Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts Thoughts are forms conceived in the mind, rather than the forms perceived through the five senses. Thought and thinking are the processes by which these concepts are perceived and manipulated. Thinking allows beings to model the world and to represent it according to their objectives, plans, ends and desires. Similar concepts and processes include in the conscious Consciousness is variously defined as subjective experience, awareness, the ability to experience "feeling", wakefulness, or the executive control system of the mind. It is an umbrella term that may refer to a variety of mental phenomena. Although humans realize what everyday experiences are, consciousness refuses to be defined, mind Mind is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding. More broadly, it is the state or quality of being aware of something. In biological psychology, awareness is of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts Internal monologue, also known as inner voice, internal speech, or stream of consciousness is thinking in words. It also refers to the semi-constant internal monologue one has with oneself at a conscious or semi-conscious level. Commonly used experimental techniques, including self-reporting, gives easier access to verbal thoughts than to thoughts more closely connected to senses other than hearing and activities other than speaking and writing.
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Buddhism
The phrase "stream of consciousness" (Pali Pāli (ISO 15919/ALA-LC: is a Middle Indo-Aryan language of India. It is best known as the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures, as collected in the Pāḷi Canon or Tipitaka, and as the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism; viññāna-sota) occurs in early Buddhist scriptures The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down. It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist.[1] The Yogachara school of Mahayana Buddhism Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice. Mahāyāna Buddhism originated in India developed the idea into a thorough theory of mind.[2]
Hammalawa Saddhatissa Mahathera Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India. It is relatively conservative, and generally closest to early Buddhism, and for many centuries has been the predominant religion of Sri Lanka (about 70% of the population) and most of writes: "There is no 'self' that stands at the mentality to which characteristics and events accrue and from which they fall away, leaving it intact at death. The stream of consciousness, flowing through many lives, is as changing as a stream of water. This is the anatta In Buddhism, anattā or anātman (Sanskrit: अनात्मन्) refers to the notion of "not-self". In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses (including the mental sense) are not really "I" or "mine", and for this reason one should doctrine of Buddhism as concerns the individual being."[3]
Proponents
William James William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a medical doctor. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James is given credit for the concept.[4] He was enormously skeptical about using introspection Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious mental and usually purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul. It can also be called contemplation of one's self, and is contrasted 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."
Bernard Baars has developed Global Workspace Theory[5] which bears some resemblance to stream of consciousness.
Criticism
Susan Blackmore Susan Jane Blackmore, PhD, is an English freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine challenged the concept of stream of consciousness in several papers. "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".[6]
Literary technique
Main article: Stream of consciousness (narrative mode) In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that 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 actions. The introduction of the term to describe literature—transferred from psychologyIn literature, stream of consciousness writing In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that 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 actions is a literary device A literary technique, literary device, or literary motif is an identifiable rule of thumb, convention or structure that is employed in literature and storytelling 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 writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement. Its introduction in the literary context, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May Sinclair.[7]
See also
- Free recall
- Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher who is deemed the founder of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, believing that experience is the source of all knowledge, while at the same time he elaborated critiques of psychologism and historicism
- Phenomenology (psychology) In psychology, phenomenology is used to refer to subjective experiences or their study. The experiencing subject can be considered to be the person or self, for purposes of convenience. In phenomenological philosophy "experience" is a considerably more complex concept than it is usually taken to be in everyday use. Instead, experience (
- Qualia "Qualia" , singular "quale" (pronounced /ˈkwɑːlɛ/), from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to describe the subjective quality of conscious experience. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or the redness of an evening sky. Daniel
- Train of thought The train of thought, stream of thought, or chain of thought refers to the interconnection in the sequence of ideas expressed during a connected discourse or thought, as well as to the sequence itself, especially in discussion how this sequence leads from one idea to another
- Samyama
References
- ^ Specifically, in the Digha Nikaya The Digha Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the first of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism. Some of the most commonly referenced suttas from the Digha Nikaya include the Maha-parinibbana Sutta (DN 16), which described the final. See Steven Collins, Selfless Persons; Imagery and Thought in Theravāda Buddhism. Cambridge University Press, 1982, page 257.
- ^ Dan Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Chʼeng Wei-shih Lun. Routledge 2002, page 193.
- ^ Hammalawa Saddhatissa, Buddhist Ethics. Wisdom Publications, 1997, page 23.
- ^ James, William (1890), The Principles of Psychology. ed. George A. Miller George Armitage Miller is the author of one of the most highly cited papers in psychology, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two" published in 1956 in Psychological Review. This paper suggests that seven (plus or minus two) is the magic number that characterizes people's memory performance on random lists of letters, words,, Harvard University Press, 1983, ISBN 0-674-70625-0
- ^ Baars, Bernard (1997), In the Theater of Consciousness New York: Oxford University Press
- ^ "There is no stream of consciousness". http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/jcs02.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
- ^ Wilson, Leigh, 2001. May Sinclair The Literary Encyclopedia
External links
Categories: Consciousness studies Categories: Philosophy of mind | Phenomenology | Cognition | Cognitive neuroscience | Cognitive science | Psychology | Cognition Cognition is the scientific term for "the process of thought." Its usage varies in different ways in accord with different disciplines: For example, in psychology and cognitive science it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the
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Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:05:52 GM
And after I wrote that Subject sentence I really can't be bothered, please see current mood.
