Dangerous Cartesian Dreams
By Matt Pike
Thanks to the implementation of modern science and technology, I find myself typing this meditation overlooking a lake at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, with a warm sun at my back, and fresh air to sustain my body, if body I have. At long last, I find myself presented with sufficient leisure to adequately reflect inward on my mind to arrive at an addressing of the issues which have followed me to this day. Having fully and completely removed myself from my passions and other considerations, I am now in a position to examine all the truths which many men accept as evident. I find previous assumptions to not be fully sufficient for the supporting of any truth and must therefore avail myself to cast doubt onto everything that Descartes has ever said. Although many fallacious assumptions have been made in the tradition, which must, in all soundness, be doubted, the most clearly and evidently false conception is that a positive distinction can be made between the waking world and the realm of dreams.
In an effort to provide a sound basis and justification for his philosophical beliefs, Descartes assigns himself a very strict and rigorous method for examining his beliefs. The method he employs is essentially to remove all previous conceptions of truth, knowledge, and so on, and then to try to arrive at one foundational building block which is so true that it cannot be doubted. Once this is attained, he believes that anything built on top of this, following proper method, will be equally indubitable. This assumes the validity of the method, which does encounter problems in the light of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem since Descartes is using deductive logic to prove the validity of deductive logic in the long run, but this is a topic for another paper.
For his principle building block, Descartes chooses to analyze the existence of his mind. It becomes apparent upon the briefest reflection that anytime someone questions whether one exists, one is thinking. The very fact that thinking occurs necessitates that there be some substance that is doing the thinking. (Although this could be attacked as being a result of semantic structuring within language. Please see Nicole's paper for further information.) Whether thought necessitates a substance, such as mind, to function within, or is self-existing, either way, it exists, and thus can never be doubted as the one thing that is actual.
He notes that there are several possibilities to explain what he perceives as consciousness, including: reality being a dream, there being an evil Demon who has set about deceiving him, or the normally assumed existence and consciousness of man. Descartes asserts that no matter which possibility is correct, his existence is certain, since even a dreamer exists somewhere, and for an evil demon to deceive there must exist something to be deceived, and a conscious being would necessarily be conscious by definition. To address these in reverse, the definition of a conscious being does inherently necessitate consciousness. As for the evil demon, Descartes says that there is no way that the demon could ever cause him to no longer exist and to never have existed. This rests upon his general proof that he does exist, claiming that he exists simply by the act of thinking, and this existence is necessary and independent of whatever outside reality may or may not exist. Thus, even if there is an evil demon at work, his deception, no matter how complete, can never deceive a non-thinking, non-existent substance into thinking that it exists. Along these lines, even if such a deception were possible, the very act of deceiving something into thinking it exists would cause it to exist and to think, and thus the deception would turn real.
As for the remaining possibility, that the dreamer is asleep and dreaming that he exists, Descartes more or less dismisses this possibility while providing little or no inquiry into the distinction between wakefulness and dream. This is a major issue that requires much further reflection before any conclusion can be drawn. Much of this paper is going to be devoted to this, but first other certainties must be established. For now, lets just address the question of the existence of the dreamer by realizing that even if the consciousness that one knows now is simply a function of another mind elsewhere which happens to be asleep and projecting this mind, this outside mind, at least, must exist in some dimension of reality. What is perceived as full consciousness may in fact be only a projection of the actual consciousness, but there is still a truly existing conscious which is being manifested. Thus, no matter which possibility is considered, we see that it is necessary that Descartes' and our consciousnesses exist. Even after casting full doubt on the truths that Descartes presents, I find his thoughts on my existence to be clear and distinct, and thus inarguably true. So as not to lose the fullest breadth of this newfound certainty, I will pause now to further reflect on what my mind has hereto shown me. **********************
Descartes raises the question of how one can determine the difference between a state of wakefulness and that of dreaming, but fails to ever sufficiently address the issue. This issue is relevant because of his attempt to arrive at a firm and "real" foundation upon which to build a "first philosophy". There has long been an assumption of mankind that anything that occurs within the dream world is less real and less valid than something that occurs in the waking world. This is one assumption that Descartes completely fails to cast into doubt, and thus is the "chink in the armor", so to speak.
It becomes apparent as a possibility that any one person may simply be asleep and dreaming this entire world. This is only valid for one person to say about himself, as no one can say that someone else is dreaming this and still exist himself. If this is someone else's dream, then only that person can actually exist as a conscious and thinking individual. Many people raise objections to this, especially as related to their experience within dreams, but given my necessary hypothesis that this is my dream, I can only properly concern myself with my dream experiences.
