DREAMING

Jan 31, 2016
2 min read

Today has been a bit of a day dream; a sunday afternoon where you sit around attempting to do some work, some washing, and all the other bits and bobs you associate with a Sunday. To follow on with the dreaming daze that today has been for me I want to talk about Descartes and his dreaming hypothesis.

Descartes' argues that it is impossible to know at this moment whether I am awake or in fact dreaming, and this leads to doubt over my senses and the existence of the external world. By external world I am referring to me and you, my hands in front of me, my laptop that I am typing on and everything else we experience using our senses.

He sets up the argument by showing that at points in his past experience, he has believed that he had been awake, ‘when in fact he [he] was lying naked under the bedclothes’[1].

1 When I have before been dreaming I have been convinced that I have been awake

2 If I cannot tell whether I am dreaming or waking, then it is possible that I am dreaming right now

3 If I cannot distinguish (for there is nothing to show that I am either awake or dreaming)

Conclusion: It is possible that I am dreaming right now

The conclusion that this leads sceptics like Descartes to come to, is that if we cannot know right now whether we are dreaming or if we are awake (this is the very point Descartes is making) then we cannot know if what we are doing right now; for me thats typing this blog, and for you thats reading it, is real life or just a dream. After all this does seem plausible to the average person. I for one have had numerous dreams where I have felt so utterly convinced that what I am doing is real. Yes we may have exagerated dreams where monsters are hiding under our beds at night, but we have also had vivid and memorable dreams where we would NOT have known that it wasn't real life when we were dreaming it.

What are your thoughts on this? Can we know if we are dreaming right now? My belief follows Descartes': that this argument creates tremendous doubt over the use of our senses for knowledge. If we cannot trust that we are awake right now then generally we cannot trust our senses, and if we cant do this how would we ever know that anything external to us exists?

[1] Descartes, René Meditations on First Philosophy trans. M. Moriarty, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1641/2008) pg 14