Philosophy of Mind

Which of the following can definitely not be inferred from the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

The author does not

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

The reading of the passage may well lead to the conclusion that the author is

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the principle of its own integrity.  The one is the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects those forms which are common to universal nature and existence itself; the other is the principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance.
Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in the lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds of motions thus excited to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and every inflexion of tone and every gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects that delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects, and of his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes the object of the passions and pleasures of man; an additional class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts, become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from its elements, society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained within the present, as the plant within the seed; and equality, diversity, unity, contrasts, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of the kind. Hence, men even in the infancy of society observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented by them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds.

The author seems to be making a case for

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Things are continually happening all around us that we see with but half an eye. They are in the “fringe” of consciousness, and we deliberately ignore them. Many more things come to us in the form of sense-impressions that clamorously assail our sense-organs, but no effort of the will is needed to ignore them. We are absolutely impervious to them and unconscious of them because by the selection of our life interests we have closed the doors against them. In either case, whether in the “fringe" of consciousness or entirely outside of consciousness, these unperceived sensations will be found to be sensory images that have no connection with the present subject of thought. They therefore attract, and we spare them, no part of our attention.
Just as each of our individual sense-organs selects from the multitude of ether vibrations constantly beating upon the surface of the body only those waves to the velocity of which it is attuned, so each one of us as an integral personality selects from the stream of sensory experiences only those particular objects of attention that are in some way related to the present or habitual trend of thought.

What does invitational mood in the passage refer to?

Passage-III

Directions: Read the passage and answer the following question.

Much of Kelly’s thinking, including his view on science, is based on the philosophical position of constructive alternatives. According to this position, there is no objective reality or absolute truth to discover, instead, there are efforts to construe events–to interpret phenomena in order to make sense of them. There are always alternative constructions available from which to choose. This is true for the scientists as it is for people who behave as scientists. In Kelly's view the scientific enterprise is not the discovery of truth or, as Freud might have suggested, the uncovering of things previously hidden in the mind. Rather the scientific enterprise is the effort to develop construct systems that are useful in anticipating events.
Kelly was concerned about the tendency toward dogma in psychology. Psychologists believed that constructs of inner states and traits actually existed rather than understanding them as "things" in a theoretician's head. If someone is described as an introvert, we tend to check whether he is an introvert, rather than checking the person who is responsible for the statement. Kelly's position against "truth" and dogma is of considerable significance. It leads, for instance, to the view that subjective thinking is an essential step in the scientific process. Subjective thinking allows one to establish the "invitation mood" in which one is free to invite many alternative interpretations of phenomena, and to entertain propositions that, initially, may seem absurd. The invitational mood is a necessary part of the exploration of the world, for the professional scientist as well as for the patient in therapy. It is the mood established by the creative novelist. But where a novelist publishes his make-believe and may even be unconcerned with the evidence supporting his constructions, a professional scientist tends to minimise the wind of make-believe and to focus on objective evidence.
According to Kelly, it is the freedom to make believe and to establish the invitational mood that allows for the development of hypothesis. A hypothesis should not be asserted as a fact, but instead should allow the scientist to pursue its implications as if it were true. Kelly viewed a theory as a tentative expression of what has been observed and of what is expected. A theory has a range of convenience, indicating the boundaries of phenomena the theory can cover, and a focus of convenience, indicating the points within the boundaries where the theory works best. For example, Freud\\\\\\'s theory has a broad range of convenience and the focus of convenience is the unconscious and abnormal behaviour. Rogers’ theory has a narrower range of convenience and its focus of convenience is more on the concept of the self and the process of change. Different theories have different ranges of convenience and different foci of convenience.
Kelly theories were modifiable and ultimately expendable. A theory is modified or discarded when it stops leading to new predictions or leads to incorrect predictions. Among scientists, as well as among people in general, how long one holds on to a theory in the face of contradictory information is partly a matter of taste and style.
Kelly\\'s view on science is not unique, but is important in terms of its clarity of expression and its points of emphasis. It also has a number of important ramifications. First, since there are no “facts,” and also different theories have different ranges of convenience, we need not argue about whether the facts are "psychological" or "physiological" or whether one theory is right and another wrong – they are different constructions. Second, Kelly's approach involved criticism of an extreme emphasis on measurement. Kelly felt that such an approach can lead to viewing concepts as "things" rather than as representations, and to making a psychologist into a technician rather than a scientist. Third, Kelly's view of science leaves room for the clinical as opposed to the experimental method, which he considered useful because it speaks the language of hypothesis, because it leads to the emergence of new variables and focuses on important questions. The fourth significant thing about Kelly\\'s view of science–it should focus on important issues. In Kelly\\'s belief, many psychologists are afraid of doing anything that might not be recognised as science, and they have given up struggling with important aspects of human behaviour. His suggestion was that they stop trying to be scientific and that they get on with the job of understanding people. Kelly believed that a good scientific theory should encourage the invention of new approaches to the solution of the problems of people and society.

