What we traditionally call ‘conscious thought’ actually is a subpersonal process, and only rarely a form of mental action. The paradigmatic, standard form of conscious thought is non-agentive, because it lacks veto-control and involves an unnoticed loss of epistemic agency and goal-directed causal self-determination at the level of mental content. Conceptually, it must be described as an unintentional form of inner behaviour. Empirical research shows that we are not mentally autonomous subjects for about two thirds of our conscious lifetime, because (...) while conscious cognition is unfolding, it often cannot be inhibited, suspended, or terminated. The instantiation of a stable first- person perspective as well as of certain necessary conditions of personhood turn out to be rare, graded, and dynamically variable properties of human beings. I argue that individual representational events only become part of a personal-level process by being functionally integrated into a specific form of transparent conscious self-representation, the ‘epistemic agent model’. The EAM may be the true origin of our consciously experienced firstperson perspective. (shrink)

Although mind-wandering occupies up to half of our waking thoughts, it is seldom discussed in philosophy. My paper brings these neglected thoughts into focus. I propose that mind-wandering is unguided attention. Guidance in my sense concerns how attention is monitored and regulated as it unfolds over time. Roughly speaking, someone’s attention is guided if she would feel pulled back, were she distracted from her current focus. Because our wandering thoughts drift unchecked from topic to topic, they are unguided. One motivation (...) for my theory is what I call the “Puzzle of the Purposeful Wanderer”. On the one hand, mind-wandering seems essentially purposeless; almost by definition, it contrasts with goal-directed cognition. On the other hand, empirical evidence suggests that our minds frequently wander to our goals. My solution to the puzzle is this: mind-wandering is purposeless in one way—it is unguided—but purposeful in another—it is frequently caused, and thus motivated, by our goals. Another motivation for my theory is to distinguish mind-wandering from two antithetical forms of cognition: absorption and rumination. Surprisingly, previous theories cannot capture these distinctions. I can: on my view, absorption and rumination are guided, whereas mind-wandering is not. My paper has four parts. Section 1 spells out the puzzle. Sections 2 and 3 explicate two extant views of mind-wandering—the first held by most cognitive scientists, the second by Thomas Metzinger. Section 4 uses the limitations of these theories to motivate my own: mind-wandering is unguided attention. (shrink)

In this article I develop a phenomenological model of the dynamics of mind-wandering based on Aron Gurwitsch's (1964) field theory of consciousness. Specifically, I articulate these dynamics in terms of conscious field transformations resulting from particular interactions between the attentional focus, contextual background, and non-contextual background -- structures that Gurwitsch understood as invariantly present. According to the model, during guided thought the conscious context that escorts the focus of attention behaves like an autonomous self-defining system, as the primary determinant of (...) its own subsequent states. Often, during episodes of mind-wandering this autonomy is lost as the theme interacts preferentially with the margin. Additionally, I explain the relevance of mind-wandering to Varela's (1999) neurophenomenology of time consciousness. When the stream of consciousness is guided and constrained, as in cases of deliberate or ruminative thinking, retentions are derived primarily from information contained in the thematic field. When the stream of consciousness wanders, moment-to-moment retentions often derive mainly from marginal cognitive information stored in the outskirts of the field of consciousness. (shrink)

Remembering is one of the most characteristic and most puzzling of human activities. Personal memory, in particular - the ability mentally to travel back into the past, as leading psychologist Endel Tulving puts it - often has intense emotional or moral significance: it is perhaps the most striking manifestation of the peculiar way human beings are embedded in time, and of our limited but genuine freedom from our present environment and our immediate needs. Memory has been significant in the history (...) of philosophy as much in relation to ethics and to epistemology as in theories of psyche, mind, and self. (shrink)

Research on the specific features of daydreaming compared with mind-wandering and night dreaming is a neglected topic in the philosophy of mind and the cognitive neuroscience of spontaneous thought. The extant research either conflates daydreaming with mind-wandering (whether understood as task-unrelated thought, unguided attention, or disunified thought), characterizes daydreaming as opposed to mind-wandering (Dorsch, 2015), or takes daydreaming to encompass any and all “imagined events” (Newby-Clark & Thavendran, 2018). These dueling definitions obstruct future research on spontaneous thought, and are insufficiently (...) precise to guide empirical studies. They also fail to illuminate the phenomenal core of daydreaming, namely, its dreamlike qualities. Although daydreaming is related to both mind-wandering and narrative imagination, it is not reducible to either. We argue that daydreams are experiences of spontaneous, immersive imagination in the waking state. The main task of our investigation is to distinguish daydreaming, conceptually and phenomenologically, from mind-wandering, on the one hand, and night dreaming, on the other. Although daydream experiences can vary widely, we distinguish prototypical experiences of daydreaming from adjacent imaginative activity, including fleeting imagery and “focused daydreaming,” or crafted visualization. We consider our phenomenological analysis as preparatory work for conceptually distinguishing different spontaneous and imaginative states so that they can be investigated accordingly with questionnaires and qualitative methods. We argue that precision about the phenomenal character of daydreaming can guide neurophenomenological investigations, help delimit studies on individual variance in daydreaming features, and identify differences among daydreaming, mind-wandering, and night dreaming conceptually and phenomenologically, and possibly eventually in terms of neural correlates. (shrink)

