Early afternoon. You are waiting for Carol
at the Kroger Marketplace near the corner of Lewis Center Road and Columbus
Pike (SR 23). Earlier in the morning you dropped Owen off at the bus stop and
took Brennan in to Primrose. When you arrived back at KanP's it was about time
to go to Schneider's then over to Gayle's (taking her some doughnuts). After
about an hour chat you stopped at Panera's for lunch before the Kroger stop. -
Amorella
1317 hours. We will have taken our own car the Westerville and back.
(There's a rarely used tense.) Wouldn't you know -- it's sprinkled just enough
to turn a clean car with a light layer of dust into a blue pigpen look. Such is
the daily life; a little rain must fall. Once home Carol is going to take a nap
and I'll have some writing time.
What are you doing now, boy? Amorella
1324 hours. Good question. Pause. I don't think of this as writing.
Basically, my mind is running through my fingertips -- stream of consciousness,
I suppose. Let me check Wikipedia.
** **
Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or device that depicts the
multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind. The term was coined by William James in 1890 in his The Principles of Psychology, and in 1918 the novelist May Sinclair
(1863–1946) first applied the term stream of consciousness, in a literary
context, when discussing Dorothy Richardson's
(1873–1957) novels. Pointed Roofs (1915),
the first work in Richardson's series of
13 semi-autobiographical novels titled Pilgrimage, is the first complete stream of
consciousness novel published in English. However, in 1934, Richardson comments
that "Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf & D.R. ... were all using
'the new method', though very differently, simultaneously".
Definition
Stream of consciousness is a narrative device that attempts to
give the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a
loose interior monologue (see below), or in connection to his or her actions.
Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of
interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in thought and
lack of some or all punctuation. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue
are distinguished from dramatic monologue and soliloquy, where the speaker is
addressing an audience or a third person, which are chiefly used in poetry or
drama. In stream of consciousness the speaker's thought processes are more
often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself); it is
primarily a fictional device.
The term "stream of consciousness" was coined by
philosopher and psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890):
consciousness, then, does not appear to itself as chopped up in
bits ... it is nothing joined; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the
metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it
hereafter, let's call it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective
life.
. . . In the following example of stream of consciousness from James Joyce's Ulysses, Molly seeks sleep:
a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose they're just
getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have
the nuns ringing the angelus they've nobody coming in to spoil their sleep
except an odd priest or two for his night office the alarm clock next door at
cock shout clattering the brains out of itself let me see if I can doze off 1 2
3 4 5 what kind of flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper
in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that something
only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again so that I can
get up early
Interior monologue.
While
many sources use the terms stream of consciousness and interior monologue as
synonyms, the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms suggests, that
"they can also be distinguished psychologically and literarily. In a
psychological sense, stream of consciousness is the subject‐matter, while interior monologue is the
technique for presenting it". And for literature, "while an interior
monologue always presents a character's thoughts 'directly', without the
apparent intervention of a summarizing and selecting narrator, it does not
necessarily mingle them with impressions and perceptions, nor does it
necessarily violate the norms of grammar, or logic- but the stream‐of‐consciousness technique also does one or both of these
things." Similarly the Encyclopædia Britannica Online, while
agreeing that these terms are "often used interchangeably", suggests,
that "while an interior monologue may mirror all the half thoughts,
impressions, and associations that impinge upon the character's consciousness,
it may also be restricted to an organized presentation of that character's
rational thoughts".
21st
century
Stream of
consciousness continues to appear in contemporary literature. Dave Eggers,
author of A Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius (2000),
according to one reviewer, "talks much as he writes – a forceful stream of
consciousness, thoughts sprouting in all directions". Novelist John
Banville describes Roberto Bolano's novel Amulet,
as written in "a fevered stream of consciousness". The first decade brought further
exploration, including Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated
(2002) and many of the short stories of American author Brendan Connell.
Selected
and edited from Wikipedia
** **
The boys are playing on their iPads or devices
until five when you are going to an early supper because it is Friday and the
restaurants fill quickly, especially if you wait until six. Paul is talking to
Owen on his special watch/GPS/phone. - Amorella
1646
hours. Kim called a short time ago and asked us to take the boys to the nearby
pubic park after supper which was not our first plan but we are complying.
