continues to receive many reviews. Judging by recent reviews, this is a very controversial book. The question considered here is, how can one fairly review a controversial book—particularly when the book is widely popular and, for a history of economic thought book, a best seller? This essay uses Mirowski’s book as a case study to propose one answer for this question. In the process, it will examine how others seem to have answered this question. Key Words: methodology • reviews • (...) Mirowski • Machine Dreams. (shrink)

There are two epistemological problems connected with dreaming, which are of different kinds and require different treatment. The internal problem is best seen as a problem of rational consistency, of how we can maintain all of: Dreams are experiences we have during sleep. Dream-experiences are sufficiently similar to waking experiences for the subject to be able to mistake them for waking experiences. We can tell that we are awake. (1)-(3) threaten to violate a requirement on discrimination: that we can only (...) tell Xs from Ys if there is some detectable difference between Xs and Ys. Attempts to solve the problem by Descartes and Williams are considered. It is suggested that if we take account of levels of epistemic risk, we can use Descartes's criterion of lack of coherence, at least with hindsight - which is the time when we need to use it. (shrink)

Several Buddhist schools in India, China and Japan concentrate on the interrelationships between waking and dreaming consciousness. In Eastern philosophy, reality can be seen as a dream and an obscure 'reality beyond' can be considered as real. In spite of the overwhelming Platonic-Aristotelian-Freudian influence existent in Western culture, some Western thinkers and artists - Valéry, Baudelaire, and Schnitzler, for example - have been fascinated by a kind of 'simple presence' contained in dreams. I show that this has consequences for a (...) philosophy of space. According to the authors discussed, the dreamer and the player recognize that human space always means the entire cosmos. (shrink)

Relatively poor memory for dreams is important evidence for Hobson et al.'s model of conscious states. We describe the time-gap experience as evidence that everyday memory for waking states may not be as good as they assume. As well as being surprisingly sparse, everyday memories may themselves be systematically distorted in the same manner that Revonsuo attributes uniquely to dreams. [Hobson et al.; Revonsuo].

I have argued that Wittgenstein's treatment of dreaming involves a kind of anti-realism about the past: what makes "I dreamed p " true is, roughly, that I wake with the feeling or impression of having dreamed p . Richard Scheer raises three objections. First, that the texts do not support my interpretation. Second, that the anti-realist view of dreaming does not make sense, so cannot be Wittgenstein's view. Third, that the anti-realist view leaves it a mystery why someone who reports (...) having dreamed such-and-such is inclined to report what she does. The Reply defends my reading of Wittgenstein against these objections. (shrink)

In the final essay, the "intrinsic" nature of "qualia" is compared with the naively imagined "intrinsic value" of a dollar in ...

The five papers in this issue all deal with the proper evolutionary function of sleep and dreams, these being different. To establish that some trait of character is an adaptation in the strict biological sense requires a story about the fitness enhancing function it served when it evolved and possibly a story of how the maintenance of this function is fitness enhancing now. My aim is to evaluate the proposals put forward in these papers. My conclusion is that although sleep (...) is almost certainly an adaptation, dreaming is not. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]. (shrink)

What, if anything, do dreams tell us about ourselves? What is the relationship between types of sleep and types of dreams? Does dreaming serve any purpose? Or are dreams simply meaningless mental noise--"unmusical fingers wandering over the piano keys"? With expertise in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Owen Flanagan is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. In this groundbreaking work, he provides both an accessible survey of the latest research on sleep and dreams and a compelling new theory about the nature (...) and function of dreaming. Flanagan argues that while sleep has a clear biological function and adaptive value, dreams are merely side effects, "free riders," irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view. But dreams are hardly unimportant. Flanagan argues that dreams are self-expressive, the result of our need to find or to create meaning, even when we're sleeping. Written with remarkable insight, Dreaming Souls offers a fascinating new way of apprehending one of the oldest mysteries of mental life. (shrink)

