The Woman of My Dreams
Series: Your Philosophy Minute with Prof. Andrew Pessin
From: Andrew Pessin
Length: 00:01:55
More from Andrew Pessin
René Descartes (1596-1650)
(00:02:00)
From: Andrew Pessin
Descartes is on a plane, and the attendant asks if he would like a drink. "I think not," he replies, and poof -- goes out of existence.
An Inconvenient Tooth
(00:02:01)
From: Andrew Pessin
You are a terrible person for going to the movies.
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
(00:02:00)
From: Andrew Pessin
Condemned, then canonized, the man who synthesized the very best of Athens and Rome.
There is No Path Not Taken
(00:02:01)
From: Andrew Pessin
Ours is a life that is entirely out of our control.
Socrates (469-399 BCE)
(00:01:59)
From: Andrew Pessin
An ugly, hairy, smelly, know-nothing who was very possibly schizophrenic -- and the founder of Western philosophy.
Related Pieces
Piece Description
Can you in fact be sure you're not dreaming right now -- that you haven't been dreaming your entire life? Some common ways of convincing ourself we're not dreaming simply don't work. One can even dream that one has woken up, only to discover later that it was only a dream. (Unless the "later" discovery is a dream?) Being unable to prove that we're not dreaming means that everything we believe about the world just might be false. Even your lovely, lovely wife might be only literally the woman of your dreams.
Transcript
We all know that experience: some exquisite dream, into which the alarm clock suddenly and rudely intrudes. We wake up, and our day begins.
Or does it?
Can you in fact be sure that you’re not dreaming right now -- that you haven’t been dreaming your entire life?
Could you pinch yourself? Well you could. But then how would you know that you didn’t just dream the pinch, and transition into a different dream?
Indeed I once decided to keep a log of my dreams. I quickly found that on waking I couldn’t remember the dreams I’d had earlier in the night. So I started waking up during the night to write them down. A few nights of this interrupted sleep and I was exhausted! So my body (or mind) got the better of me: I woke up one morning to discover that my notebook was empty. I had only dreamed I had woken up to write down my dreams!
So now I’ve got a problem. I am positive,...
Read the full transcript
Additional Credits
Arthur Kreiger, music
Related Website
Kenli Mattus
Posted on January 07, 2010 at 09:32 PM | Permalink
We're all dreaming
Thanks for the good pieces.
Keep it up!
It's be great to get people to think and I think it's good that you are doing that.
Best!
Kenli