We find many parallels between what Descartes has said about reality and what occurs in dreams. In dreams, we perceive ourselves as thinking individuals that are separate from our surroundings and the others around us. Yet these other things are projected creations of our subconscious, and thus are not "real" in and of themselves. They depend upon our mind and consciousness for their existence. Now granted, in order for us to perceive ourselves as existing in the dream, we must exist somewhere certainly. In this case, we exist most fully in the world in which we are sleeping, but from the perspective of the dreamee, this is an unknown, extended consciousness, of which the present consciousness is a portion, but not the entirety. The remaining part of the extended consciousness is what's responsible for the rest of the dream that is perceived as being external to the actor within the dream. So we see that the dreamer does exist, but may very well exist more fully than is comprehended. It would seem that there is a one directional path of the extension of the individual. There is no way for the consciousness to be less than it perceives, but it is entirely possible that it is more than it is aware of its being.
This opens up a whole world of possibilities for an explanation of what we perceive and experience in this reality. Many people, including Descartes, believe that dreams do not meet the logical "requirements" for reality. Descartes attempts to address the manner in which dreams fall short, albeit briefly, when he says,
"If someone, while I was awake, quite suddenly appeared to me and disappeared as fast as do the images which I see in sleep, so that I could not know from whence it came nor whither it went, it would not be without reason that I should deem it a spectre or a phantom formed by my brain [and similar to those which I form in sleep], rather than a real man".
As to his assertion that things in reality are seen to be adequately caused in their occurrence, as in seeing a person walking up, consistently being there, and then seeing them leave, it should be noted that there are times even in this "reality" that this does not hold true. Many are the times that something happens without us seeing it coming. For a simple example, consider a person approaching up while someone's back is turned. When the person turns around, they will perceive the friend as having materialized out of thin air. Numerous times, things happen that we do not see coming, and our mind fills in the blanks for what we now perceive. Perhaps as a better example, consider someone being rushed to the hospital for a medical emergency. They will perceive being wheeled into the hospital with a medic at their side, and then experience a nurse at their side injecting a general anesthetic. They then fade into unconsciousness, and never see the nurse leave. When they come too, perhaps they will find a concerned family member by their side without having experienced their arrival. Their mind will then fill in the events that happened without having any direct experience of the events themselves. So by Descartes standards, reality isn't real either.
Descartes also proposes that dreams do not have the same level of continuity as reality, and thus are easily distinguishable as unreal. He says, "I find a very noticeable difference between the two, inasmuch as our memory can never connect our dreams one with the other, or with the whole course of our lives, as it unites events which happen to us while we are awake." In this, however, he makes a category mistake, because he is addressing a lack of continuity between different and distinct dreams. This is equivalent to addressing the continuity between lives, rather than in one life. He attempts to point out that from one dream to the next, there is no continued memory of experience or occurrences, but this is properly compared to a lack of continuity between different lifetimes. Perhaps if one accepts reincarnation and believes that they have complete recollection of all their previous lives, then this is a correct distinction. Although, on a side note, it is possible to have dreams where previous dream experiences are remembered. Many people report having recurring dreams where they remember the outcome from previous occurrences. This author has also experienced dreams that pick up at the exact moment that previous dreams left off.
If one considers the continuity within the dream as a more appropriate comparison to the continuity experienced in reality, there are many times that it is equally existent within dreams. Many times, within a dream, one will remember what transpired earlier in the dream, and will perceive a cause and effect relationship between everything that has transpired in the dream, even if the particulars of the chain do not match what usually results from the same causes in reality. Even if someone disappears and is instantly replaced by someone else in a dream, this could be explained through an inference of events. It is no different than a nurse by the bedside suddenly being replaced by a concerned family member. In a dream, something in our mind sufficiently explains any sudden changes that take place, because otherwise we would not accept them as having occurred. The fact remains overall that within most dreams, we experience them as being equally real as when we experience things within "reality".
Now, if we are dreaming in a non-lucid manner, and are not aware of the fact that we are dreaming, we will perceive the dream as being undoubtedly real, in a clear and distinct manner for the duration of the dream. Upon waking, we are confronted with fairly convincing evidence that what transpired was contained in our mind and thus was not real. It is only upon waking that the true dimensions and extent of reality of the dream become known to us. To say that life is any different is simply an assumption, of which Descartes has proclaimed himself devoid. The only sure way to ascertain the non-dream status of this reality would be to end it, through death, and then positively note that no "waking up" occurred. It is entirely conceivable, upon but a moments reflection, that all of this reality could be equally dream as any other dream we have ever experienced. There is no way for me to know that this reality will continue to exist after I have left it, except through a scientific experiment of removing myself from this world and then trying to ascertain its continued existence, which would be impossible, just as it is with a dream.
