Next Tuesday (24 Nov), the Macquarie philosophy work-in-progress talk
will be given by Mel Rosen (Macquarie), who'll be telling us why
Dreams are Narrow Minded.
11-12 in the philosophy seminar room, W6A, Macquarie University. All
welcome.
Abstract:
Alva Noe proposes a radical extended mind view, which he refers to as
the extended substrate thesis. The majority of philosophers who argue
that the mind is partially constituted by objects external to the
brain limit their thesis to certain cognitive functions such as memory
and mathematic ability, excluding phenomenal experience from the scope
of their thesis. Noe, on the other hand, argues that we have no reason
to discount the possibility that phenomenal states are partially
externally constituted. In particular, Noe rejects the argument that
dreams are a reasonable counter example to such a radical thesis. In
this paper I shall evaluate his view and propose that dreams, in
particular lucid dreams, provide a more convincing counterargument
than he allows. I shall consider three main strands of Noe’s argument.
Firstly, the fact that dreams may involve no interaction with the
external environment makes it unlikely that dreams are conscious
experiences at all. Secondly, we have good reason to consider dreaming
and waking experiences to be different types of consciousness, so that
whatever is true of dreams, waking experiences may be partially
constituted by things outside the head. Thirdly, dreaming experiences
seem to be restricted to amalgamations of waking experiences, so there
is not good reason to think even dreams are entirely restricted to the
head. I shall in turn argue that these three arguments do not disprove
that dreams are instances of full blown consciousness that exist in
the head alone.
***
This will be the last regular work-in-progress seminar this year,
although we have a special one-off seminar coming up on Dec 15, when
Neil Sinhababu (Singapore) will be talking on The Trouble With Double
Effect. Details on that will follow.
See you there,
Mark_______________________________________________
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