Aristotle on dreams

[LoBagola]

Nor, as Aristotle observed, is there any difficulty in distinguishing dreams from perception. The concept of “dream” has meaning only because it denotes a contrast to wakeful awareness. If a man were actually unable to recognize the latter state, the word “dream” to him would be meaningless.

This is from "senses as necessarily valid" section of OPAR.

 

As someone who used to have dreams where the conscious part of my brain was working (I was aware it was a dream) I have some doubts about the above statement.

 

Man is able to recognize a dream retrospectively, i.e after waking from it, but not during. If you are able to recognize a dream while your dreaming (the majority cannot) you'll become conscious in your dream (lucid dreaming).

 

So does the above argument still hold in present tense and not just retrospectively?

[FrolicsomeQuipster]

I don't think the quote was only referring to the retrospective sense.

But I think it does presuppose a familiarity with both states.

When you're having your first few dreams as a baby you don't fully grasp the difference yet, but its grasped so quickly and deeply that it takes years of chanting "you can't know" to unlearn.

[Grames]

A more complete treatment of the necessary validity of the senses and refutations of arguments to the contrary is available in David Kelley's book The Evidence of the Senses.

 

From my notes there is a section about the 'argument from hallucination' which is applicable to this topic.

 

IV. Hallucinations
A. Hallucinations vs. Illusions:
a. Illusions are perceptions in unusual circumstances.
b. Hallucinations are not perceptions, there is no reason to believe hallucination has anything to teach about perception. Only a prior commitment to the representationalist model leads to the insistence that hallucination can teach about perception.

B. The Argument:
1) If percepts were different from hallucinated objects, then there would be a qualitative difference in the experience.
2) There is no such qualitative difference.
3) Therefore, a percept has the same status as a hallucinated object.
4) A hallucinated object has the status of an image.
5) Therefore a percept has the status of an image.

C. Refutation:
Others have exhaustively criticized this argument. See Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, ch. V and Hirst, Problems of Perception, pp 37-45. In Summary:
Premise 1) is an assertion offered without justification.
Premise 2) is supported only by testimony of subjects having hallucinated, but the extreme malfunction of the mental faculties involved also renders judgments unreliable.
The argument begs the question. Assume for now the acceptance of 1) and 2) and the the intermediate conclusion 3). 4) is supported by common sense, but common sense also supports an alternate premise 
4) "A percept has the status of an external object." Alternate 4) would lead to the conclusion 
5) "A hallucinated object has the status of an external object."

The given 4) and alternate 4) are equally justified, only a prior commitment to representationalism dictates the preference.

D. Hallucinations as evidentiary:
Hallucinations are favored devices because they act as evidence for the state analysis premise, the premise that what is experienced must be contained entirely within the experiential state of the perceiver, and that an external object is superfluous. But are they? What are hallucinations?

E. What hallucinations are:
Percepts can be remembered. The object remembered is similar to the object perceived, but the experience of remembering and perceiving is dissimilar.
Imagination can create objects and entire scenes in a quasi-perceptual way. Imagination is not limited to objects as wholes, it recombines parts and attributes, colors and textures. Again the similarity is in the remembered elements while the experience is dissimilar to perception.

Memory and imagination can both be eidetic, extremely vivid. Hallucinations apparently can too. But the experiential state is still not identical to perception, it is a special form of perceptual memory and imagination where the similarity still lies in the objects and attributes not in the mode of experiencing them. Hallucination is the capacity for recalling and rearranging perceptual experiences set in motion by a cause that also prevents one from experiencing them as recalled or made-up.

F. "Imagining what a hallucination is like":
Resorting to this eliminates the value of using hallucinations as evidence. If the desired state is simply imagined, that is an assertion not an argument. And imagination is not perception.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Sorry Grames, but could you clarify that bit about hallucinations just a bit?  This is something I've been wondering about for a while now.

 

I would agree with Aristotle that it's easy to tell the difference between dreams and reality; the thing is that I can't quite identify why.

 

Imagination isn't actual experience and I think that's self-evident enough; imagination is by definition an intentional act.  I'm not sure about hallucinations being imagination per se but, in general, that seems like an accurate line of reasoning.

 

Specifically, I've been wondering if the content of dreams are clearly not real because they contradict an axiom; identity or consciousness?  Dreams would satisfy 'it is' ostensibly, while someone is dreaming, but anything could be anything else at any given moment (which is what makes me think of identity; the sheer weirdness of what happens in a dream).

 

Anyway.  Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[Leonid]

Dreams represent a content of one's mind when senses represent reality. Whoever cannot distinguish between these two really runs into a big trouble. Imagination from the other hand is a mechanism of anticipation which drives man's actions. It's essentially a mechanism of survival.

[LoBagola]

Dreams represent a content of one's mind when senses represent reality. Whoever cannot distinguish between these two really runs into a big trouble. Imagination from the other hand is a mechanism of anticipation which drives man's actions. It's essentially a mechanism of survival.

This is only true if you cannot distinguish between the two when you are actually awake. When your dreaming your unable to distinguish between the two states (reality and dream) but your body is completely paralyzed due to the clamping down on the release of some neurotransmitters - so your not able to destroy yourself.

[Eiuol]

When your dreaming your unable to distinguish between the two states (reality and dream)

Are you sure about this? At least for me, I usually am aware if I am dreaming, I just don't necessarily control the dream. Part C of Grames' post should address that.

[Grames]

Specifically, I've been wondering if the content of dreams are clearly not real because they contradict an axiom; identity or consciousness?  

 

Dreams/hallucinations are not real because they are not the product of perception.  

 

As beings of a finite and fallible consciousness, it is not the case that we can always and immediately penetrate every deceptive appearance.  However, dreams do always end.  The fact that the passage of time is required to reliably separate dream from reality is not a defect.  Perception itself as a physical process requires time to elapse, and time is inherent in causality.  Consciousness requires time, it would be a demand for the acausal to demand consciousness never require time to discriminate between dream and reality.  

[LoBagola]

As beings of a finite and fallible consciousness, it is not the case that we can always and immediately penetrate every deceptive appearance.  However, dreams do always end.  The fact that the passage of time is required to reliably separate dream from reality is not a defect.  Perception itself as a physical process requires time to elapse, and time is inherent in causality.  Consciousness requires time, it would be a demand for the acausal to demand consciousness never require time to discriminate between dream and reality.  

You've answered what it was I was trying to ask/ figure out. Thank you.

 

 

Are you sure about this? At least for me, I usually am aware if I am dreaming, I just don't necessarily control the dream.

 

Yeah because if I'm not aware that it's a dream I'm not conscious within it. If I'm aware it's a dream, e.g. through a repeated pattern - like clocks showing weird numbers, or lights switches not working I become conscious within the dream. I don't necessarily have complete control of the dream world but it is much more lucid / vivid and I'm definitely conscious. But grames post above addresses this.

Edited July 5, 2013 by LoBagola