Mind wandering is a pervasive feature of subjective experience. But why does the mind tend to wriggle about rather than always staying focused? To answer this question, this paper defends the claim that mind wandering consists in task-unrelated thought. Despite being the standard view of mind wandering in cognitive psychology, there has been no systematic elaboration or defense of the task-unrelated thought view of mind wandering. Here, I argue for the task-unrelated thought view by showing how mind wandering reflects a (...) distinctive form of non-vigilant thinking. When the relationship between mind wandering and vigilance is clarified, several objections to the task-unrelated thought view can be defused. Not only does this provide a novel defense of the task-unrelated thought view of mind wandering, but it also presents an account of mind wandering that is compatible with a naturalistic account of subjectivity. (shrink)

Inquiry is guided, in the minimal sense that it is not haphazard. It is also often thought to have as a natural stopping point ceasing to inquire, once inquiry into a question yields knowledge of an answer. On this picture, inquiry is both telic and guided. By contrast, mind-wandering is unguided and atelic, according to the most extensively developed philosophical theory of it. This paper articulates a puzzle that arises from this combination of claims: there seem to be plenty of (...) examples of inquiry progressing within mind-wandering, yet theories of inquiry and mind-wandering can make wandering inquiry seem impossible or incoherent. I offer several solutions to this puzzle and make the case that taken together, they illuminate a prevalent form of inquiry that the burgeoning literature on that topic overlooks: inquiry that progresses spontaneously. (shrink)

Though researchers working on congenital aphantasia (henceforth “aphantasia”) agree that this condition involves an impairment in the ability to voluntarily generate visual imagery, disagreement looms large as to which other impairments are exhibited by aphantasic subjects. This article offers the first extensive review of studies on aphantasia, and proposes that aphantasic subjects exhibit a cluster of impairments. It puts forward a novel cognitive theory of aphantasia, building on the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis of memory and imagination. It argues that aphantasia (...) is best explained as a malfunction of processes in the episodic system, and is therefore an episodic system condition. (shrink)

Here, I put forward a new account of how experience gives rise to the belief that time passes. While there is considerable disagreement amongst metaphysicians as to whether time really does pass, it has struck many as a default, ‘common sense’ way of thinking about the world. A popular way of explaining how such a belief arises is to say that it seems perceptually as though time passes. Here I outline some difficulties for this approach, and propose instead that the (...) belief in time passing is elicited by a particular feature of agentive experience. When we deliberately move our bodies, bring something to mind, or focus our attention, we experience ourselves as the sources of these actions. Sensing oneself as a source, I argue, is a unique type of change experience, one which leads us to a belief that time is passing. (shrink)

Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality includes several cases of agents who are, prima facie, self-deceived. Recent work has linked these cases to deflationary accounts on the one hand and intentionalist Sartrean accounts on the other. But neither is fully satisfactory. I suggest a new account that gives a central role to focused daydreaming and imagination, especially as related to affective content that threatens to destabilize self-deception. This approach, not neatly categorizable, builds upon both deflationary and intentionalist accounts, emphasizing links (...) between vengefulness and forgiveness in Nietzsche's psychology. (shrink)

The flow construct has been influential within positive psychology, sport psychology, the science of consciousness, the philosophy of agency, and popular culture. In spite of its longstanding influence, it remains unclear [a] how the constituents of the flow state ‘hang together’—how they relate to each other causally and functionally—[b] in what sense flow is an ‘optimal experience,’ and [c] how best to describe the unique phenomenology of the flow state. As a result, difficulties persist for a clear understanding of the (...) flow state’s structure and function. After explicating the standard view of the flow construct, I articulate several basic questions regarding its nature and functional roles, and I argue that these questions are best answered by integrating flow within broader streams of research on the dynamics of thought, on cognitive control resource allocation, and on creative thought. (shrink)

Mind-wandering seems to be paradigmatically unintentional. However, experimental findings have yielded the paradoxical result that mind-wandering can also be intentional. In this paper, we first present the paradox of intentional mind-wandering and then explain intentional mind-wandering as the intentional omission to control one’s own thoughts. Finally, we present the surrealist method for artistic production to illustrate how intentional omission of control over thoughts can be deployed towards creative endeavors.

