I have read some recent material about dreams that seems to say Freud got it wrong. If my understanding is correct, dreaming is a by-product of moving information from short term to long term memory. A recurring dream is simply the result of a recent event that has a connection to a past event. And as with all events in our lives, the emotional context has an effect on how vivid the actual memories are and perhaps the dreams as well; but, the updating process - dreaming - is essentially meaningless in itself. From this, I conclude that many folks waste time and money on dream interpretation which is at best harmless entertainment and at worst harmful pseudoscience, especially if one acts on what they take to be a prophetic dream. What does philosophy of mind say about dreaming?

When Peter King recently decried Michael Jackson as a pedophile, Al Sharpton et. al were quick to point out that Jackson had never actually been convicted on sex offense charges. (This seems to me a very common way of arguing.) When it comes to allegations of wrongdoing, are all important considerations about what is reasonable to believe or maintain as true exhausted by the judicial process? If someone is found guilty or not-guilty of a crime, does this settle the matter, not simply of whether he should be legally punished or imprisoned, but also of how we should regard the allegations generally?

How can I know that I have (or have not) experienced the feeling or state or experience of 'hatred'?

Where can I find an exhaustive list of the formal fallacies of definition. I need this for my work, for controlling the content of data dictionaries and data models. This class of definitions has to be real, not nominal. Thanks in advance, Malcolm C.

Should business/corporations give to charity? Or should they return the profits to shareholders, and let them decide what to do with it?

Does the fact that governments exercise coercion make statism immoral?

Why is it desirable to be judged by a jury of one's "peers"? We demand that our doctors, business executives and politicians be highly exceptional individuals. So why should we trust court decisions, which can often be both incredibly important and incredibly difficult, to random groups of laypersons?

In connection with http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2740, is there a similar objection (that it is not coherent) to the question "Can an all powerful God create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?"? Or does this paradox suggest that it is not reasonable to posit such a thing as an all powerful God? Thanks in anticipation.

A friend of mine has an adult daughter who is mentally disabled. Roughly speaking, her daughter thinks and talks like a seven-year old child, and cannot take care of herself. The disabled daughter is sexually interested in men, but as far as I know she never had sex with anyone. When she was 20-something, the mother had the daughter medically sterilized. This brought her no suffering, and she behaves as she did before. The mother's fear was that she would get pregnant. For a few weeks every year, the daughter is away from her mother in a clinic for mentally disabled people. I wonder if it was morally acceptable for the mother to have her daughter sterilized.

Would the world be better without governments?