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CHAPTER 2 ILLUSION AND ITS DOUBLENESS _____________________________________ [W]e're dreaming. But we've got to be more realistic. —John Kendall (THI 2014) The Fancifulness of Illusion Dream studies, in general, involve the issues of illusion and reality— as already indicated in Sec. 1.3. The relationship between illusion and reality (in the context of dream studies) is dialectic, since there is no analysis of illusion without that of reality, and vice versa—to be eventually transcended altogether later. Yet, a scholarly danger here is to reduce the analysis of one to that of the other; thus, this book is to devote a whole chapter on each, with the understanding, of course, that the two are related. This dialectic relationship between illusion and reality (in the context of dream studies) can be revealed by showing how and why the analysis of illusion (in Chapter Two) is inadequate without the inclusion of reality, just as the examination of reality (in Chapter Three) is insufficient without the consideration of illusion. The issues concerning illusion (in the context of dream studies) are to be addressed in this chapter (Chapter Two), whereas the issues concerning reality (in the context of dream studies) will be analyzed in the next chapter (Chapter Three) instead. With this dialectic treatment in mind—a good way to examine illusion and its doubleness (in the context of dream studies) is by way of the evaluation of the extent to which it is in fact both possible (or impossible) and desirable (or undesirable). This can be done by way of a comprehensive analysis of illusion (in the context of dream studies) from the four perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture (in accordance to my sophisticated methodological holism, as explained in Sec. 1.9). Chapter 2: Illusion and its Doubleness 151 In the Eastern world, “this type of argument is well known” in the Chinese classic work “Zhuangzi Dreamed He Was a Butterfly (莊周夢蝶, Zhuāngzhōu mèng dié),” in which, “one night, Zhuangzi (369 BC) dreamed that he was a carefree butterfly, flying happily. After he woke up, he wondered how he could determine whether he was Zhuangzi who had just finished dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who had just started dreaming he was Zhuangzi. This was a metaphor for what he referred to as a 'great dream,'” and the argument continued like this: “He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman—how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet, after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed.” (WK 2014p; B. Watson 1996) And in Buddhism, some in the Dzogchen school “consider perceived reality literally unreal. As a prominent contemporary teacher, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, puts it: 'In a real sense, all the visions that we see in our lifetime are like a big dream.' In this context, the term 'visions' denotes not only visual perceptions, but appearances perceived through all senses, including sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations, and operations on received mental objects.” (WK 2014p) The Dream Argument, and Simulated Reality The dream argument becomes “a springboard for those who question whether our own reality may be an illusion. The ability of the mind to be tricked into believing a mentally generated world is the 'real world' means at least one variety of simulated reality is a common, even nightly event” (as in dreaming). (WK 2014p) The idea of “simulated reality” here refers to “reality” which “could be simulated…to a degree indistinguishable from 'true' reality….It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation. This is quite different from the current, technologically achievable concept of virtual reality. Virtual reality is easily distinguished from the experience of actuality; participants are 152 The Future of Post-Human Oneirology never in doubt about the nature of what they experience. Simulated reality, by contrast, would be hard or impossible to separate from 'true' reality.” (WK 2014q) For instance, “a dream could be considered a type of simulation capable of fooling someone who is asleep. As a result the 'dream hypothesis' cannot be ruled out….The philosophical underpinnings of this argument are also brought up by Descartes, who was one of the first Western philosophers to do so. In Meditations on First Philosophy, he states '…there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep,' and goes on to conclude that 'It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.'” (WK 2014q) And Davis J. Chalmers (2003) “discusses the dream hypothesis, and notes that this comes in two distinct forms”: (WK 2014q) • “that [a dreamer] is currently dreaming, in which case many of his beliefs about the world are incorrect.” • “that he has always been dreaming, in which case the objects he perceives actually exist, albeit in his imagination.” In this way, the dream argument is closely related to the “simulation hypothesis” about “simulated reality.” Yet, the dream argument differs from the simulation argument in one fundamental way, in that “the dream argument contends that a futuristic technology is not required to create a simulated reality, but rather, all that is needed is a human brain. More specifically, the mind's ability to create simulated realities during REM sleep affects the statistical likelihood of our own reality being simulated.” (WK 2014z) The Simulation Hypothesis The “simulation hypothesis” (also known as the “simulation argument” or “simulism”) proposes that “reality is a simulation and those affected are generally unaware of this. The concept is reminiscent of René Descartes' Evil Genius but posits a more futuristic simulated reality.” (WK 2014z) In its current form, “the Simulation Argument began in 2003 with the publication of a paper by Nick Bostrom. Bostrom considers…that 'we have interesting empirical reasons to believe that a certain disjunctive claim about the world is true,'” and that “one of the disjunctive propositions” is that “we are almost certainly living in a simulation.” (WK 2014z; N. Bostrom 2008) Chapter 2: Illusion and its Doubleness 153 Davis J. Chalmers (2003) went on to “identify three separate hypotheses, which, when combined, gives what he terms the Matrix Hypothesis; the notion that reality is but a computer simulation,” as shown below: (WK 2014z) • “The Creation Hypothesis”—states that “physical space-time and its contents were created by beings outside physical space-time.” • “The Computational Hypothesis”—states that “microphysical processes throughout space-time are constituted by underlying computational processes.” • “The Mind–Body Hypothesis”—states that “mind is constituted by processes outside physical space-time, and receives its perceptual inputs from and sends its outputs to processes in physical space- time.” And “the term Simulism appears to have been coined by Ivo Jansch in September 2006.” (WK 2014z) Implications for Skepticism In the end, the dream argument, together with its related arguments (like the simulation argument), has a strong dose of skepticism embedded within it and is related to the “skeptical hypothesis.” The “skeptical hypothesis” here refers to “a hypothetical situation which can be used in an argument for skepticism about a particular claim or class of claims. Usually the hypothesis posits the existence of a deceptive power that deceives our senses and undermines the justification of knowledge otherwise accepted as justified.” (WK 2014aa) In this sense, the “skeptical hypothesis” is strongly related to the “dream argument” (and other related ones, like the “simulated argument”). After all, “the 'dream argument' of Descartes and Zhuangzi supposes reality to be indistinguishable from a dream. Descartes' evil demon is a being 'as clever and deceitful as he is powerful, who has directed his entire effort to misleading me'….The simulated reality hypothesis or 'Matrix Hypothesis' suggest that everyone, or even the entire universe, might be inside a computer simulation….” (WK 2014aa) Problems with the dream argument However, to the critics, this argument on illusion, the senses, and the dream argument has some major problems. Consider, for illustration, a few examples below. 154 The Future of Post-Human Oneirology Firstly, one main criticism of the argument on illusion, the senses, and the dream argument is that the kind of skepticism inherent in the dream argument lacks common sense. For instance, to the critics, “it has been argued that common sense and considerations of simplicity rule against it” (the dream argument), as Bertrand Russell in The Problems of Philosophy thus explained: “There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream….But although this is not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is, in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our own life, than the common-sense hypothesis that there really are objects independent of us, whose action on us causes our sensations.” (WK 2014q) Secondly, another main criticism of the argument on illusion, the senses, and the dream argument is that there are alternative ways (other than the common sense argument as indicated above) to refute skepticism.