The Stream of Consciousness: IX. James's Ejective Consciousness (Second Part)

1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Series ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Preceding Article

As in the preceding article of the present series, I continue to examine William James's thought in The Principles of Psychology regarding what he there called “ejective consciousness.” James held that, in certain altered states, and perhaps at other times as well, mental occurrences may take place that are not components of the individual's original stream of consciousness. Usually if not always, such “split-off” occurrences comprise a second stream, which, according to James, is no less conscious and personal than the original stream is. However, the components of the second stream must be distinguished from nonconscious mental occurrences. Whereas James argues at some length against the existence of the nonconscious mental, of which there cannot be any inner awareness by definition, James does countenance the unusual presence of a second stream of consciousness, of which the first stream can have knowledge only inferentially, and vice versa. Both streams include inner awareness of their own basic durational components.

The Stream of Consciousness: VIII. James's Ejective Consciousness (First Part)

1995 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Series ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Inferential Knowledge

The present series concerning the stream of consciousness continues with two articles that examine James's conception of “ejective” consciousness in The Principles. During certain altered states, and perhaps at other times as well, mental-occurrence instances take place that are not part of the individual's original stream of consciousness. Usually, if not always, such “split-off” mental-occurrence instances comprise a second stream, which, according to James, is no less conscious and personal than the original stream is. However, the durational components of the second stream are distinct from nonconscious mental occurrences. Whereas James argues against the existence of nonconscious mental occurrences, of which there can be no inner awareness by definition, James does countenance a second stream of consciousness, of which the first stream can have only inferential knowledge, and vice versa. Both streams include inner awareness of their own basic durational components.

The Stream of Consciousness: XXIX. Does Consciousness Exist? (Second Part)

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-84
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Essential Feature ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Preceding Article ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Direct Acquaintance ◽  
Crucial Part

I continue to address W. James's intentions in his article of 1904 titled “Does ‘Consciousness’ Exist?” (DCE), and to raise critical questions concerning the direction his theory takes after The Principles of Psychology. Here, as in the preceding article of this series, I closely examine his article for what it tells us concerning his new conception of the stream of consciousness. James holds it to be constituted of “pure experiences,” which are neither mental nor physical but may be taken to be either mental or physical. An essential feature of this new conception is one's having a direct acquaintance with one's experiences. James considers consciousness, in this basic sense, to be a crucial part of how one knows anything one does know. Knowledge of the sun, for example, has a basis in direct acquaintance with certain experiences; that is, one takes some of one's experiences to be a certain physical object, the sun itself, because of their occurrence in a context consisting of certain other experiences that, too, are objects of inner awareness.

scholarly journals EEG microstate dynamics indicate a U-shaped path to propofol-induced loss of consciousness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiorenzo Artoni ◽  
Julien Maillard ◽  
Juliane Britz ◽  
Martin Seeber ◽  
Christopher Lysakowski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Initial Increase ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Sequence Complexity ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Brain States ◽  
The Brain

It is commonly believed that the stream of consciousness is not continuous but parsed into transient brain states manifesting themselves as discrete spatiotemporal patterns of global neuronal activity. Electroencephalographical (EEG) microstates are proposed as the neurophysiological correlates of these transiently stable brain states that last for fractions of seconds. To further understand the link between EEG microstate dynamics and consciousness, we continuously recorded high-density EEG in 23 surgical patients from their awake state to unconsciousness, induced by step-wise increasing concentrations of the intravenous anesthetic propofol. Besides the conventional parameters of microstate dynamics, we introduce a new method that estimates the complexity of microstate sequences. The brain activity under the surgical anesthesia showed a decreased sequence complexity of the stereotypical microstates, which became sparser and longer-lasting. However, we observed an initial increase in microstates' temporal dynamics and complexity with increasing depth of sedation leading to a distinctive U-shape that may be linked to the paradoxical excitation induced by moderate levels of propofol. Our results support the idea that the brain is in a metastable state under normal conditions, balancing between order and chaos in order to flexibly switch from one state to another. The temporal dynamics of EEG microstates indicate changes of this critical balance between stability and transition that lead to altered states of consciousness.

The Stream of Consciousness: XII. Consciousness and Self-Awareness

1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Location ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Unity Of Consciousness ◽  
Bodily Feelings ◽  
Personal Consciousness ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Diachronic Unity ◽  
Intrinsic Feature

Consciousness and self-awareness—how are they mutually related? This contribution to the present series of articles begins to consider replies to this question from the Jamesian perspective of The Principles. First, several relevant senses of consciousness are made explicit. Then, I give attention to James's notion of personal consciousness: How do the basic durational components of a stream of consciousness “cohere” to form a stream, given that, on James's mind—body dualism, they do not have a spatial location? Continuities of content among the components of a single stream is supposed to be the unifying factor; James held bodily feelings are an intrinsic feature of every component of a stream. The diachronic unity of consciousness rests heavily on a kind of self-awareness. Also addressed here are inner awareness, or the immediate awareness that one can have of one's mental-occurrence instances, and whether remembering past experiences requires that one had not only inner awareness of them when they occurred, but self-awareness as well.

