Stream of consciousness (psychology)
Encyclopedia
Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thought
s in the conscious
mind
. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware
of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts
. 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.
; viññāna-sota) occurs in early Buddhist scriptures
. The Yogachara school of Mahayana Buddhism developed the idea into a thorough theory of mind.
Hammalawa Saddhatissa
Mahathera
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
doctrine of Buddhism as concerns the individual being."
is given credit for the concept. 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."
Bernard Baars
has developed Global Workspace Theory
which bears some resemblance to stream of consciousness.
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".
.
Thought
"Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination...
s in the conscious
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware
Awareness
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...
of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts
Internal monologue
Internal monologue, also known as inner voice, internal speech, or verbal 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.
Buddhism
The phrase "stream of consciousness" (PaliPáli
- External links :* *...
; viññāna-sota) occurs in early Buddhist scriptures
Pāli Canon
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...
. The Yogachara school of Mahayana Buddhism developed the idea into a thorough theory of mind.
Hammalawa Saddhatissa
Hammalawa Saddhatissa
The Ven. Prof. Hammalawa Saddhatissa Maha Thera was an ordained Buddhist monk and author from Sri Lanka, educated in Benares, London, and Edinburgh. He was a contemporary of and in many ways equal to Ven. Prof. Walpola Rahula, also of Sri Lanka....
Mahathera
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
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
Anatta
In Buddhism, anattā or anātman 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 are not really "I" or "mine," and for this reason one should not cling to them.In the same vein, the Pali...
doctrine of Buddhism as concerns the individual being."
Proponents
William JamesWilliam James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
is given credit for the concept. He was enormously skeptical about using introspection
Introspection
Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...
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
Bernard Baars
Bernard J. Baars is a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, CA., and is currently an Affiliated Fellow there. He is best known as the originator of the global workspace theory, a theory of human cognitive architecture and consciousness...
has developed Global Workspace Theory
Global Workspace Theory
Global Workspace Theory is a simple Cognitive architecture that has been developed to account qualitatively for a large set of matched pairs of conscious and unconscious processes. It was proposed by Bernard Baars...
which bears some resemblance to stream of consciousness.
Criticism
Susan BlackmoreSusan Blackmore
Susan Jane Blackmore is an English freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine.-Career:...
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".
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 writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement. Its introduction in the literary context, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May SinclairMay Sinclair
May Sinclair was the pseudonym of Mary Amelia St. Clair , a popular British writer who wrote about two dozen novels, short stories and poetry. She was an active suffragist, and member of the Woman Writers' Suffrage League...
.
See also
- Free recallFree recallFree recall is a basic paradigm in the psychological study of memory. In this paradigm, participants study a list of items on each trial, and then are prompted to recall the items in any order...
- Edmund HusserlEdmund HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
- Phenomenology (psychology)Phenomenology (psychology)Phenomenology is an approach to psychological subject matter that has its roots in the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl. Early phenomenologists such as Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty conducted their own psychological investigations in the early 20th century...
- QualiaQualiaQualia , singular "quale" , from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to refer to subjective conscious experiences as 'raw feels'. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug, or the...
- Train of thoughtTrain of thoughtThe train of thought, stream of thought, trail 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 the sequence itself, especially in discussion how this sequence leads from one idea to another.When a...
- SamyamaSamyamaSamyama . Combined simultaneous practice of Dhāraṇā , Dhyāna & Samādhi . A tool to receive deeper knowledge of qualities of the object...