What is the Flow of Consciousness (in Psychology)?
We review this theoretical concept developed by psychologist William James.
The term "Stream of Consciousness" was coined by William James at the end of the 19th century, to make reference to how thoughts emanate and circulate in the conscious mind.. Through this concept, James analyzed the great variety of thoughts about which we are conscious and how they shape the flow of consciousness.
Next we will see what William James' idea of the flow of consciousness consists of, what its attributes are and how our thoughts are shaped.
The Flow of Consciousness: background and definition
In 1889, the American William James published one of the works that established him as one of the fathers of psychology: "The Principles of Psychology". In this book he explored and described consciousness in terms of a "flow" or "stream", that is, as a continuous succession of experiences through which we select or direct our attention towards certain stimuli.
Among other things James was concerned, like many other scientists and philosophers of the time, to explore the contents of consciousness. to explore the contents of consciousness and to know the way in which we carry out that complex action we call "thinking", and what's more, how we do it.and what is more: how it is that we become aware (become conscious) that we are thinking.
He called it "stream" (streamThe idea is to make a metaphorical reference to a kind of caravan of ideas, images, feelings, sensations, sensations, thoughts, etc., that constantly appear and disappear in our consciousness.
According to this idea, all the above elements, contrary to what we used to think, are not so separate and differentiated from each other; they are part of the same conscious flow where past and present thoughts are connected. According to this way of understanding the human mind, consciousness is characterized by the constant flow of psychological contents, one entwined in the other, and the existence of each one of them cannot be understood separately, since they are united and overlap each other.
There is therefore an overlapping of our cognitive experiences.where the current experience may be the easiest to recognize as immediate, but it happens that past experiences continue to become present, and the next ones gradually enter the flow.
That is to say, mental states follow one another. There are no "isolated thoughts", but all of them are in the same continuous stream of consciousness, independently of temporality and even of what we can anticipate or decide.
4 descriptive properties of the Stream of Consciousness
According to Tornay and Milan (1999), the four descriptive properties that James attributes to the stream of consciousness are the following:
- Each mental state tends to be part of a personal consciousness.
- Within personal consciousness, mental states are in constant flux
- Personal consciousness is continuous
- Consciousness fixes its interest on some parts of its object to the exclusion of others, and chooses between them.
How do we think?
William James said that consciousness, and more specifically thought, follows a process which in appearance is necessarily directed by intelligence.. However, according to the psychologist, the figure of the "thinker" does not necessarily have to manifest as a leader.
Rather, the action of thinking is a goal-oriented process, which is fundamentally driven by the sense of satisfaction we experience when we are about to reach those goals.
Thinking would then be an automated process that has been consolidated as a logical result of our evolution, i.e., it does not want the existence of an independent or spiritual entity guiding this process. In other words, far from there being an entity (ourselves) separate from our consciousness, dictating the paths our consciousness follows; the conscious state is rather a process driven by our desire to experience satisfaction under the belief that our thoughts lead us to accomplish something.
Determinism and free will
Inevitably, some questions arise here concerning determinism and free will in human beings. We might quickly draw the conclusion that, for James, humans experience, feel and think as automatons.
However, James suggests that human beings are, rather than automata, selecting organs.. This is so because, although we cannot consciously select what will initially appear in our consciousness, we can choose which element we keep there or not once it has become present; or to which stimulus we remain attentive and to which we do not.
Although this was a discussion present in much of his work, James moves the free will debate into the realms of philosophy, making it clear that psychology, as a science, should be added to a more deterministic tradition of consciousness.
How do the ideas of William James relate to advances in neuroscience?
The concept of Stream of Consciousness is no longer used in Psychology today (at least consistently), but rather is referred to as part of the History of this science and the work of William James. However, its essence seems to go in line with what the last decades of neuroscience research have allowed us to learn about the human mind..
For example, it is known that neural networks work by coordinating and overlapping with each other, not from discrete "brain modules" working in parallel. In addition, the fact that a thought leads to a the fact that one thought leads to the next is part of the normal activity of the nervous system., and is thus the way in which an inertia is generated that drives mental processes always forward, without letting them stagnate completely.
Bibliographical references:
- Bayne, T. & Montague, M. (2012). Cognitive Phenomenology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Carreira, J. (2013). William James, The stream consciousness and free will. Philosophy is not a luxury. Retrieved August 10, 2018. Disponible en https://philosophyisnotaluxury.com/2013/03/21/william-james-the-stream-of-consciousness-and-freewill/
- Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to Phenomenology. Londres y Nueva York: Routledge.
- Pawelski, J.O. (2007). The Dynamic Individualism of William James, Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Tornay, F.J. y Milán, E. (1999). Las ideas de James sobre el flujo de consciencia y teorías científicas actuales de la consciencia. Revista de historia de la psicología, 20(3-4): 187-196.
- Tieszen, R. (2005). Phenomenology, Logic, and the Philosophy of Mathematics. Cambridge and Nueva York: Camabridge University Press.
(Updated at Apr 14 / 2024)