Finally, as noted, Kelly took a firm stand against dogma. It was his contention that many scholars waste time trying to disprove their colleagues' claims to make room for their own explanations. It is a tribute to Kelly's sense of perspective, sense of humour, and lack of defensiveness concerning his own work that he could describe one of his own theoretical papers as involving "half-truths" only, and that he could view his theory as contributing to its downfall. It is this theory–the theory of personal constructs–that we now discuss.

The passage answers all the below given questions except

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

The famous gorilla experiment conducted by Harvard University when a woman dressed in a gorilla suit ambled across the floor thumping her chest, but 50 % of the audience didn’t notice. The study shows we often err when it comes to concentration and perception. Humans have a limited capacity for attention which in turn means that we have a limited capacity to process information at any given point of time.
When we open our eyes, the whole image gets projected on the retina, but only selective parts of the image are sensed by the brain. This is because as the amount of information in the image was too great to be processed, the brain selectively puts its attention on the most important aspects. Scientists have found that highly prominent events may go unnoticed. 
Researchers now recognize a phenomenon known as “change blindness”, which means that people often fail to detect changes in their field of vision, so long that the change takes place during an eye movement or when the view is somehow interrupted. It has been discovered that our brain tries to construct a meaningful whole out of stimuli that fits in with the scenario of its interest and is capable of discarding majority of other information. This fact can be easily explained by observing a child play the game “spot the difference”. On the first look the child finds the pictures to be similar. Only after careful attention, does he find the differences. The present decade has seen a lot of research into this field. The questions that the scientists are trying to answer are: What is the amount of visual input a brain can consciously and unconsciously encode?
Why do some objects come in the field of observation and not others? What happens to information that is subconsciously perceived?
Arien Mack and Irvin Rock also conducted many experiments and co-authored a book “Inattentional Blindness” in 1998. One of their experiments was very simple. They asked the subjects to observe a cross on the computer screen. The subjects were repetitively asked to judge which arm of the cross was longer. They were in a way made to concentrate on the cross. After some time, unrepentantly, another brightly coloured object was inserted in their field of vision. The researchers reported that the participants often failed to notice the unexpected object on the screen, even when it appeared in the middle of their line of vision. The study gave a conclusive proof that there exists a wide gulf between perception and attention. Some psychologists are of the view that intentional blindness may be in some way related to selective memory instead of selective perception. The cause of the ‘intentional amnesia’ may be organic, functional or circumstantial.
Harvard university researchers have concluded that “we consciously see far less of our world than we think we do. We might well encode much of our visual world without awareness.” We believe that we generally see what is in front of us and by basically looking. But looking and seeing are two different events. It has been observed that we look without seeing during moments of intense concentration. We have all observed that our eyes may be open, the images form on the retina, but still we have limited perception. We all remember these moments of blurred visuals and they come usually when either we are in deep thoughts or involved in an interesting conversation.

Which of the following statements can be directly inferred from the passage about intentional blindness?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

The famous gorilla experiment conducted by Harvard University when a woman dressed in a gorilla suit ambled across the floor thumping her chest, but 50 % of the audience didn’t notice. The study shows we often err when it comes to concentration and perception. Humans have a limited capacity for attention which in turn means that we have a limited capacity to process information at any given point of time.
When we open our eyes, the whole image gets projected on the retina, but only selective parts of the image are sensed by the brain. This is because as the amount of information in the image was too great to be processed, the brain selectively puts its attention on the most important aspects. Scientists have found that highly prominent events may go unnoticed. 
Researchers now recognize a phenomenon known as “change blindness”, which means that people often fail to detect changes in their field of vision, so long that the change takes place during an eye movement or when the view is somehow interrupted. It has been discovered that our brain tries to construct a meaningful whole out of stimuli that fits in with the scenario of its interest and is capable of discarding majority of other information. This fact can be easily explained by observing a child play the game “spot the difference”. On the first look the child finds the pictures to be similar. Only after careful attention, does he find the differences. The present decade has seen a lot of research into this field. The questions that the scientists are trying to answer are: What is the amount of visual input a brain can consciously and unconsciously encode?
Why do some objects come in the field of observation and not others? What happens to information that is subconsciously perceived?
Arien Mack and Irvin Rock also conducted many experiments and co-authored a book “Inattentional Blindness” in 1998. One of their experiments was very simple. They asked the subjects to observe a cross on the computer screen. The subjects were repetitively asked to judge which arm of the cross was longer. They were in a way made to concentrate on the cross. After some time, unrepentantly, another brightly coloured object was inserted in their field of vision. The researchers reported that the participants often failed to notice the unexpected object on the screen, even when it appeared in the middle of their line of vision. The study gave a conclusive proof that there exists a wide gulf between perception and attention. Some psychologists are of the view that intentional blindness may be in some way related to selective memory instead of selective perception. The cause of the ‘intentional amnesia’ may be organic, functional or circumstantial.
Harvard university researchers have concluded that “we consciously see far less of our world than we think we do. We might well encode much of our visual world without awareness.” We believe that we generally see what is in front of us and by basically looking. But looking and seeing are two different events. It has been observed that we look without seeing during moments of intense concentration. We have all observed that our eyes may be open, the images form on the retina, but still we have limited perception. We all remember these moments of blurred visuals and they come usually when either we are in deep thoughts or involved in an interesting conversation.

