since you asked #3

[framefolly]

The final

Comments

[blue_aardvark]

Thanks for your sharply reasoned response! I am going to think and think and think and come up with a question that even you cannot answer. :)

It may come as no surprise to you but I take a materialistic view of dreams. Our minds are machines, very complex machines to be sure. Once a neural net of sufficient complexity is created, it will have the ability to "dream," "think," and even "feel." At least there will be no objective way to distinguish between a human's dreams and a machine's. The ghost in the machine.

[blue_aardvark]

I forgot to add: While I think the dream story is random, the interpretation of it, and the feeling ascribed to it, are vital. And it is here where the machinistic and the Freudian views can dovetail.

Pass the doobie, will ya.

[framefolly]

I agree. It's not so much that I believe that a tree makes no sound if no one hears it, but that the question doesn't mean much -- sound is in the ear of the perceiver, so to speak. All matter and energy, organic and inorganic, follow universal laws -- and the messages or lack thereof we find in the world depend on the efforts and limitations of our perceptual/sense-making apparatus.

Tiny!

[anonymous]

Wow! Wow. What a well-reasoned and lucid account of Freuds' views. I usually see this sort of writing in prestigious lay magazines that writes in depth stories such as the New Yorker, although sometimes I think they may write with a tad more simplication and condescension than you. You are a very good teacher and writer

Re: Tiny!

[framefolly]

Again, you are too kind. I actually find my writing too "gummy." Need to loosen up quite a bit more before I might feel like I'm fit to be published in non-academic contexts -- excepting lj, of course ;) .

Poor bird for such a scary dream!