Christopher Graus Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the...

In â€Å"Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine: Philosophy and the Matrix†, Christopher Grau explains Rene Descartes argument in Meditation. What one may interpret as reality may not be more than a figment of one’s imagination. One argument that Grau points out in Descartes essay is how one knows that what one think is an everyday experience awake is not all a part of a hallucination. He uses the example of dreams to draw a conclusion about is claim based on experiences one would experience with dreaming. He asserts that there are times when one wake up from a dream that seems to be â€Å"vivid and realistic† however soon finds that it was not. The experience of reality in the dream was all a part of the mind. If dreams seem to be†¦show more content†¦He gives another scenario of when he lies in the bed he can dream that his he is sitting by the fire with is nightgown when in fact there is no such event he is undressed in the bed. This rein forces that idea one cannot trust what one is experiencing to actually be real. What proof can one bring that one awake other than oneself â€Å"just knowing†. This is the point Descartes wan to call to attention. Although Descartes argument seems plausible decades ago, now there are ways to weaken is argument. In the science of psychology which focuses on the brain one can find that there are ways of knowing one is dreaming or sleep. Descartes even contradicts himself when he asserts â€Å"that even if all of our sensory experience is but a dream, we can still conclude that we have some knowledge of the nature of reality†. I believe that Descartes knows that he is not dreaming in a constant state of dream but that there is a sense of reality that one experiences. What one experiences are senses such as smell and touch that one cannot perform in a dream world. Being able to touch and have the sensation of touching an item such as a table in a dream does not happen. The sensation of pain is also an indicator of a reality that does not exist in the reaffirms that one is not in reality. There is physical evidence that proves that people have control over their dreams; it’s called lucid dreaming. Having aShow MoreRelatedSkepticism On The Search For The Truth Of Our Knowledge1936 Words   |  8 Pagesunsuccessfully to figure out the thought process and how we gain knowledge. Philosophers gave deep thought to determine how we arrive at such true beliefs and knowledge of the external world. Three such philosophers were Rene Descartes, David Hume and Christopher Grau. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher in the early 1600’s; David Hume was a Scottish Philosopher in the 1700’s, and Grau an American philosopher Professor born in 1970. The timeline s important because philosophical views have evolved over