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Dreaming is not an adaptation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2001

Owen Flanagan
Owen Flanagan
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 ojf@duke.edu
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Abstract

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The five papers in this issue all deal with the proper evolutionary function of sleep and dreams, these being different. To establish that some trait of character is an adaptation in the strict biological sense requires a story about the fitness enhancing function it served when it evolved and possibly a story of how the maintenance of this function is fitness enhancing now. My aim is to evaluate the proposals put forward in these papers. My conclusion is that although sleep is almost certainly an adaptation, dreaming is not.

[Hobson et al.; Nielsen; revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]

Type
Brief Report
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 23 , Issue 6 , December 2000 , pp. 936 - 939
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press