Agency in the Stream of Consciousness: Perspectives from Cognitive Science and Buddhist Psychology

The stream of consciousness refers to ideas, images, and memories that meander across the mind when we are otherwise unoccupied. The standard view is that these thoughts are associationistic in character and they arise from subpersonal processes—we are for the most part passive observers of them. Drawing on a series of laboratory studies we have conducted as well as Buddhist models of mind, I argue that these views are importantly incorrect. On the alternative view I put forward, these thoughts arise from minimal decision processes, which lie in a grey zone: They are both manifestations of agency as well as obstacles to it.