@rhinogrey,
Hi there,
rhinogrey;79009 wrote:In this age of humanitarian secularism we have lost our ability to confer value on to many aspects of life -- Dreams are one of these things. One theory is that dreams are meant to prepare us for future events. This seems rather tenable to me, at least as someone who has spent time and effort cultivating his dream life.
Yes, I have read about this idea. It seems reasonable that we would symbolically walk through possible future scenarios.
Quote:Empirically, we can describe something as real if it has the correct causal relation arising from a set of physical prior histories. Given that the dream state is triggered by a flux of subconscious information-stream, it is not so much different from waking reality in the most basic sense. It is just as 'real' in this sense.
Yes, and this is the quandary that I see. It seems real when we are a asleep, but when we are awake it feels different. Why?
Quote:The main difference I see is in regards to Memory-formation: When dreaming (just as when in other altered states of mind), your mind fails to 'properly' file away the memories in the correct databanks.
I tend not to think of things that the mind does as
failing to do something properly. My perspective is that it is doing what it should do - but why?
Quote:Short term memory is almost dissolved into the nether, while long-term memory becomes slippery and unreliable.
Yes, this is how it seems. However, I am careful in that I am
awake when I am remembering my dream. Things may have changed substantially between asleep and awake. I may be remembering stuff, but only that which I choose to remember. It is, as you say, very slippery.
Quote:We consider our waking experiences as more reliable indicators of reality because we form more reliable coherent memories, using language programs to stagnate the flow of reality into static models.
Yes, I would agree. And there are
other minds around us who are helping us form a consensus on what is real and what is not. These however are basically joint, co-mingled experiences.
Quote:It follows from this that we come to rely on a patterned and coherent interpretation of reality >> to us, these coherent patterns become more real and causality is introduced as a necessary and sufficient condition for experience.
Yes, I agree. The process of forming a joint, coherent reality with other consciousness seems to be the task of the day, every morning. This does beg the question, why we all do this?
Quote:Chaos is un-knowable because it is always in motion: Our construct of what is 'real' actually pinpoints the boundaries of our epistemology, not the boundaries of reality.
Could be.
Thanks for your comments.
Rich