Hi John
You are near-perfect in your analysis - as usual. :-)
In being so you this time also covered what I meant (but did not quite as
perfectly write).
I should have written (in respect of the Finnish guy's theorizing) that:
It is not inept to enrich his evolution-theoretical explanation - which is
an explanation pertaining to the information processing part of the adaptive
values of dreaming or, more generally, sleeping) - with the notion of
off-line trialing ("rehearsing") of ways to take advantage of
environmentally available (and potentially to phylogenetically pay off)
"opportunities".
Recognizing and adding this constructive/positive side to this didactic
dichotomy of the "evolutionary patterning totality" (i.e.
"adversity"_"opportunity" type events/potentials/tendencies) produces a more
balanced (less imperfectly plotted) picture of What Is/was going on to makes
things be how they are.
IOW, in this case this to me 'relatively right' theory would increasingly
contribute to an encompassing philosophical/theoretical postion of
understanding if it was more multifocal. That is, if it in addition to
focusing mainly on the possibility of REM-state rehearsals of how to evade
or deal with probable and/or impending lifetime/phylogenetic pressures of
predicament type included what you so easily brought to bear on the pursuit
of a science-aligned picture of what we do on the pillow.
In summary, it seems (as far as I can see) that we, as part of a lineage of
evolving animal species and as individuals, 'successfully sleep' because
sleep allows us to (is a manifestation of a workable 'strategy' for
promoting reproductive survival by) chemically recharge (optimize)our brain
and bodily tissues, for staying out of harms way (in case of
individuals/species whose eyes are not well enough night-vision-adapted) and
to better deal with lifetime challenges of adverse as well as of opportune
character.
My dream addressing topic starter was of course only a paranthesis in my
plugging of a recognition (and simple but encompassingly explanatory
philosophical thesis and etymologically pioneering thinking in terms of that
our phylogeny has frequently mixed "synaptic (selective or specific)
hibernation" imploring/inducing type situations or ditto predicaments or
ordeals (causing potentially painful extra selective pressures of
neurophysiologically piled-up imprints that I think can well be called
CURSES) with procreation promoting and 'phenotyping' intrinsic and
environmental opportunities (or, IOW, *positive* selection pressures, or
*primarily constructive* evolutionary patterning tendencies).
Also, I shall take what you wrote as a warning, to try to get more sleep!
(This since I don't really seek to become more senile, and semantically
vague (by stuffing up even more sentences), than I already am.
Cheers,
Peter
