a small local level.

Im asking for recs bc i want ideas of how i can be useful and to find out what sort of things are out there.

I recently spoke with the psychoanalyst and author Darian Leader.

We covered a lot in our interview, including the ideological apparatus of Scooby Doo, the mediatization of violence and madness, the distinction between “true” and “false” ghosts, as well as the tensions in defining the internal and the external in schizophrenia and autism.

I'm sharing it here in case some of you are interested. Thank you in advance, should you choose to watch it.

Hi everyone,

I'm an undergraduate studying sociology. A while ago, I read Zygmunt Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust, which left a huge impression on me. Following that thread, I just finished reading the chapters on "Domination" (Herrschaft) from Max Weber's Economy and Society.

Here is where I currently stand:
- Currently reading: Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process alongside Georg Simmel's Fundamental Problems of Sociology (though I'm honestly finding Simmel quite difficult to wrap my head around 😓).
- On my shelf: I recently bought a copy of Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality, waiting to be read.

I'm now trying to figure out which path makes the most sense to prioritize next:

1. Stick with the classical foundations
   Continue building a solid foundation in classical theory—working through Durkheim, Marx, or wrestling more deeply with Simmel.

2. Branch off into Hannah Arendt
   Follow the thematic interest sparked by Bauman (violence, modernity, and totalitarianism) by reading someone like Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism or Eichmann in Jerusalem).

3. Dive into Berger & Luckmann
   Shift toward the sociology of knowledge and social constructionism with the book I already have.

For those of you who have navigated this stage of sociological study, how would you recommend pacing or ordering these readings? I would love to hear your thoughts, experiences, or any recommendations you might have—please feel free to drop a comment!

---
(Disclosure: English is not my native language, so I used an AI assistant to help draft and translate this post.)

Many figures in the sphere present themselves as an apex of aggressive heterosexuality, focusing on the conquest and subjugation of women. But I feel there is a paradox: women are actually structurally absent. The reality is a sphere driving on an autoerotic masculinity. Women are continuously talked about, in practice, they are separated off from. She is not an actual human partner but a prop or a concept used to stimulate an "autoerotic" fantasy of what it means to be a man. The goal is not connection with a woman, but self-arousal over one's own perceived dominance.

The dynamic relies entirely on a male audience. When these ideas are broadcast, the actual energy exchange is man-to-man. It becomes a collective, homosocial ritual where men gather to validate each other's masculine fantasies. In a theoretical sense, the sphere is jacking itself off intellectually and emotionally to fantasies constructed within this world, making the entire ecosystem increasingly homoerotic despite its loud anti-gay rhetoric.

I also argue that this type of sexuality shapes male relations within the sphere. Trends such as looksmaxxing, the increased use of steroids, function within this sphere of separation from female desire, and instead is men shaping themselves in accordance with autoerotic masculine desire. It is delusional and dangerous as the reality of the other becomes increasingly distant and difficult to make a genuine connection to. That is, it fundamentally is a process of radicalization and engendering masculinity into a space of loneliness.

Hi all,

This is more of a search for personal advice than a theoretical question.

I work at a university in Australia and, like many universities around the world, our institution is rapidly descending into a neoliberal cesspit. Everyday at work I am forced into contact with ideas of 'best practice.' 'excellence (in some vague abstract sense),' 'impact,' the push for every academic to have a LinkedIn presence, to compete for industry grants (in Australia that usually means the mining industry), and build a brand around oneself. I'm finding it so overbearing and it causes me a lot of grief given, like many of you, I'm sure, I consider myself a critical thinker, wanting to challenge the assumptions underlying a lot of this language and institutional structure.

I guess my question is, how do you all stay sane in such an environment, and how do you actually practice criticality when many just uncritically adopt the language and behaviour of these institutional trends?

Thanks in advance and I hope everyone else is keeping well in these times.

Hey, new here. I'm a writer and creative strategist interested in the intersection of technology, ideology and belief.

I've been researching the parallels between 19th century spiritualism and AI, specifically how both manufacture a kind of epistemic authority. The more we trust these systems, the more dependent we become.

Wrote a piece on this recently. Curious if anyone has thoughts on AI as a mechanism for commodifying belief, or other theoretical frameworks worth looking into...I would love to do more research!

https://cultholdings.substack.com/p/the-demon-in-the-machine

Do you have any ideas/examples/theories of non formal practices happening in early socialization stages that could contribute to psychiatrist/psychological/pathological thinking patterns later on in life? As implicit knowledge incorporated in the habitus. Like for example in economical thinking: the practice of getting grades in school as socialization towards social comparison/competiton thinking patterns.

Hi! I finished my master's degree, i looked into nostalgia and melancholia in an internet subculture on social media (I'm keeping it vague on purpose).

I feel the need to change since a phd is longer and requires more work than a masters. And i need to work with new concepts and theories.

Is there something to do with hauntology?
And the feeling of doom?
In media studies?

I think, of course there is, but what could actually be interesting?

I'm currently reading mark fisher and I'm somewhat inspired. I like anything related to negociations between (possible) past, present, and futures, and internet culture. I know it is not specific, but if someone wants to help me brainstorm, i'd be really happy about it :)

Pls be kind I'm young and I know nearly nothing, I'm trying my best

​

A Phrase That Travels on Its Own

Hi everyone,
I am trying to track down the exact bibliographic source or published volume for a famous quote by D.W. Winnicott from January 1967.
In it, he openly discusses how he got "stuck" with the concept of delusional transference until Margaret Little clarified it for him. The quote goes:

"Now there was something I needed and could not manage by myself, and that was a full use of the concept of delusional transference. This is one of the most difficult things we have to deal with in analysis, and from my point of view this bit I really took from someone. If Margaret Little hadn't been able to clarify it I would have been stuck, as I think a lot of psycho-analysts are stuck. That is, then, a little bit of my life where I really got something from someone else, almost as if I had stolen it out of my mother's purse."

I believe (but I’m not sure) he said this in January 1967 at the British Psychoanalytical Society during the responses/Q&A after presenting an early version of his paper "The Use of an Object." However, while the main paper ended up in Playing and Reality (1971), this specific post-presentation commentary doesn't always appear in standard editions of that book.

Does anyone know exactly where this discussion transcript is published? Is it in The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott, a specific biography (like Rodman's), or an archival bulletin of the British Society? Any help or citation pointing to where I can read the full context of this exchange would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, everyone! To take my mind off all the work at the academy, I’ve started putting together a YouTube playlist featuring songs that reference ideas or authors from social and critical theory.

The rule is simple: only songs that directly mention an author’s name or ideas (e.g., “Jacques Derrida'' by Scritti Politti; “Death of Ferdinand de Saussure” by The Magnetic Fields, etc.) or songs that can be interpreted through the ideas of one or more of the authors in question (e.g., “Ping Pong” by Stereolab, which, in my opinion, belongs to this second category) count.

Looking forward to your suggestions! !! Special prize for the most obscure song :)