Dreaming is not 'completely subjective'

[Enmos]

Seriously?
I would seriously say, that you appear to be the one with that particular problem.
Can you show everyone an example of a "completely subjective", or "completely objective" anything?

I'd say not - not because you don't want to; because you can't. There are no such things.

I can't show you anything subjective because subjectivity resides only in the mind.
I can't show you anything objective because we can only perceive subjectively.

I think you try to look at the 'big picture' and so somehow merge the two concepts..

 

[Vkothii]

What do you mean "merge the two concepts"?
Are you implying that they exist as separate concepts from each other?

 

[Enmos]

What do you mean "merge the two concepts"?
Are you implying that they exist as separate concepts from each other?

Uhm yea.. are you implying they don't ?

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

In a sense that's correct. But perception is directly based on objective reality while dreams are not.

How could we possibly know this?
And what do think dreams are based on?

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

Yes the experience is as real as awake perception but dreams are not based directly on objective reality. Instead they are mainly reproductions of awake perception and reinterpretations thereof. I say mainly because some 'real-time' input takes place as well (as avatar mentioned).

How do we know this?
How did people come up with information that created technology that was effective in what you are calling objective reality in their dreams?

Also 'reproductions of awake perception and reinterpretations thereof' could be a description of thinking. Can we think about objective reality? Isn't thinking in some ways objective? If it is only subjective then while do we section off dreaming as subjective? Mental activity of all kinds should then be called subjective. The term becomes all inclusive and essentially meaningless.
In most contexts it tend to imply that such activities are not useful in practical ways. But this is clearly not the case. Nor is it for thinking.

 

[Vkothii]

are you implying they don't ?

Yes.
Because they don't exist separately.
They can't "exist" as separate concepts at all.

Is subjectivity of objects, or isn't it?
What about objectivity, no subjects needed?

 

[Enmos]

How do we know this?
How did people come up with information that created technology that was effective in what you are calling objective reality in their dreams?

Also 'reproductions of awake perception and reinterpretations thereof' could be a description of thinking. Can we think about objective reality? Isn't thinking in some ways objective? If it is only subjective then while do we section off dreaming as subjective? Mental activity of all kinds should then be called subjective. The term becomes all inclusive and essentially meaningless.
In most contexts it tend to imply that such activities are not useful in practical ways. But this is clearly not the case. Nor is it for thinking.

The process of dreaming is objective, but the dreams themselves are subjective.
I imagine thinking and dreaming aren't really that different, they are just different modes I guess.

 

[Enmos]

Yes.
Because they don't exist separately.
They can't "exist" as separate concepts at all.

Is subjectivity of objects, or isn't it?
What about objectivity, no subjects needed?

You think ?

Concept 1: Subjective
sub·jec·tive
–adjective
existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought (opposed to objective).
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subjective

Concept 2: Objective
ob·jec·tive
–noun
of or pertaining to something that can be known, or to something that is an object or a part of an object; existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/objective

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

The process of dreaming is objective, but the dreams themselves are subjective.
I imagine thinking and dreaming aren't really that different, they are just different modes I guess.

Then there would be something disingenuous about saying dreaming is completely subjective. Most would assume this distinguished dreaming from other mental activities.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

You think ?

Concept 1: Subjective
sub·jec·tive
–adjective
existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought (opposed to objective).
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subjective
[/url]

It seems like all mental activity falls under this definition. We never have direct contact with the objects - at least according to the objectivists here. Everying is interpreted, selected out, biases, delayed, mediated. Objective to me is beginning to sound like heaven. Something we cannot perceive or know but must be out there somewhere.

 

[Enmos]

It seems like all mental activity falls under this definition. We never have direct contact with the objects - at least according to the objectivists here. Everying is interpreted, selected out, biases, delayed, mediated. Objective to me is beginning to sound like heaven. Something we cannot perceive or know but must be out there somewhere.

Only thoughts, mental images etc. is subjective, not the actual processes going on in the brain itself. The brain is an object as well..

 

[Myles]

We only know objects in a phenomenological realm. Meaning is not the only thing that is created by us, but also the object's qualities. In fact it is we who carve that object out from everything else. The notion that there are objects is our doing.

Yet you say dreaming is not wholly subjective because it has " objects" whch, if I understand you correctly only exist because we have subjectively given them qualities via our senses. In short., we do not know what it is to be a stone but we attribute qualities such as hardness, weight, colour and so on to it. The stone is not aware of having such qualities; it is just a stone.

A dream is the result of cerebral activity. How can it be other than subjective ?

You seem to be contradicting yourself.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

Only thoughts, mental images etc. is subjective, not the actual processes going on in the brain itself. The brain is an object as well..

I am not sure why you are raising this issue.

 

[Myles]

How do we know this?
How did people come up with information that created technology that was effective in what you are calling objective reality in their dreams?

Also 'reproductions of awake perception and reinterpretations thereof' could be a description of thinking. Can we think about objective reality? Isn't thinking in some ways objective? If it is only subjective then while do we section off dreaming as subjective? Mental activity of all kinds should then be called subjective. The term becomes all inclusive and essentially meaningless.
In most contexts it tend to imply that such activities are not useful in practical ways. But this is clearly not the case. Nor is it for thinking.

The whole point is that when we talk of dreaming we are referring to a cerebral activity. What you call discovery, i.e., the benzene ring was not dreamt of as such but symbolized by a snake swallowing its tail. The point is that dreams are based on information stored in the brain and they may be influenced by external stimuli which are interpreted subjectively.