The primary purpose of the passage is

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

The famous gorilla experiment conducted by Harvard University when a woman dressed in a gorilla suit ambled across the floor thumping her chest, but 50 % of the audience didn’t notice. The study shows we often err when it comes to concentration and perception. Humans have a limited capacity for attention which in turn means that we have a limited capacity to process information at any given point of time.
When we open our eyes, the whole image gets projected on the retina, but only selective parts of the image are sensed by the brain. This is because as the amount of information in the image was too great to be processed, the brain selectively puts its attention on the most important aspects. Scientists have found that highly prominent events may go unnoticed. 
Researchers now recognize a phenomenon known as “change blindness”, which means that people often fail to detect changes in their field of vision, so long that the change takes place during an eye movement or when the view is somehow interrupted. It has been discovered that our brain tries to construct a meaningful whole out of stimuli that fits in with the scenario of its interest and is capable of discarding majority of other information. This fact can be easily explained by observing a child play the game “spot the difference”. On the first look the child finds the pictures to be similar. Only after careful attention, does he find the differences. The present decade has seen a lot of research into this field. The questions that the scientists are trying to answer are: What is the amount of visual input a brain can consciously and unconsciously encode?
Why do some objects come in the field of observation and not others? What happens to information that is subconsciously perceived?
Arien Mack and Irvin Rock also conducted many experiments and co-authored a book “Inattentional Blindness” in 1998. One of their experiments was very simple. They asked the subjects to observe a cross on the computer screen. The subjects were repetitively asked to judge which arm of the cross was longer. They were in a way made to concentrate on the cross. After some time, unrepentantly, another brightly coloured object was inserted in their field of vision. The researchers reported that the participants often failed to notice the unexpected object on the screen, even when it appeared in the middle of their line of vision. The study gave a conclusive proof that there exists a wide gulf between perception and attention. Some psychologists are of the view that intentional blindness may be in some way related to selective memory instead of selective perception. The cause of the ‘intentional amnesia’ may be organic, functional or circumstantial.
Harvard university researchers have concluded that “we consciously see far less of our world than we think we do. We might well encode much of our visual world without awareness.” We believe that we generally see what is in front of us and by basically looking. But looking and seeing are two different events. It has been observed that we look without seeing during moments of intense concentration. We have all observed that our eyes may be open, the images form on the retina, but still we have limited perception. We all remember these moments of blurred visuals and they come usually when either we are in deep thoughts or involved in an interesting conversation.