Many people will object now by pointing out that weird things happen in dreams such as people floating, or objects just "popping" into being, that simply do not occur in reality. These can be easily explained by first noting that these happen in some, but not all dreams. There are some dreams where we fully ascribe ourselves to the same laws of physics as we experience in reality. If our subconscious, as the force directing the aspects of the dream external to our dream-perceived consciousness, chooses to create a dream-world in which the laws of physics have full sway in some dreams, then how can we say that this reality is not simply one of those dreams that our "extended consciousness" has chosen to create in a similar manner? In some dreams, particularly lucid dreams where one is conscious of the fact that it is a dream, one finds oneself capable of enacting changes in the surrounding world. For example, if I am dreaming and aware of it, and I look at my clothing and decide I do not like that I am wearing a bathrobe and pink bunny slippers, a simple "snapping of my fingers" will result in a tuxedo "magically" appearing instead. In this reality, if I do not like what I am wearing, my "extended conscious" has chosen to believe that I must first remove those articles that I find on my person and then physically don new ones. This is simply the result of my ascribing certain physical laws to this particular reality, for all that I know.
Another possible objection at this point is to ask why one wouldn't just change these rules, or make things happen exactly as one wishes. If this is a dream, why do things happen that I do not wish? Again, the answer rests in the "extended consciousness", since by our very nature as conscious beings in the dream we find ourselves separated from our subconscious and thus imposing a line of distinction onto our reality. This distinction takes the form, usually, of a body, within which is our conscious mind, and external to it is the world-projection of our subconscious. Given this, it is our subconscious that is in fact controlling what occurs in the world around us, and what happens to us. Because of this, what we perceive as our entirety, but is really only a portion of our entire being, is tremendously limited in the overall scope of things. It is important to note, however, that any smaller conscious "slice" is still capable of interacting with and manipulating any reality it finds itself in, at least to some degree. Even in this reality, our actions do still have resulting effects, just as our actions in dreams do.
In the act of falling asleep and dreaming, we constantly create a new, smaller version of our consciousness that is not fully aware of all the knowledge we possess in the real world. We deny ourselves access to our full available knowledge, and create a smaller, more limited consciousness and an entire world for it to operate in. It is possible to do this many layers over, in my experience, I've had as many as nine "dream layers" (and perhaps more I do not know about) where I have dreamed about falling asleep and dreaming about falling asleep and dreaming about… After I wake from the innermost layer of dream, many times I have been convinced that the previous layer was nothing but a dream and the current layer is real. Then I wake up. This cycle continues, spending differing amounts of time in each layer before "waking" from it into the next layer. Given this progression, there is no way to know that what is termed reality at present is not simply another layer from which I have yet to wake.
This carries some interesting consequences, if
one considers the aforementioned "one way street" of consciousness that
the current layer of consciousness can only create smaller degrees of
consciousness, and can only be contained by a larger degree. This is intuitively
obvious upon the briefest reflection, but the extent of its impact is
not currently realized. If this "reality" does turn out to be my dream,
and I am a part of a larger consciousness that was divided into my current
consciousness and the world around me, then this larger consciousness
would necessarily have more knowledge, experience, and power. If this
progression continued on for a while, my actual existent self would be
formidable indeed. After many layers, if my "full" self could be viewed
from the context of my self in "reality", the full self would be indistinguishable
from "God". This highest self would be the origin and creator of all the
other selves, and indeed, every act of dreaming creates an entire world
in which the dream occurs. In order for actions within dreams to not have
an effect on the "real" world, they must occur in separate and distinct
worlds. Therefore, every dream is contained within its own universe, and
every dreamer creates a universe within which the dream is set. In this
sense, the extended self of one higher layer is the "God" of the lower
layer, because this self creates the entire universe, the physical laws
of that universe, and the conscious self that exists within the universe.
This actually makes it possible for the self to be self-causing. Now,
to get really abstract, it is possible for the "highest", most extended,
self to actually be the creation or dream of the lowest self, and thus
a self-sufficient, self-causing and self-contained circle of conscious
existence is formed.
Glossary of Terms
Layer- a level of dream, accepting that one dream can be contained within
another, or "stacked" upon each other
Extended self or extended consciousness- the self which dreams the current layer of examination, that which encompasses the conscious being in the dream and the physical world of the dream, the dream creator
Full self- the most extended self, the self which dreams all others, the self that is not dreamed by any other
Reality- That's anyone's guess.
© Copyright Matthew Pike, 2000-2005