Dream Consciousness (Part 3)

Hobson writes that the 'hard problem' can be seen as a residue of Cartesian dualism, which considers brain and mind to be qualitatively distinct entities. As such it is indeed 'hard', if not impossible, to explain how consciousness could arise from brains. Yet there is no similar difficulty seen in the literature when it comes to integrating consciousness components such as perception, memory and emotion. Hence, Hobson argues, consciousness may thus be no more and no less than the simultaneous combination of all of these components. The key move in accepting and advancing this idea is to specify dual aspect monism as the concept best adapted to a new view of the brain-mind has a unified system with two components, one objective (the brain) and one subjective (the mind).

Hobson's theory of the brain in waking, sleeping, and dreaming contends that both the brain and the mind are physical and therefore subject to the same basic rules and regulations as other materials. Being physical, they are necessarily causal one upon the other and the other upon the one. Thus the states of the brain entail the states of the mind and vice versa. While we can imagine (and observe) states of the brain that are not associated with states of the mind, it is not possible to imagine or observe states of the mind that are not associated with states of the brain. For this reason, Hobson argues that a high priority should be accorded to brain science supposing that it will help better understand the mind. This is the principle on which Hobson's brain theory of consciousness and formal approach to dream interpretation is based.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YMuoUjfe3Hw



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