Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-629
Authors: Bucci, Alessio
Grasso, Matteo
Title: Sleep and dreaming in the predictive processing framework
Online publication date: 1-Jun-2017
Year of first publication: 2017
Language: english
Abstract: Sleep and dreaming are important daily phenomena that are receiving growing attention from both the scientific and the philosophical field. The increasingly popular predictive brain framework within cognitive science aims to give a full account of all aspects of cognition. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the theoretical advantages of Predictive Processing (PP, as proposed by Clark 2013, Clark 2016; and Hohwy 2013) in defining sleep and dreaming. After a brief introduction, we overview the state of the art at the intersection between dream research and PP (with particular reference to Hobson and Friston 2012; Hobson et al. 2014). In the following sections we focus on two theoretically promising aspects of the research program. First, we consider the explanations of phenomenal consciousness during sleep (i.e. dreaming) and how it arises from the neural work of the brain. PP provides a good picture of the peculiarity of dreaming but it can’t fully address the problem of how consciousness comes to be in the first place. We propose that Integrated Information Theory (IIT) (Oizumi et al. 2014; Tononi et al. 2016) is a good candidate for this role and we will show its advantages and points of contact with PP. After introducing IIT, we deal with the evolutionary function of sleeping and dreaming. We illustrate that PP fits with contemporary researches on the important adaptive function of sleep and we discuss why IIT can account for sleep mentation (i.e. dreaming) in evolutionary terms (Albantakis et al. 2014). In the final section, we discuss two future avenues for dream research that can fruitfully adopt the perspective offered by PP: (a) the role of bodily predictions in the constitution of the sleeping brain activity and the dreaming experience, and (b) the precise role of the difference stages of sleep (REM (Rapid eye movement), NREM (Non-rapid eye movement)) in the constitution and refinement of the predictive machinery.
DDC: 100 Philosophie
100 Philosophy
Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department: FB 05 Philosophie und Philologie
Place: Mainz
ROR: https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-629
URN: urn:nbn:de:hebis:77-publ-566488
Version: Published version
Publication type: Buchbeitrag
License: CC BY-ND
Information on rights of use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
Citation: Philosophy and predictive processing
Metzinger, Thomas
Pages or article number: 92
108
Publisher: MIND Group
Publisher place: Frankfurt am Main
Issue date: 2017
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.15502/9783958573079
Publisher DOI: 10.15502/9783958573079
Appears in collections:JGU-Publikationen

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