The role of the last paragraph of the passage is

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

The famous gorilla experiment conducted by Harvard University when a woman dressed in a gorilla suit ambled across the floor thumping her chest, but 50 % of the audience didn’t notice. The study shows we often err when it comes to concentration and perception. Humans have a limited capacity for attention which in turn means that we have a limited capacity to process information at any given point of time.
When we open our eyes, the whole image gets projected on the retina, but only selective parts of the image are sensed by the brain. This is because as the amount of information in the image was too great to be processed, the brain selectively puts its attention on the most important aspects. Scientists have found that highly prominent events may go unnoticed. 
Researchers now recognize a phenomenon known as “change blindness”, which means that people often fail to detect changes in their field of vision, so long that the change takes place during an eye movement or when the view is somehow interrupted. It has been discovered that our brain tries to construct a meaningful whole out of stimuli that fits in with the scenario of its interest and is capable of discarding majority of other information. This fact can be easily explained by observing a child play the game “spot the difference”. On the first look the child finds the pictures to be similar. Only after careful attention, does he find the differences. The present decade has seen a lot of research into this field. The questions that the scientists are trying to answer are: What is the amount of visual input a brain can consciously and unconsciously encode?
Why do some objects come in the field of observation and not others? What happens to information that is subconsciously perceived?
Arien Mack and Irvin Rock also conducted many experiments and co-authored a book “Inattentional Blindness” in 1998. One of their experiments was very simple. They asked the subjects to observe a cross on the computer screen. The subjects were repetitively asked to judge which arm of the cross was longer. They were in a way made to concentrate on the cross. After some time, unrepentantly, another brightly coloured object was inserted in their field of vision. The researchers reported that the participants often failed to notice the unexpected object on the screen, even when it appeared in the middle of their line of vision. The study gave a conclusive proof that there exists a wide gulf between perception and attention. Some psychologists are of the view that intentional blindness may be in some way related to selective memory instead of selective perception. The cause of the ‘intentional amnesia’ may be organic, functional or circumstantial.
Harvard university researchers have concluded that “we consciously see far less of our world than we think we do. We might well encode much of our visual world without awareness.” We believe that we generally see what is in front of us and by basically looking. But looking and seeing are two different events. It has been observed that we look without seeing during moments of intense concentration. We have all observed that our eyes may be open, the images form on the retina, but still we have limited perception. We all remember these moments of blurred visuals and they come usually when either we are in deep thoughts or involved in an interesting conversation.

In stating that 'the human mind knows everything' about every thing in the universe - past, present and future, the author intends to

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage:

Déjà vu is linked to extraordinary temporal lobe activity but there is more to it than that, including a couple of very interesting theories involving past life experiences and an empirical theory which propounds that the human mind knows everything about everything in the universe - past, present and future. Setting aside medical research which suggests that déjà vu is experienced often just before epilepsy attack, for the simple reason that not everyone who has such an experience suffers from epilepsy, the other two paranormal theories offer a lot of food for thought because they go beyond the realm of surface knowledge and delve into the unknown, uncharted and controversial realms of knowledge. Of all the knowledge that we have now, a vast majority was considered heresy and fantasy before it was established with suitable proof. It is important to try and understand these streams of relatively unexplored and nascent fountainheads of alternative knowledge as conventional dogmas alone cannot hope to provide all the answers to the plethora of unanswered mysteries of the world. One possible explanation for the experiences could be the past life theory, juxtaposing which with déjà vu would suggest the linkage of experiences in previous births with a sensation of having been there before in the present birth but a basic but serious flaw in this theory comes from statistical data which suggests that experiences of déjà vu peak in adolescence and taper off rapidly thereafter. As a starting point however, the theory is not so bad as science is nothing but the art of unraveling a badly jumbled up ball of yarn by pulling, tugging every individual strand and all available ends to try and determine the connection between them. Once a connection or knot is revealed, the next step involves getting one ball of yarn through that tunnel and then repeating that step maybe hundreds of times till a pattern begins to emerge.

According to the author, which of the following is not one of the possible explanations for the feeling of déjà vu?

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage:

Déjà vu is linked to extraordinary temporal lobe activity but there is more to it than that, including a couple of very interesting theories involving past life experiences and an empirical theory which propounds that the human mind knows everything about everything in the universe - past, present and future. Setting aside medical research which suggests that déjà vu is experienced often just before epilepsy attack, for the simple reason that not everyone who has such an experience suffers from epilepsy, the other two paranormal theories offer a lot of food for thought because they go beyond the realm of surface knowledge and delve into the unknown, uncharted and controversial realms of knowledge. Of all the knowledge that we have now, a vast majority was considered heresy and fantasy before it was established with suitable proof. It is important to try and understand these streams of relatively unexplored and nascent fountainheads of alternative knowledge as conventional dogmas alone cannot hope to provide all the answers to the plethora of unanswered mysteries of the world. One possible explanation for the experiences could be the past life theory, juxtaposing which with déjà vu would suggest the linkage of experiences in previous births with a sensation of having been there before in the present birth but a basic but serious flaw in this theory comes from statistical data which suggests that experiences of déjà vu peak in adolescence and taper off rapidly thereafter. As a starting point however, the theory is not so bad as science is nothing but the art of unraveling a badly jumbled up ball of yarn by pulling, tugging every individual strand and all available ends to try and determine the connection between them. Once a connection or knot is revealed, the next step involves getting one ball of yarn through that tunnel and then repeating that step maybe hundreds of times till a pattern begins to emerge.