The Stream of Consciousness: XVII. James in Recent Context (1991–1996)

1998 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Possible Selves ◽  
The Self ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness

By examining work published in this Journal, I bring present-day issues to bear on my ongoing exploration of William James's stream of consciousness. How do knowledgeable psychological scientists demonstrate or acknowledge the relevance to their own work of their illustrious predecessor's introspectively grounded theses and arguments? In installments number XV, XVI, and XVII of the present series, I consider in units of five the initial fifteen volumes of Imagination, Cognition and Personality—the final five of these volumes in the present article. I inquire here into what specifically it was that each of five particular teams of psychologists who published in this Journal from 1991 to 1996 explicitly drew from James; and I address the corresponding topic from James's perspective insofar as space allows. Thus, the topics of the present article turn out to be these: 1) two kinds of self-awareness, 2) consciousness as impulsive in its very nature, 3) how the self is comprised, 4) the scope of psychology, and 5) possible selves.

The Stream of Consciousness: XIII. Bodily Self-Awareness and Aron Gurwitsch's Margin

1997 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
William James ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Bodily Feeling ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Aron Gurwitsch

According to William James, bodily self-awareness (bodily feeling) is pervasive throughout the stream of consciousness; such awareness is included in each and every pulse of mentality that makes up the stream of consciousness. This installment of the present series of articles begins to consider the role that bodily self-awareness plays in the very structure of the basic durational components of James's stream. The focus here is on an account of this role that the prominent phenomenologist Aron Gurwitsch preferred. Gurwitsch held that pervasive bodily self-awareness belongs to the margin of consciousness; such bodily self-awareness occurs in the form of distinct acts of awareness possessing a separate content from that of the central thematic process which also characterizes every pulse of consciousness. The present article discusses Gurwitsch's account in order to set up a contrast, which will be drawn explicitly in the next installment, with James's more phenomeno-logically integrated conception of pervasive bodily self-awareness.

The Stream of Consciousness: XV. James in Recent Context (1981–1986)

1997 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Objective Method ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
States Of Consciousness

Addressing work on consciousness published in this Journal allows me to bring relevant present-day material to bear on my ongoing exploration of James's stream. Instead of, as before, making use of an author's findings or ideas to improve our understanding of James's stream, I inquire into what each author has explicitly drawn from James's work in his or her article. I consider all fifteen published volumes of Imagination, Cognition and Personality in successive units of five, beginning with the first five years in this article. Of special interest are the specific ways present-day psychologists, who are strong on objective method, demonstrate or acknowledge the relevance to their work of the introspectively grounded propositions of their great predecessor. Discussed in the present article are theses belonging to five large topics: 1) the perception of reality, 2) conceiving of consciousness, 3) the emotions, 4) altered states of consciousness, and 5) discriminating imaginal from perceptual awareness.

The Stream of Consciousness: VI. Relevancies from Imagination, Cognition and Personality

1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
Mental Activity ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Musical Imagery ◽  
Thought Sampling

Quite naturally, Imagination, Cognition and Personality is the literal context of the present series of articles, which aims to examine what is known and knowledgeably held about the nature and character of the referents of William James's concept of the stream of consciousness. The sixth and seventh installments focus on selected relevant interpretations and facts from Imagination, Cognition and Personality. These relevancies include 1) Christopher M. Aranosian's account of those temporal sections of the stream of consciousness during composing and improvising that consist of auditory musical imagery, 2) Erwin R. Steinberg's argument against the stream-of-consciousness technique of writing literature, as providing a poor simulation of a stream of consciousness, especially when compared to what might be accomplished by programming a present-day computer, and 3) Lee Tilford Davis and Peder J. Johnson's result of no mental activity at all reported ten per cent of the time by the subjects in an experiment using random thought-sampling.

The Stream of Consciousness: VII. Further Relevancies from Imagination, Cognition and Personality

1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Natsoulas
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Stream Of Consciousness ◽  
Physical Time ◽  
Thought Sampling

Quite naturally, Imagination, Cognition and Personality is the literal context of the present series of articles, which aims to examine what is known and knowledgeably held about the nature and character of the referents of William James's concept of the stream of consciousness. The sixth and seventh installments focus on selected relevant interpretations and facts from Imagination, Cognition and Personality. These relevancies include 1) Lee Tilford Davis and Peder J. Johnson's result of no mental activity at all reported ten per cent of the time by the subjects in an experiment using a thought-sampling technique, 2) Richard A. Block, John L. Saggau, and Leo H. Nickol's finding of similarity between the stream of consciousness and college students' conception of physical time, and 3) L. Stafford Betty's analysis of certain basic durational components of the stream of consciousness (which he calls “non-symbolic”) that are frequently reported as characteristic of mystical experience.

X-ray microanalysis of thin specimens in the transmission electron microscope at voltages up to 1000 Kv.

1978 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 540-541
Author(s):  
G. Cliff ◽  
M.J. Nasir ◽  
G.W. Lorimer ◽  
N. Ridley
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscope ◽  
Transmission Electron Microscope ◽  
Weight Fraction ◽  
Present Series ◽  
Constant Independent ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Transmission Electron ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Image Position ◽  
X Ray Absorption

In a specimen which is transmission thin to 100 kV electrons - a sample in which X-ray absorption is so insignificant that it can be neglected and where fluorescence effects can generally be ignored (1,2) - a ratio of characteristic X-ray intensities, I1/I2 can be converted into a weight fraction ratio, C1/C2, using the equationwhere k12 is, at a given voltage, a constant independent of composition or thickness, k12 values can be determined experimentally from thin standards (3) or calculated (4,6). Both experimental and calculated k12 values have been obtained for K(11<Z>19),kα(Z>19) and some Lα radiation (3,6) at 100 kV. The object of the present series of experiments was to experimentally determine k12 values at voltages between 200 and 1000 kV and to compare these with calculated values.The experiments were carried out on an AEI-EM7 HVEM fitted with an energy dispersive X-ray detector.

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