why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[bennyboy]

How do we determine what consciousness is simulating?  Through science and logic.  If we could see external realities directly and understand them correctly, I assume there would be no additional use for either.  However, we know enough about human psychology to understand that we really see abstractions and interpretations.

Well, I think in evolutionary terms the idea is we need to take the information which is potentially available, but almost infinite, and symbolize it into something we can act on. You and I would agree on that, I think?

As for your other question, "What would be the difference between say a materialistic monism and an idealistic monism?" --  I will have to give you my personal answer.

I experimented with lucid dreaming for many years, and discovered in the process of doing so that dream content responds to suggestions, in a way similar to hypnosis.  In other words, if I wanted to find a specific object, say a refrigerator, I expected to find that object when I turned a corner, and was often pleased to find exactly the object I wanted.  And I wasn't doing such experimentation alone.  My now wife and our common friend Ruth were both doing similar experiments, suggesting new experiments to each other, and getting similar results.  My wife and I even wrote a book about what we found out through such experimentation, and what lucid dreaming implied for dream theory.

We also found certain aspects of dreaming which could not be changed, which are pertinent to answering your question.  Instability and inconsistency are intractable in dreaming.  You can use them to create suggested imagry (and other sensations), but such imagery doesn't last long.  This is why we theorized that while dreaming must employ the brain's abilities to reconstruct external realities, without those realities really being there, there was nothing to keep them consistent.  In other words, any one brain is inadequate to create either the stable details or the consistency of realities.  This, to me, is an answer to your question.  External realities most likely really exist, and are necessary to stabilize waking perceptions.

Well, I think that's a pretty fair line of inferences you've made there. Stability during waking and instability during sleeping definitely shows that there are some similarities and differences, and your idea about what that means is a fair shot at objectivism.

That being said, having been into lucid dreaming, I think you'll agree that the seems-so-is sense we have can by hyper-triggered in dreaming sometimes. I've had dreaming experiences which were orders of magnitude more vivid, and more seemingly significant, than anything I've ever experienced in waking life-- absolute game-changing, over-the-top stunners. That's partly why I declare as agnostic, and why I'm suspicious of attempts to disambiguate reality with simple world views.

Drug use, meditation, religion, and so on can all be like this-- there are some experiences which are so self-evident in certain states that one suspects the mechanism behind them doesn't matter-- you can "get" things that are so transcendent of waking life that you'd (in my opinion) to be a little bit insane to take anything at face value, no matter how it seems.