[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Rudism

This is an argument in favor of the evolutionary development of dreaming, which I thought you were arguing against?

Rudism, materialists do not own 'natural selection' Do dreams evolve? Possibly in content but it doesn't mean the dreamer is created inside the brain. To clarify, I am arguing here the case the brain filters our conscious awareness (and is not the source of consciousness) and the brain filter evolved via natural selection.

I have heard of theories that say that dreams do have an evolutionary advantage, namely the ability to play-act different potentially hazardous real-life scenarios and consider potential outcomes.

It is poorly supported, most people recall less than 1% of their dreams and the content of most dreams are hardly hazardous real-life' scenarios, many dreams poorly model physical reality.

Other theories state that dreaming is a byproduct of some kind of "memory defrag," during which the brain reconfigures various neural pathways to rid itself of useless or potentially harmful information or memories.

This theory has even bigger problems, how can the unconscious decide which are useful or harmful memories? What is the criteria used for a useful or useless memory? Surely that requires consciousness? The materialist argument enters further problems here because during lucid dreaming the consciousness seems to guide the dream but according to materialism 'consciousness' is an 'user illusion' of an unconscious neurological processes.

....most likely to me is that it's simply a form of sleep-thinking. There is an obvious evolutionary advantage for the ability to think ahead, and consider potential future outcomes of events.

The problem here is that dreams do not model physical reality well at all, one might dream we are swimming through the air, knocking over a building with a sweeping brush .. and so on ...

Yet if another mind shares those same thoughts simultaneously, via telepathy, it doesn't matter how far fetched or how poor the dream matches our physical 'reality', we have a virtual reality of sorts that could theoretically evolve if telepathy becomes stronger upon brain death..

Does an external mind model virtual reality but due to the brain filtering out telepathy, the consciousness generate personal illusions during sleep , practical creativity during waking (when the physical sense are not resting) And upon brain death vivid viritual (shared) realities?

I hear this metaphor a lot, but it doesn't really work.

Well no metaphor works perfectly but let me defend the TV metaphor by just substituting words .....

The TV has a mechanism for receiving and decoding the external information which, when removed or disabled, renders the rest of the components completely useless.

This could also be phrased as ' The brain is a mechanism for receiving and filtering the external consciousness, which when removed or disabled, renders the rest of the brain components completely useless...'

This is not analogous to the brain--there is no evidence of any kind of external signal, but there is tons of evidence supporting a more materialistic view.

There is evidence and it is called psi :-) Psi is commonly weak, logically it is weak due to the brain filtering.

For example, if memories are stored outside of the brain, why does damage to the hippocampus affect our ability to form memories?

Because the brain filter pathways to external memories are damaged?

Why are scientists able to develop drugs that can target and remove specific individual memories (see here for an example)?

Because the brain filter neural pathway to that external memory is disconnected?

If the self and consciousness are external to the brain, then why does damage to the prefrontal cortex so drastically change people's personality and awarenesses

Because the brain filter damage prevents the normal physical expression of personality and awareness?

The configuration of the brain is obviously extremely important in how we perceive the world, how we perceive ourselves, and how we behave

If the brain filter evolved to 'perceive' and interact with the physical world, it would affect how we perceive ourselves.

--so where's the evidence that there's outside information involved in any of this?

100 years of psychical research, 80 years of parapsychology......controversial for sure.... but can it all be explained away as error, fraud and deception? Personally I don't think so.

I would like to see a TV that, when you damage a certain circuit, starts showing more violent programming. Or a TV where removing a component results in actors showing up in the wrong shows, or causing the plots to become noticeably more disjointed and confused.

But the brain scientists cannot make an actor (or even ghost) consistently appear in the wrong setting either. Can they?

Science never deals with "facts" in the sense of absolute truths--it deals more with probabilities and likelihoods given our current understanding of things, as supported by evidence.

Agreed.