NancyLebovitz comments on Rationality Quotes June 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Thomas 03 June 2013 03:08AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 June 2013 12:25:10PM 2 points [-]

I've occasionally had dreams where elements have backstories--- I just know something about something in my dream, without having any way of having found it out.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 19 June 2013 12:51:01PM *  2 points [-]

This is common, I think, or at least I've seen other people discuss it before ( http://adamcadre.livejournal.com/172934.html ), and it fits my own experience as well. From which I had the rather obvious-in-hindsight insight that the experience of knowledge is itself just another sort of experience, just another type of qualia, just like color or sound.

In dreams knowledge doesn't need to have an origin-via-discovery, same way that dream images don't need to originate in our eyes, and dream sounds don't need to originate in vibrations of our ear drums...

Comment author: RobbBB 19 June 2013 04:25:38PM 1 point [-]

Is this any different from how it feels to know something in waking life, in cases where you've forgotten where you learned it?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 19 June 2013 11:05:02PM 1 point [-]

It's hard to be sure, but I think dream elements have less of a feeling of context for me. On the other hand, is the feeling of context the side effect of having more connections to my web of memories, or is it just another tag?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 19 June 2013 12:44:19PM 1 point [-]

(nods) Me too. I've also had the RPG-esque variation where I've had a split awareness of the dream... I am aware of the broader narrative context, but I am also experiencing being a character in the narrative who is not aware. E.g., I know that there's something interesting behind that door, and I'm walking around the room, but I can't just go and open that door because I don't actually know that in my walking-around-the-room capacity.