Category: Dreaming and Waking
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The Cartesian Dream Argument and an Austinian Contrast Argument
In this Substack entry I defend the Frenchman against the Englishman. Continentals 1 – Insular Islanders 0. A number of contrast arguments are examined.
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Wittgenstein and Dreaming
On Certainty #383: The argument "I may be dreaming" is senseless for this reason: if I am dreaming, this remark is being dreamed as well and indeed it is also being dreamed that these words have any meaning. I beg to differ. It is a plain fact that people have dreams in which they know that…
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Dream and Reality
Suppose I become aware of something while dreaming. Does the fact that I am dreaming invalidate the content of my awareness? Or are there cases in which I become veridically aware that p even while and despite dreaming? In bed I am puzzling over a chess problem. The book drops from my hands and…
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Quentin in a Dream
His eyes glowed a couple of times with a devilish green light. He was going on about how we are just physical systems. Me: "If so, why does this matter so much to you?"
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Dream and Reality
How close dreams are to waking reality is shown by the need we sometimes have to remind ourselves that something seemingly remembered was merely dreamt. I wake up from a dream in which an enemy has acted in a friendly and conciliatory manner. I remind myself that the conciliatory behavior was merely my dreaming mind's invention. …
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Moral Responsibility in Dreams
I had a lucid dream the other night in which I lost my cool to an extent I would consider morally reprehensible in waking life. But was there any moral failure in the dream? And then there are the dreams in which I am having sexual intercourse with a woman not my wife. I'm aware…
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Wittgenstein and Dreaming: *On Certainty* #383
On Certainty #383: The argument "I may be dreaming" is senseless for this reason: if I am dreaming, this remark is being dreamed as well and indeed it is also being dreamed that these words have any meaning. What is senseless (sinnlos) here is not the dream argument, but what Wittgenstein says about it. It…
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Was Moses High on Mount Sinai? If Yes, What Follows?
Benny Shanon is quoted by The Guardian as saying: As far as Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either. Or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel…
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Dreaming and Waking
When I wake up from a dream I realize I was dreaming; but when I go to sleep and dream there is no parallel recognition that I was awake. Serious philosophical juice can be squeezed from this observation. Some other time.