Stream of consciousness (psychology)

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The metaphor "stream of consciousness" suggests how thoughts seem to flow through the conscious mind. Research studies have shown that humans only experience one mental event at a time as a fast-moving mind-stream. [1] [2] [3] The term was coined by Alexander Bain in 1855 in the first edition of The Senses and the Intellect, when he wrote, "The concurrence of Sensations in one common stream of consciousness (on the same cerebral highway) enables those of different senses to be associated as readily as the sensations of the same sense" (p. 359). But it is commonly credited to William James (often considered the father of American psychology), who used it in 1890 in his The Principles of Psychology . [4] [5] The full range of thoughts—that one can be aware of—can form the content of this "stream".

Contents

Buddhism

Early Buddhist scriptures describe the "stream of consciousness" (Pali; viññāna-sota) where it is referred to as the Mind Stream. [6] [7] [8] The practice of mindfulness, which is about being aware moment-to-moment of one's subjective conscious experience [9] aid one to directly experience the "stream of consciousness" and to gradually cultivate self-knowledge and wisdom. [6] Buddhist teachings describe the continuous flow of the "stream of mental and material events" that include sensory experiences (i.e., seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touch sensations, or a thought relating to the past, present or the future) as well as various mental events that get generated, namely, feelings, perceptions and intentions/behaviour. [10] These mental events are also described as being influenced by other factors such as attachments and past conditioning. [6] Further, the moment-by-moment manifestation of the "stream of consciousness" is described as being affected by physical laws, biological laws, psychological laws, volitional laws, and universal laws. [10]

Proponents

In his lectures circa 1838–1839 Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet described "thought" as "a series of acts indissolubly connected"; this comes about because of what he asserted was a fourth "law of thought" known as the "law of reason and consequent":

"The logical significance of the law of Reason and Consequent lies in this, – That in virtue of it, thought is constituted into a series of acts all indissolubly connected; each necessarily inferring the other" (Hamilton 1860:61-62). [11]

In this context the words "necessarily infer" are synonymous with "imply". [12] In further discussion Hamilton identified "the law" with modus ponens; [13] thus the act of "necessarily infer" detaches the consequent for purposes of becoming the (next) antecedent in a "chain" of connected inferences.

William James [4] [14] asserts the notion as follows:

"Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. (James 1890:239)

He was enormously skeptical about using introspection as a technique to understand the stream of consciousness. "The attempt at introspective analysis in these cases is in fact like seizing a spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks." [15] However, the epistemological separation of two levels of analyses appears to be important in order to systematically understand the "stream of consciousness." [10]

Bernard Baars has developed Global Workspace Theory [16] which bears some resemblance to stream of consciousness.

Conceptually understanding what is meant by the "present moment," "the past" and "the future" can aid one to systematically understand the "stream of consciousness." [6]

Criticism

Susan Blackmore challenged the concept of stream of consciousness. "When I say that consciousness is an illusion I do not mean that consciousness does not exist. I mean that consciousness is not what it appears to be. If it seems to be a continuous stream of rich and detailed experiences, happening one after the other to a conscious person, this is the illusion." However, she also says that a good way to observe the "stream of consciousness" may be to calm the mind in meditation. The criticism is based on the stream of perception data from the senses rather than about consciousness itself. Also, it is not explained the reason why some things are conscious at all. [17] Suggestions have also been made regarding the importance of separating "two levels of analyses" when attempting to understand the "stream of consciousness". [10]

Baars is in agreement with these points. The continuity of the "stream of consciousness" may in fact be illusory, just as the continuity of a movie is illusory. Nevertheless, the seriality of mutually incompatible conscious events is well supported by objective research over some two centuries of experimental work. A simple illustration would be to try to be conscious of two interpretations of an ambiguous figure or word at the same time. When timing is precisely controlled, as in the case of the audio and video tracks of the same movie, seriality appears to be compulsory for potentially conscious events presented within the same 100 ms interval.[ citation needed ]

J. W. Dalton has criticized the global workspace theory on the grounds that it provides, at best, an account of the cognitive function of consciousness, and fails even to address the deeper problem of its nature, of what consciousness is, and of how any mental process whatsoever can be conscious: the so-called "hard problem of consciousness". [18] A. C. Elitzur has argued, however, "While this hypothesis does not address the 'hard problem', namely, the very nature of consciousness, it constrains any theory that attempts to do so and provides important insights into the relation between consciousness and cognition.", as much as any consciousness theory is constrained by the natural brain perception limitations. [19]

New work by Richard Robinson shows promise in establishing the brain functions involved in this model and may help shed light on how we understand signs or symbols and reference these to our semiotic registers. [20]

Literary technique

In literature, stream of consciousness writing is a literary device which seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her sensory reactions to external occurrences. Stream-of-consciousness as a narrative device is strongly associated with the modernist movement. The term was first applied in a literary context, transferred from psychology, in The Egoist, April 1918, by May Sinclair, in relation to the early volumes of Dorothy Richardson's novel sequence Pilgrimage . [21] Amongst other modernist novelists who used it are James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) and William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury (1929). [22]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consciousness</span> Awareness of internal and external existence

Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of internal and external existence. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debate by philosophers, theologians, and all of science. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked.

Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that subjective mental events are completely dependent for their existence on corresponding physical and biochemical events within the human body, yet themselves have no influence over physical events. The appearance that subjective mental states influence physical events is merely an illusion, consciousness being a by-product of physical states of the world. For instance, fear seems to make the heart beat faster, but according to epiphenomenalism the biochemical secretions of the brain and nervous system —not the experience of fear—is what raises the heartbeat. Because mental events are a kind of overflow that cannot cause anything physical, yet have non-physical properties, epiphenomenalism is viewed as a form of property dualism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind</span> Faculties responsible for mental phenomena

The mind is that which thinks, imagines, remembers, wills, and senses, or is the set of faculties responsible for such phenomena. The mind is also associated with experiencing perception, pleasure and pain, belief, desire, intention, and emotion. The mind can include conscious and non-conscious states as well as sensory and non-sensory experiences.

<i>Consciousness Explained</i> 1991 book by Daniel Dennett

Consciousness Explained is a 1991 book by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett, in which the author offers an account of how consciousness arises from interaction of physical and cognitive processes in the brain. Dennett describes consciousness as an account of the various calculations occurring in the brain at close to the same time. He compares consciousness to an academic paper that is being developed or edited in the hands of multiple people at one time, the "multiple drafts" theory of consciousness. In this analogy, "the paper" exists even though there is no single, unified paper. When people report on their inner experiences, Dennett considers their reports to be more like theorizing than like describing. These reports may be informative, he says, but a psychologist is not to take them at face value. Dennett describes several phenomena that show that perception is more limited and less reliable than we perceive it to be.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind–body dualism</span> Philosophical theory

In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, as well as between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem.

In the philosophy of mind, functionalism is the thesis that each and every mental state is constituted solely by its functional role, which means its causal relation to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs. Functionalism developed largely as an alternative to the identity theory of mind and behaviorism.

Artificial consciousness (AC), also known as machine consciousness (MC), synthetic consciousness or digital consciousness, is the consciousness hypothesized to be possible in artificial intelligence. It is also the corresponding field of study, which draws insights from philosophy of mind, philosophy of artificial intelligence, cognitive science and neuroscience. The same terminology can be used with the term "sentience" instead of "consciousness" when specifically designating phenomenal consciousness.

In the philosophy of mind and consciousness, the explanatory gap is the difficulty that physicalist philosophies have in explaining how physical properties give rise to the way things feel subjectively when they are experienced. It is a term introduced by philosopher Joseph Levine. In the 1983 paper in which he first used the term, he used as an example the sentence, "Pain is the firing of C fibers", pointing out that while it might be valid in a physiological sense, it does not help us to understand how pain feels.

Awareness in philosophy and psychology is a concept about knowing, perceiving and being cognizant of events. Another definition describes it as a state wherein a subject is aware of some information when that information is directly available to bring to bear in the direction of a wide range of behavioral actions. The concept is often synonymous to consciousness and is also understood as being consciousness itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panpsychism</span> View that mind is a fundamental feature of reality

In the philosophy of mind, panpsychism is the view that the mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe". It is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers including Thales, Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, and Galen Strawson. In the 19th century, panpsychism was the default philosophy of mind in Western thought, but it saw a decline in the mid-20th century with the rise of logical positivism. Recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness and developments in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and quantum physics have revived interest in panpsychism in the 21st century.

Bernard J. Baars is a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, CA., and is currently an Affiliated Fellow there.

Global workspace theory (GWT) is a framework for thinking about consciousness proposed by cognitive scientists Bernard Baars and Stan Franklin in the late 1980s. It was developed to qualitatively account for a large set of matched pairs of conscious and unconscious processes. GWT has been influential in modeling consciousness and higher-order cognition as emerging from competition and integrated flows of information across widespread, parallel neural processes.

Mindstream (citta-santāna) in Buddhist philosophy is the moment-to-moment continuum of sense impressions and mental phenomena, which is also described as continuing from one life to another.

In psychoanalysis, preconscious is the loci preceding consciousness. Thoughts are preconscious when they are unconscious at a particular moment, but are not repressed. Therefore, preconscious thoughts are available for recall and easily 'capable of becoming conscious'—a phrase attributed by Sigmund Freud to Josef Breuer.

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the body and the external world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buddhism and psychology</span> Buddhism, Mindfulness and Psychology

Buddhism includes an analysis of human psychology, emotion, cognition, behavior and motivation along with therapeutic practices. Buddhist psychology is embedded within the greater Buddhist ethical and philosophical system, and its psychological terminology is colored by ethical overtones. Buddhist psychology has two therapeutic goals: the healthy and virtuous life of a householder and the ultimate goal of nirvana, the total cessation of dissatisfaction and suffering (dukkha).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind–body problem</span> Open question in philosophy of how abstract minds interact with physical bodies

The mind–body problem is a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the body.