Mind wandering is typically operationalized as task-unrelated thought. Some argue for the need to distinguish between unintentional and intentional mind wandering, where an agent voluntarily shifts attention from task-related to task-unrelated thoughts. We reveal an inconsistency between the standard, task-unrelated thought definition of mind wandering and the occurrence of intentional mind wandering (together with plausible assumptions about tasks and intentions). This suggests that either the standard definition of mind wandering should be rejected or that intentional mind wandering is an incoherent (...) category. Solving this puzzle is critical for advancing theoretical frameworks of mind wandering. (shrink)

Bringing research on collective memory together with research on episodic future thought, Szpunar and Szpunar :376–389, 2016) have recently developed the concept of collective future thought. Individual memory and individual future thought are increasingly seen as two forms of individual mental time travel, and it is natural to see collective memory and collective future thought as forms of collective mental time travel. But how seriously should the notion of collective mental time travel be taken? This article argues that, while collective (...) mental time travel is disanalogous in important respects to individual mental time travel, the concept of collective mental time travel nevertheless provides a useful means of organizing existing findings, while also suggesting promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Aphantasia is a recently discovered disorder characterised by the total incapacity to generate visual forms of mental imagery. This paper proposes that aphantasia raises important theoretical concerns for the ongoing debate in the philosophy and science of consciousness over the nature of dreams. Recent studies of aphantasia and its neurobehavioral correlates reveal that the majority of aphantasics, whilst unable to produce visual imagery while awake, nevertheless retain the capacity to experience rich visual dreams. This finding constitutes a novel explanandum for (...) theories of dreaming. Specifically, I argue that the recent dream reports of aphantasics constitute an empirical challenge to the emerging family of views which claim that dreams are essentially imaginative experiences, constitutively involving the kinds of mental imagery which aphantasics, ex-hypothesi, lack. After presenting this challenge in the context of Jonathan Ichikawa’s recent arguments for this view, I argue that this empirical challenge may be overcome if the imagination theorist abandons Ichikawa’s account of dreaming in favour of a modified version. This involves the claim that dreams are essentially inactive and constitutively involve non voluntary forms of imagination. I conclude with a suggestion for further research which can test the viability of this alternative hypothesis, and move the debate forward. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been fascinated by the stream of consciousness – thoughts, images, and bits of inner speech that dance across the inner stage. Yet for centuries, such ‘mind‐wandering' was deemed private and thus resistant to empirical investigation. Recent developments in psychology and neuroscience have reinvigorated scientific interest in the stream of thought. Despite this flurry of progress, scientists have stressed that mind‐wandering research requires firmer philosophical foundations. The time is therefore ripe for the philosophy of mind‐wandering. Our review begins (...) with a foundational question: What is mind‐wandering? We then investigate the significance of mind‐wandering for general philosophical topics, namely, mental action, introspection, and the norms of thinking and attention. (shrink)

According to the two-component view of sensory imagination, imaginative states combine qualitative and assigned content. Qualitative content is the imagistic component of the imaginative state and is provided by a quasi-perceptual image; assigned content has a language-like structure. Recently, such a two-component view has been criticized by Daniel Hutto and Nicholas Wiltsher, both of whom have argued that postulating two contents is unnecessary for explaining how imagination represents. In this paper, I will defend the two-component theory by arguing that it (...) has three explanatory advantages over its competitors. First, it makes explicit a widely acknowledged distinction between engaged imagination and mere supposition. Second, it explains how imagination is constrained by objects’ perceptual appearances. Third, it explains how imaginings can be exploratory. (shrink)

For as long as philosophers ignore mind-wandering, they will disregard from one-third to one-half of conscious thoughts. Regrettably, mind-wandering is only seldom addressed in phenomenology. The fundamental ambition of this paper is to offer the first systematic phenomenological investigation of mind-wandering that relies on the classical principles of Husserlian phenomenology. The paper begins with a critique of the dominant conceptions of mind-wandering in contemporary psychology and philosophy. Against such a background, the paper develops a new, phenomenologically-grounded conception of mind-wandering. The (...) paper further focuses on the central resources in Husserlian phenomenology, which can be fruitfully employed in the future interdisciplinary research on mind-wandering. Phenomenological reflections on background consciousness, on pre-predicative experience, on passivity and on self-awareness lie at the center of this analysis. The paper concludes with some reflections on the relation between mind-wandering and daydreaming and on the function of mind-wandering in conscious life. (shrink)

Although we are beginning to understand the neurocognitive processes that underlie the emergence of dreaming, what accounts for the bizarre phenomenology of dreams remains debated. I address this question by comparing dreaming with waking mind wandering and challenging previous accounts that utilize bizarreness to mark a sharp divide between conscious experiences in waking and sleeping. Instead, I propose that bizarreness is a common, non-deficient feature of spontaneous offline simulations occurring across the sleep-wake cycle and can be tied to the specific (...) characteristics of spontaneous thought as being dynamic, unconstrained, (hyper)associative and highly variable in content. Rather than misrepresenting waking reality, bizarreness can be employed to investigate the very building blocks of spontaneous cognition. The absence of bizarreness in thought processes is imposed by automatic and deliberate cognitive constraints. By contrast, thought and memory processes operating on their own without such constraints are inherently marked by different degrees and types of bizarreness. (shrink)

Though researchers working on congenital aphantasia (henceforth “aphantasia”) agree that this condition involves an impairment in the ability to voluntarily generate visual imagery, disagreement looms large as to which other impairments are exhibited by aphantasic subjects. This article offers the first extensive review of studies on aphantasia, and proposes that aphantasic subjects exhibit a cluster of impairments. It puts forward a novel cognitive theory of aphantasia, building on the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis of memory and imagination. It argues that aphantasia (...) is best explained as a malfunction of processes in the episodic system, and is therefore an episodic system condition. (shrink)