Dream, Dream, Dream
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Wolran Kim
Jan. 2012
This is not a good start to a philosophical view, but I like the expression that a life is like a dream in a nap. It becomes more true to me as time goes by and I get older. All my memories of my past are exactly the same as last night’s dream. I, who does not look like me, stand in the picture of my 10 year old album. I clearly remember that moment and the clothes that are worn are still in my closet. All memories fade just like a mere dream, but nevertheless I am present and exist. If there is any doubt of my existence, I can just prick my fingertip with a needle and can feel the pain and see the bleeding. I will be hungry if I don’t eat within a few hours. These physical sensations are connected to the brain (of course, the process can be manipulated in the brain and other substances could be mistaken such as drugs or alcohol). The fact that I exist now, is the visual evidence of my existence in the past.
Descartes thought that we recognize our existence because we understand just by thinking that we exist, not by imagination or senses such as sight or touch. He said that we have to accept all general existences as each piece of body and their movement, and the reason is that the pictures of dreams cannot be copied without real shapes of entity. All simple and universal things are truth—the physical nature, the shape, amount, size, number, place, time, etc. We cannot doubt the fact that we exist while we think. Mind can be proved easily and clearly because we cannot think about presence if we do not exist; so we can understand or question, positive or negative, lose or keep willpower, imagination, and sense.
The proof of existence by perception is consensus; Lying in a coma in a vegetative state is not a human being, but just placed on a bed like some material of the flesh. A substance prevails over existence to a dead thing but not to a human being. Existence that is thrown into the world prevails over substance for using us. We can decide our way of existence by free will because humans did not decide substance is different than an object. There is a similar scene in the Matrix when Morpheus handed the blue and red pill to Neo, and let him choose the world he would want to live in. This is also the reason that Descartes’ evil genius cannot impose our thinking.
The dictionary meaning of reality objectively exists independently from the recognition subject, and this is distinguished from the subject produced by the recognition subject as a dream or a delusion. In the movie “Inception”, the main role, Dom Cobb steals and extracts ideas or unconscious thoughts in people’s dreams. That was a fifth dimension world which is connected to a dream and a dream in a dream. The reality in a dream is not real anymore after waking up in reality. The figure in the mirror could not be real, the keyboard of the computer could be just like junk, and I could be floating in the water rather than sitting in a chair than perceived by sense of failure. But by all these things, even if it is false, we cannot doubt the identity who doubts them.
Yesterday and tomorrow are the same as a dream, because we cannot go beyond the time which could not be present. It does not matter what I did or how I am considering to now. My hard work for next week’s philosophy assignments is not a waste but my faithful investment in the now for the future. The present is a dream of the past and the future is also a dream of the present. My suspecting of my existence is counterevidence of my existence. This is just like Descartes’ contention. All my vague explanations and ambiguous conclusions are also evidence that I exist.