Functional psychology or functionalism refers to a psychological school of thought that was a direct outgrowth of Darwinian thinking which focuses attention on the utility and purpose of behavior that has been modified over years of human existence. Edward L. Thorndike, best known for his experiments with trial-and-error learning, came to be known as the leader of the loosely defined movement. This movement arose in the U.S. in the late 19th century in direct contrast to Edward Titchener's structuralism, which focused on the contents of consciousness rather than the motives and ideals of human behavior. Functionalism denies the principle of introspection, which tends to investigate the inner workings of human thinking rather than understanding the biological processes of the human consciousness.

Structuralism in psychology is a theory of consciousness developed by Edward Bradford Titchener. This theory was challenged in the 20th century.

Higher-order theories of consciousness postulate that consciousness consists in perceptions or thoughts about first-order mental states. In particular, phenomenal consciousness is thought to be higher-order representation of perceptual or quasi-perceptual contents, such as visual images.

References

  1. ↑ Potter MC, Wyble B, Hagmann CE, McCourt ES (2014). "Detecting meaning in RSVP at 13 ms per picture". Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. 76 (2): 270–9. doi:10.3758/s13414-013-0605-z. hdl: 1721.1/107157 . PMID   24374558. S2CID   180862.
  2. ↑ Raymond JE, Shapiro KL, Arnell KM (1992). "Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: an attentional blink?". Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance. 18 (3): 849–60. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.18.3.849. PMID   1500880.
  3. ↑ Shapiro KL, Arnell KA, Raymond JE (Nov 1997). "The attentional blink". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 1 (8): 291–296. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(97)01094-2. PMID   21223931. S2CID   203066948.
  4. 1 2 James, William (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
  5. ↑ James, William (13 July 2012) [1890]. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1 (reprint, revised ed.). New York: Dover Publications. ISBN   9780486123493 . Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Karunamuni N, Weerasekera R (Jun 2017). "Theoretical Foundations to Guide Mindfulness Meditation: A Path to Wisdom". Current Psychology. 38 (3): 627–646. doi:10.1007/s12144-017-9631-7. S2CID   149024504.
  7. ↑ Dan Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun. Routledge 2002, page 193.
  8. ↑ Specifically, in the Digha Nikaya. See Steven Collins, Selfless Persons; Imagery and Thought in Theravāda Buddhism. Cambridge University Press, 1982, page 257.
  9. ↑ (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4)" - Mindfulness Training as a Clinical Intervention: A Conceptual and Empirical Review, by Ruth A. Baer, available at http://www.wisebrain.org/papers/MindfulnessPsyTx.pdf
  10. 1 2 3 4 Karunamuni ND (May 2015). "The Five-Aggregate Model of the Mind". SAGE Open. 5 (2): 215824401558386. doi: 10.1177/2158244015583860 .
  11. ↑ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, (Henry L. Mansel and John Veitch, ed.), 1860 Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, in Two Volumes. Vol. II. Logic, Boston: Gould and Lincoln. Downloaded via googlebooks.
  12. ↑ To imply is "to involve or indicate by inference, association or necessary consequence rather than by direct statement", the contemporary use of 'infer' is slightly different. Webster's states that Sir Thomas More (1533) was the first to use the two words "in a sense close in meaning", and "Both of these uses of infer coexisted without comment until sometime around the end of World War I". cf Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc, Springfield, MA, ISBN   0-87779-508-8.
  13. ↑ Hamilton 1860:241-242
  14. ↑ First usage of the phrase was probably James (1890); for example, Merriam-Webster's 9th Collegiate dictionary cites 1890 as the first usage. But James was not necessarily the first to assert the concept. Furthermore, whereas James uses the phrase "the stream of thought" throughout his 1890 (he dedicates an entire chapter IX to "The Stream of Thought"), in the 689 pages of text he offers just nine instances of "stream of consciousness", in particular in consideration of the "soul".
  15. ↑ James, William (1890), The Principles of Psychology. ed. George A. Miller, Harvard University Press, 1983, ISBN   0-674-70625-0
  16. ↑ Baars, Bernard (1997), In the Theater of Consciousness New York: Oxford University Press
  17. ↑ "There is no stream of consciousness". 2002-03-25. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
  18. ↑ Dalton, J. W. The unfinished theatre, JCS, 4 (4), 1997, pp. 316-18
  19. ↑ Elitzur, A. C. Why don't we know what Mary knows? Baars' reversing the problem of qualia. JCS, 4 (4), 1997, pp.319-24
  20. ↑ Robinson, Richard (2009). "Exploring the "Global Workspace" of Consciousness". PLOS Biology. 7 (3): e1000066. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000066 . PMC   2656553 . PMID   20076729.
  21. ↑ Wilson, Leigh, 2001. May Sinclair The Literary Encyclopedia
  22. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, p.212.
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