Thread: Parasomnia
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Old Jun 26, 2011, 08:47 AM
Polyakov Polyakov is offline
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Member Since: Jun 2011
Location: NY State
Posts: 25
Quote:
Originally Posted by pgrundy View Post
I'm not talking about spirituality though. All I'm saying is that describing the mechanism by which something is perceived doesn't tell us anything about the object of perception. It doesn't explain it OR explain it away.

Either there are objects of perception or there are no objects or perception. If you are going to say that sometimes there are no objects of perception but other times there really are objects, then the you have to show WHY people are perceiving objects that aren't there, not just how.
In most cases, I would quantify perception (and the malfunction there of) as a product of the temporal lobe (and the malfunction there of). Hypnagogic hallucinations (those associated with the sleeping mind) seem to be more of a hiccough in the brain's ability to discern between the conscious and unconscious state. Hypnagogic hallucinations interest me mostly due to the fact that I know they're not real, and yet my body feels compelled to believe otherwise. This may or may not be relevant to where you're going, but I've never put much weight in philosophy so we may be on separate wavelengths here.