Response to Laura Laureano (4/10/2010)

Q: “Why [do humans] not have the ability to understand dreams?”

I believe that humans may have the ability to understand dreams, but there would be no way of scientifically proving this ability. There have been numerous theories about what our dreams mean, including Freud’s, but the problem is that we can never prove that these theories are correct. There is no black-and-white answer when it comes to understanding something like dreams. We have nothing to base our ideas about dreams off of, and therefore we can never know if our ideas are correct.

I thought the idea of describing dream theories as an attempt to describe what is in a closed box was a great idea. The fact that we may remember some of our dreams may provide us with the ability to shake the box, but we can never fully know what it is in the box. That is why Freud’s theory on dreams is interesting, but it can never be used as empirical evidence. I think it is great when certain Freud supporters will say that Freud’s ideas are just a gateway to an improved theory. I do not believe we could ever understand what dreams meant, but I do like the idea that we could use Freud’s theories as a gateway to maybe a improved theory of the human mind.

I also find that your question could be looked at as maybe wondering why humans are not biologically capable of understanding dreams. If this was the point of your question, then I think I may have an interesting answer. If humans are biologically not capable of understanding dreams, then maybe dreams do not have a true purpose. I say this because, in natural selection, Humans develop things that would give them an advantage to survive; therefore, I feel that if dreams have a true significance, then humans who could understand them would have a great advantage over other Humans. For example, if my dreams were telling me an internal conflict that I was hiding from my conscious, then I could discover it and then solve my conflict. Maybe Humans do not have the ability to understand dreams because dreams do not actually have any purpose; dreams could just be a random activation of experiences that are stored in the brain.

I think that one of the most interesting ideas related to understanding dreams is the act of lucid dreaming. The fact that there have been scientific tests that proved that people could be conscious in their dreams is extremely interesting. Lucid dreaming provides me with another reason why I do not believe that dreams hold any significance. If people can be conscious in their dreams, and then control their dreams, then I do not see how a dream could really have a purpose. How can my dream have an inner meaning if I am controlling every part of it? I feel that dreams have always been analyzed to find a true meaning only because dreams are part of the unknown. Anything that people do not know will constantly be analyzed, and people will make theories about it. With that said, I do feel that Freud’s ideas about dreaming are important; for this reason, I did dome research about Freud and lucid dreams, and I found out that Freud actually wrote about them briefly. When discussing his own lucid dream, Freud said, "I won't go on with this dream any further and exhaust myself with an emission." It seems that Freud did not want to discuss lucid dreams because they brought up too many conflict into consciousness.

What do you think about Freud’s feelings regarding lucid dreams?

Response to Alex Massar (4/3/10)

I think that your revisions are good, but I still think that you are forgetting about the fact that we are talking about humans. Much of your theory depends on the human ability to follow a set of strict rules that prohibits individuality, which is not something humans are not good at doing.

I understand your idea to pay people differently on how much they do or contribute to society, but I think that this solution has problems. Who is going to decide how much a worker should be paid, and do you really think every worker would be satisfied with this process? It seems to me like this would not solve the problem of workers being angry because another job receives more money than theirs does. Deciding whether one job should earn more money than another, when each job is totally different is not a simple process, nor do I expect every worker to agree with the decisions made. Also, if people were paid for how much they contributed to society, then it seems like this is getting away from the main idea of a socialist community; it does not seem like anyone should be paid more than someone else because that would provide people with the ability to have more material possessions than their neighbor; paying people different wages sound more like a mixed economy, rather than a socialist one.

As far as workers not being satisfied with their jobs, I do not feel that the punishment you outlined would be a perfect solution. I do think your idea makes sense, but my problem relates to deciding which people should be punished. I feel that some people may not put in their best work at their job, while others put in effort but they still get punished; it seems like this type of punishment will create many unhappy workers. Even if the punishment did work, I do not see how a person would not just slack off at their new job; these people who were punished could not be left unemployed because a socialist society wants everyone to work. Also, if they were forced to a job with no pay, then I doubt they would want to work to their full potential.

All of these ideas lead up to your finally point, which is to create a rehabilitation type of jail for people who do not want to comply with the governments rules. I think this is absolutely your best point because it fixes most of the issues I have raised so far. If people complained about how much they were being paid, and therefore did not work to their full potential, then they could be sent to this type of jail. I think that having this type of facility would fix most of the problems within a socialist community because it could teach them to follow the rules of the community. Furthermore, if this rehabilitation center taught the idea of caring about the whole of the society more than the individual then I think it would help the people of the society function correctly under the socialist standards.

I do think a socialist type system could have a chance to work if a rehabilitation type jail like you pointed out was created, but I feel that the long term outlook on this type of system would not work. Unless there was an overall awakening in the human consciousness, I do not think humans could handle not living in a society where the whole is more important then the individual.

Does the idea of certain jobs being paid more than others (depending on their value to society) get away from the whole idea of having a socialist government?