Potential domestic problem in the
neighborhood -- parents and children in the neighborhood are on alert for a
black SUV. A father may be looking to take his children away from their mother.
This is a caution for the neighborhood watch so this is the explanation for
playing in the park. Post. - Amorella
1907 hours. During discussion at supper Owen
brought up the idea of having a movie night with popcorn until eight thirty
then to bed as they have to leave with friends and parents to soccer at nine
tomorrow. After soccer they and their friends are off to pizza for lunch -- to
be home around one. No playground play tonight by kids' vote. Presently they
are finishing their baths. Owen already set Apple TV to the film they want to
watch. You have to pop them corn. Kids' democracy rules. After supper the
well-behaved boys had their Graeter's kids' cups (blue cotton candy ice cream
with four yellow eyeballs and sprinkles) - Amorella
1918
hours. Time to make the popcorn.
Later:
Below is Stream of consciousness in reference to Psychology not the Literary.
** **
Stream of
consciousness refers
to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. Research studies have
shown that we only experience one mental event at a time as a fast-moving mind
stream. William James, often considered to be the father of American
psychology, first coined the phrase "stream of
consciousness". The full range of thoughts—that one can be aware of—can form the content of this stream.
Buddhism
The phrase
"stream of consciousness" (Pali; viññāna-sota)
occurs in early Buddhist scriptures. The Yogaachara school of Mahayana Buddhism developed the idea into a thorough
theory of mind.
The
practice of mindfulness involves
being aware moment-to-moment of one’s subjective conscious experience from a
first-person perspective. In
other words, when practicing mindfulness, one becomes aware of one's
"stream of consciousness". Buddhist teachings describe six triggers
that can result in the generation of different mental events. These are input
from the five senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or touch sensations),
or a thought (relating to the past, present or the future) that happen to arise
in the mind. The mental events generated as a result of these triggers are:
feelings, perceptions and intentions/behavior. In Buddhist teachings, the
manifestation of the "stream of consciousness" is described as being
affected by physical laws, biological laws, psychological laws, volitional
laws, and universal laws.
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."
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).
In this
context the words "necessarily infer" are synonymous with
"imply". In further
discussion Hamilton identified "the law" with modus ponens; thus the
act of "necessarily infer" detaches the consequent for purposes of
becoming the (next) antecedent in a "chain" of connected inferences.
William
James 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."
Bernard Baars has developed Global
Workspace Theory which bears
some resemblance to stream of consciousness.
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.
Selected
and edited via Wikipedia and continuing
below with:
Mind Streaming
Indian
Buddhists see the 'evolution' of mind i[n] terms of the continuity of
individual mind-streams from one lifetime to the next, with karma as the basic causal mechanism whereby
transformations are transmitted from one life to the next.
According
to Waldron,
[T]he mind stream (santāna) increases gradually by the
mental afflictions (kleśa) and by actions (karma), and goes again
to the next world. In this way the circle of existence is without beginning."
The
vasanas (karmic imprints) provide
the karmic continuity between lives and between moments. According to Lusthaus, these vasanas determine how one
...actually sees and experiences the world in certain ways, and
one actually becomes a certain type of person, embodying certain theories which
immediately shape the manner in which we experience.
Etymology
Sanskrit
Citta holds the seman Mind
Stream (citta-santāna) in Buddhist
philosophy is the
moment-to-moment continuum (Sanskrit: saṃtāna) of sense impressions and mental phenomena, which is also described as continuing
from one life to another.
Definition
Citta-saṃtāna (Sanskrit), literally "the stream of mind",is
the stream of succeeding moments of mind or awareness. It provides a continuity
of the personality in the absence of a permanently abiding "self" (atman),
which Buddhism denies. The mindstream provides a continuity from one life to
another, akin to the flame of a candle which may be passed from one candle to
another:
tic field of
"that which is conscious", "the act of mental apprehension known
as ordinary consciousness", "the conventional and relative
mind/heart". Citta has two aspects: "...Its two
aspects are attending to and collecting of impressions or traces (Sanskrit: vasana) cf. vijnana." Saṃtāna or santāna (Sanskrit) holds the semantic field of
"eternal", "continuum", "a series of momentary
events" or "life-stream". . . .
