Flanagan Theory Of Consciousness Essay

Consciousness as an adaptation is one of the hardest problems in the consciousness studies. Flanagan explains that insects probably don’t sleep. Also, sleep-cycles could help with survival, and that we restore and conserve body-building functions, which also regulate metabolism and restore depleted hormones. Conscious mental states have many different properties. They can feel many experiences in different ways. Consciousness is a sensory experience. Flanagan states a spandrel is inventible side effects of arch and column designs; these do not hurt or help you as a person. He also says sleep is an adaptation that helps the body restore, conserve and build. Spandrels are cause by the “tickling” of the brain in the visual areas from brainstem activity. Flanagan thinks the brainstem is meant to activate visual areas while it is being built, like new born babies. Most dreams are bizarre with
no purpose not even worth remembering, meant for “trash disposal”. Sleep is really just to replenish the body and help our bodies rest and grow. Revonsuo developed the highly influential Threat Stimulation Theory (TST). Dreams could have evolved to create simulations that would have prepared us for ancestors for danger and reproductive success. The threat stimulation theory is a dream- production that tends to stimulate stressful and threatening situations. Behavioral changes that dealt with avoiding threats would’ve been advantages to survival. I agree with Revonsuos proposition 1 because you cannot control your dreams, they are very disorganized.
Proposition 2 states that your dreams help you prepare for threatening situations. Proposition 3, again states that threatening events will activate this stimulation mechanism from your dreams, I do not think if you have a threatening experience that your reactions from your dreams will arise like they did while asleep. In the fourth proposition, Revonsuo states that threats experienced in dreams are realistic, so then the practice of threat avoidance responses but I do not agree with this at all. One of the last propositions states that stimulations of threatening events leads to enhanced performances in the real life events. The final stimulation states that ancestral environment in which humans lived, this also claims to help with reproductive success. I would have to say that I agree with the second proposition because I always have scary situations in my dreams that will help me prepare for real life situations and maybe make you more calm when in a real life
situation. The functional role I think that dreams provide is that they help you prepare for real life threatening situations. I think sleeping help the body recharge and help the body be healthy again. The Threat Stimulation Theory shows you that dreams help you prepare for these situations, and these events make you better if met with this situation.