Nanotechnology is a swiftly developing field of technology that is believed to have the potential of great upsides and excessive downsides. In the ethical debate there has been a strong tendency to strongly focus on either the first or the latter. As a consequence ethical assessments of nanotechnology tend to radically diverge. Optimistic visionaries predict truly utopian states of affairs. Pessimistic thinkers present all manner of apocalyptic visions. Whereas the utopian views follow from one-sidedly focusing on the potential benefits of (...) nanotechnology, the apocalyptic perspectives result from giving exclusive attention to possible worst-case scenarios. These radically opposing evaluations hold the risk of conflicts and unwanted backlashes. Furthermore, many of these drastic views are based on simplified and outdated visions of a nanotechnology dominated by self-replicating assemblers and nanomachines. Hence, the present state of the ethical debate on nanotechnology calls for the development of more balanced and better-informed assessments. As a first step in this direction this contribution presents a new method of framing the ethical debate on nanotechnology. Thus, the focus of this paper is on methodology, not on normative analysis. (shrink)

The notion of simulation in dreaming of threat recognition and avoidance faces difficulties deriving from (1) some typical characteristics of dream artifacts (some “surreal,” some not) and (2) metaphysical issues involving the need for some representation in the theory of a perspective subject making use of the artifact. [Hobson et al.; Revonsuo].

Genie nanotech, space colonies, Turing-test A.I., a local singularity, crypto credentials, and private law are all dreams of a future where some parts of the world economy and society have an unusually low level of dependence on the rest of the world. But it is the worldwide division of labor that has made us humans rich, and I suspect we won't let it go for a long time to come.

Although Foucault's early writings were strongly influenced by the discourse of existential phenomenology, he later considered it an obstacle to a better understanding of social and political power. This essay seeks to understand some of the reasons for his shift, specifically with respect to Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I argue that Foucault diverges from existential phenomenology according to an alternative tendency within the Kantian inheritance they both share: one which stresses the world-disruptive rather than the unifying or world-disclosive power of transcendental (...) imagination. Examining the role played by dreams and death in Foucault's early introduction to Binswanger's Dream and Existence allows us to situate his later analysis of the historical and political (rather than existential) meaning of death with respect to larger philosophical currents. (shrink)

: Lucretius' Epicurean account of dreams in Book IV of De Rerum Natura indicates that they are wholly void of prophetic significance and of little practical significance. Dreams, rightly apprehended, do little more than mirror our daily preoccupations. For Lucretius, all dreams pass through the gate of ivory and all are reducible to psychophysical phenomena.In this paper, I examine Lucretius' account of sleep and the formation of dreams in light of the Epicurean aims of the poem as a whole. In (...) doing so, I give what I take to be a plausible sketch of the formation of dreams through what I call Lucretius' "selection model" of dreams. The selection model forbids, strictly speaking, the phenomenon of genuine prophecy through dreams, while at the same time it allows for a surprisingly rich psychophysical explanation of the genesis of seemingly prophetic dreams in sleepers. Thus, I argue, a proper grasp of the Lucretian account of oneiric formation is itself a significant part of the Epicurean cure for superstitions and religiously based ills of his day. (shrink)

Dreaming can provide a marvelous opportunity for the “playful” exploration of dramatic events. But the chance to learn to deal with danger is only a small part of it. More important is the chance to discover what it is like to be the subject of strange but humanly significant mental states. [Revonsuo].

This study investigated the relationship between dream emotion and dream character identification. Thirty-five subjects provided 320 dream reports and answers to questions on characters that appeared in their dreams. We found that emotions are almost always evoked by our dream characters and that they are often used as a basis for identifying them. We found that affection and joy were commonly associated with known characters and were used to identify them even when these emotional attributes were inconsistent with those of (...) the waking state. These findings are consistent with the finding that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, associated with short-term memory, is less active in the dreaming compared to the wake brain, while the paleocortical and subcortical limbic areas are more active. The findings are also consistent with the suggestion that these limbic areas have minimal input from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the dreaming brain. (shrink)

Ervin Laszlo has used the ancient concept of the Akashic Records for the basis of his "Akashic Field" (A-field) model, one that has obvious implications for parapsychology, the scientific study of anomalous human-human and human-environment interactions, that is, "psi." Experiments with "telepathic" and "precognitive" dreams are one example of parapsychological research that may fit the A-field model because of its information-carrying potential. Psi appears to be a complex system, one that may reflect the connective "web" posited by the A-field model. (...) In other words, the "universal knowledge" implicit in the old descriptions of the Akashic Records may have a modern-day counterpart. (shrink)