Selected
and edited via Wikipedia and continuing
with:
Global Workspace
Theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Global Workspace Theory (GWT) 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 (1988, 1997, 2002). Brain interpretations and computational
simulations of GWT are the focus of current research.
GWT resembles the concept of working memory, and is proposed to
correspond to a "momentarily active, subjectively experienced" event
in working memory (WM)—the "inner domain in which we can rehearse
telephone numbers to ourselves or in which we carry on the narrative of our
lives. It is usually thought to include inner speech and visual imagery."
(in Baars, 1997).
The theater metaphor
Cartesian theater GWT can be explained in terms of a
"theater metaphor". In the "theater of consciousness" a
"spotlight of selective attention" shines a bright spot on stage. The
bright spot reveals the contents not of consciousness, actors moving in and
out, making speeches or interacting with each other. The audience is not lit
up—it is in the dark (i.e., unconscious) watching the play. Behind the scenes,
also in the dark, are the director (executive processes), stage hands, script
writers, scene designers and the like. They shape the visible activities in the
bright spot, but are themselves invisible. Baars argues that this is distinct
from the concept of the Cartesian theater, since it is not based on the
implicit dualistic assumption of "someone" viewing the theater, and
is not located in a single place in the mind (in Blackmore, 2005).
The model
GWT involves a fleeting memory with a duration of a few seconds
(much shorter than the 10–30 seconds of classical working memory). GWT contents
are proposed to correspond to what we are conscious of, and are
broadcast to a multitude of unconscious cognitive brain processes, which may be
called receiving
processes. Other unconscious processes, operating in parallel with
limited communication between them, can form coalitions which can act as input processes
to the global workspace. Since globally broadcast messages can evoke actions in
receiving processes throughout the brain, the global workspace may be used to
exercise executive control to perform voluntary actions. Individual as well as
allied processes compete for access to the global workspace, striving to
disseminate their messages to all other processes in an effort to recruit more
cohorts and thereby increase the likelihood of achieving their goals.
Baars (1997) suggests that the global workspace "is closely
related to conscious experience, though not identical to it." Conscious
events may involve more necessary conditions, such as interacting with a
"self" system, and an executive interpreter in the brain, such as has
been suggested by a number of authors including Michael S. Gazzaniga.
Nevertheless, GWT can successfully model a number of
characteristics of consciousness, such as its role in handling novel
situations, its limited capacity, its sequential nature, and its ability to
trigger a vast range of unconscious brain processes. Moreover, GWT lends itself
well to computational modeling. Stan Franklin's IDA model is one such
computational implementation of GWT. See also Dehaene et al. (2003) and
Shanahan (2006).
GWT also specifies "behind the scenes" contextual
systems, which shape conscious contents without ever becoming conscious, such
as the dorsal cortical stream of the visual system. This architectural approach
leads to specific neural hypotheses. Sensory events in different modalities may
compete with each other for consciousness if their contents are incompatible.
For example, the audio and video track of a movie will compete rather than fuse
if the two tracks are out of sync by more than 100 ms., approximately. The 100
ms time domain corresponds closely with the known brain physiology of
consciousness, including brain rhythms in the alpha-theta-gamma domain, and
event-related potentials in the 200-300 ms dot insights into the relation
between consciousness and cognition."
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.
Selected
and edited from Wikipedia
** **
In reading through the above you are
surprised to see a 'connection' with the way I, the Amorella, work within your
sense of consciousness and unconsciousness. You want to pursue more on this
line of thought. You feel, at least presently, that this blog and the novels
within the blog show examples of what is discussed in the above Wikipedia
articles. Post. - Amorella
2244 hours. It is late. Tiredness is taking over. However, I sense, I
feel intuitive, that some of my mental processes are akin to what is written in
The Global Workspace Theory.
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