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From: prune@athena.mit.edu (Paul Berland)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Dreams(Garbage Collection)
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.113152.13714@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 91 11:31:52 GMT
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 52

Tory Toupin writes:

>|> How about this: the brain is attempting to piece together memories to form
>|> temporary concepts -- a form of forethought?  That is to say, memories are
>|> symbols of the state of the body when the memory was formed, and the brain
>|> tends to superimpose(?) these symbols...and see if they are physically
                                                                ^^^^^^^^^^
>|> possible situations based on the knowledge of situations which can/have
    ^^^^^^^^ 
>|> occurred by trying these memories out on the "virtual body" (i.e.: the
>|> so-called mind's eye, but the entire body as well) and if it is not
>|> physically possible, it mutates the symbols slightly so that
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>|> they are not associated as well with one another.

My objection was with the criterion "physically possible".  I would use
"satisfactorily representative" which is much more subjective to other
forces besides the "physical" such as desirability towards satisfaction
of some ego-related need, compatibility with surrounding memory "cluster,"
simplicity of storage, and other equally important criteria.

> Now, as I stated above, in the process of dreaming, these symbols are put
> together (based on some "strong" association--be it smell, image, 
> temperature, or other) to form a temporary symbol which is applied to
> the virtual body...
> Certainly, the virtual body is quite closely associated with the real body
> since it is able to return the feedback that the real body would have had it
> received the symbol.  Thus, the virtual body should be able to recognize when
> a symbol it has been given is physically possible ("virtually possible" is
> perhaps a better way to phrase it) or physically not possible in the sense
> that, if the body has never experienced the symbol before (say, sustained
> flight without aid) it must not be possible.

This sounds more like a "testing ground" theory of dreaming rather than a
"garbage collection" theory of dreaming.  I mentioned before that I thought
the "garbage collection" theory was limited in that it failed to account
for the creative process that occurs during dreaming.  We COULD call the
"testing ground" theory a "sophisticated garbage collection" theory since
it has both creative and destructive (at some level) processes, but this
seems to me only to highlight a minor point of what is otherwise a totally
different theory.  

The "testing ground" theory would claim to make an account for Winson's
2nd and 3rd steps in the learning process described in Fiona Oceanstar's 
post "Re: Function of Dreams":

>   2)  associating new info. with memories of past experiences.
>   3)  formulating strategies to govern future behavior.

The "testing ground" theory is certainly compatible with Winson's theories.
Is it necessary and sufficient within that framework?