 

[Enmos]

I am not sure why you are raising this issue.

I thought you were claiming that brain activity was subjective.. ?

 

[Enmos]

The whole point is that when we talk of dreaming we are referring to a cerebral activity. What you call discovery, i.e., the benzene ring was not dreamt of as such but symbolized by a snake swallowing its tail. The point is that dreams are based on information stored in the brain and they may be influenced by external stimuli which are interpreted subjectively.

That is actually not a quote of me.. just for the record lol

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

Another example:

Dream Leads to Nobel Prize

Otto Loewi (1873-1961), a German born physiologist, won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1936 for his work on the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. In 1903, Loewi had the idea that there might be a chemical transmission of the nervous impulse rather than an electrical one, which was the common held belief, but he was at a loss on how to prove it. He let the idea slip to the back of his mind until 17 years later he had the following dream. According to Loewi:
Otto Loewi - Creativity and discovery from dreams - dream interpretation and science


Dr. Otto Loewi

"The night before Easter Sunday of that year I awoke, turned on the light, and jotted down a few notes on a tiny slip of paper. Then I fell asleep again. It occurred to me at 6 o'clock in the morning that during the night I had written down something most important, but I was unable to decipher the scrawl. The next night, at 3 o'clock, the idea returned. It was the design of an experiment to determine whether or not the hypothesis of chemical transmission that I had uttered 17 years ago was correct. I got up immediately, went to the laboratory, and performed a single experiment on a frog's heart according to the nocturnal design."

It took Loewi a decade to carry out a decisive series of tests to satisfy his critics, but ultimately the result of his initial dream induced experiment became the foundation for the theory of chemical transmission of the nervous impulse and led to a Nobel Prize!

Dr. Loewi noted: "Most so called 'intuitive' discoveries are such associations made in the subconscious."

 

[Enmos]

Another example:

What's your point with these examples ?

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

I thought you were claiming that brain activity was subjective.. ?

Brain activities like thinking, imagining, etc. would be subjective if dreaming is subjective given what you had said about dreaming. I am not making claims about what, I suppose, you would call the 'object brain'. I am not sure what claims can be made about such a thing if all we have to go on is subjective.

In other words saying that dreams are completely subjective is likely to be a pejorative use of the term subjective. IOW nothing encountered or learned from a dream will have objective application or contain truth in practical ways. This is not the case. But if we are going to define dreaming in the way you did, I wanted to point out that mental activities that we generally think of as being useful, practical and 'about' objective reality also fit under your definition.

I have been pretty habitual here. If someone has a belief I tend to try to point out some of the potential implications of that belief that they may not have considered. Perhaps someone is comfortable dismissing dream as subjective but is less comfortable dismissing throughts and so-called rational mental processes completely subjective.

You, Enmos, tend to be comfortable with the implications of what you say. Kudos to you. But you make a great foil for me to generate the implications with.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

What's your point with these examples ?

My point is that dreams seemed to offer information about what most people would call objective things.

If you label dreams as completely subjective, it seems to imply something like it is an experience which relates only to the experiencer and has no information that can be verified and of use to others, certainly not in the development of tools, for example, or deeper understanding of what is 'out there' and accessible to others. But this is clearly not the case. I am specifically choosing scientific examples, though I think there are many other examples out there that are just as objective. In other words that have to do with what is out there.

For example:

Mathematical Genius & Dreamer- Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) was one of India's greatest mathematical geniuses. He made substantial contributions to analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptical functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. In 1914, he was invited in to Cambridge University by the English mathematician GH Hardy who recognized his unconventional genius. He worked there for five years producing startling results and proved over 3,000 theorems in his lifetime.

According to Ramanujan, inspiration and insight for his work many times came to him in his dreams...

A Hindu goddess, named Namakkal, would appear and present mathematical formulae which he would verify after waking. Such dreams often repeated themselves and the connection with the dream world as a source for his work was constant throughout his life.
Infinite series of pi - Hindu Goddess Dreams - Srinivasa Ramanujan
Infinite series for π. Example of formulae Ramanujan developed that led to new directions of research.
Source: Wikipedia

Ramanujan describes one of his dreams of mathematical discovery:

"While asleep I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of results in elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing..."

or (and I think this one is a beauty because it shows how the dream images were more perceptive than waking ones in a sensory way)

Subliminal Clues From Fossil Perceived In Dream

Louis Agassiz (1807-1883) was a Swiss born naturalist, zoologist, geologist, and teacher who emigrated to the US in 1846. He trained and influenced a generation of American zoologists and paleontologists and is one of the founding fathers of the modern American scientific tradition

While Agassiz was working on his vast work "Poissons Fossiles" a list of all know fossil fish, he came across a specimen in a stone slab which he was, at first, unable to figure out. He hesitated to classify it and extract it since an incorrect approach could ruin the specimen. At that time, Agassiz reports having a dream three nights in a row in which he saw the fish in perfect original condition. The first two nights -- being unprepared -- he did not record his image.
Lucid Dream Discovery - Vivid Dream Discovery - Agassiz fossil fish

Illustration of fossil fish from Les Poissons Fossiles, Louis Agassiz, 1843. Source: Strange Science

By the third night he was ready with pen and paper, and when the fish appeared again in the dream he drew it in the dark, still half asleep. The next day he looked at his drawing which had remarkably different features from the ones he had been working out, hastened to his laboratory and extracting the fossil realized it corresponded exactly to his dream.

Agassiz' creative dream of the fossilized fish may have been induced by having perceived unconsciously a clue in the stone slab which he had ignored while awake.