Abstract
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 (e.g. engrossment in an intellectual idea) and rumination (e.g. fixation on one’s distress). 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.
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Notes
Historical, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural philosophers have done better: Sutton (2010) discusses early modern theories of fantasy. Regis’ Daydreams and the Functions of Fantasy (2013) lies at the intersection of English, Cognitive Science, and Philosophy (for a brief discussion, see footnotes 3 and 8). And Thompson (2015) considers mind-wandering in the context of the cognitive science of meditation. But these are still isolated discussions, not sustained debates in the literature. Dorsch’s forthcoming paper (accepted after my paper was under review) presents an intriguing philosophical theory of mind-wandering. For a brief comparison of Dorsch’s view and my own, see footnotes 4 and 18.
When I say that mind-wandering is purposeless, I do not mean that mind-wandering serves no purpose—i.e. has no function—in cognitive life.
Regis (2013) also contrasts mind-wandering with goal-directed forms of cognition such as planning and problem-solving. Against those who claim that mind-wandering (or “fantasizing”) is frequently goal-directed, Regis responds that “[a] subject may have a…[fantasy] and subsequently make a plan or use [the fantasy] in other reflections, but this does not mean that the fantasy…originally developed as a plan” (ibid., p. 24). But this response underestimates the challenge posed by empirical research. The challenge is not simply that our minds wander to thoughts that subsequently support planning or problem solving. Rather, it is that having a goal causes one’s mind to wander to goal-relevant information. Regis must explain why this causal relation doesn’t imply that our wandering thoughts “originally developed” in a goal-directed way.
The puzzle puts pressure on those who define mind-wandering as associational, and thus emphasize its unintentional character. For example, Dorsch argues that the contents of our wandering thoughts are never caused by an “underlying intention to form or have mental representations with a certain content. Rather, what is operative and responsible for the constituents and progress of the sequence is the force of association” (Dorsch 2014, Sect. 2.2; cf. footnotes 1 and 18). Empirical evidence that intentions—in a Davidsonian sense—often cause our wandering thoughts to have certain contents poses a prima facie problem for Dorsch.
Alternatively, one might propose that Martha begins to split her attention between two tasks when her mind wanders: managing her stocks and planing her cookbook. On this analysis, again, Martha’s wandering thoughts are related to one of her occurrent tasks. I thank Dominic Alford Duguid and Cliff Saron for helping me to formulate this objection.
Metzinger uses the term “mental autonomy” rather than “mental agency”. I use the latter term to keep my terminology and his consistent.
Filevich et al. originally define veto control is the ability to “withhold an action”. I have changed the definition, because veto control is (arguably) necessary for action. In that case, Filevich’s definition (trivially) implies that one never lacks veto control. My definition also departs from Metzinger’s in one respect. Metzigner’s notion of veto control is all or nothing: either “all currently ongoing processes can in principle be suspended or terminated” (Metzinger 2013a, p. 4) or a person lacks veto control entirely. This condition may be too demanding. One can arguably possess veto control over one cognitive process (e.g. attending to the drums in a jazz band), even though one lacks veto control over other concurrent cognitive processes (e.g. a stream of wandering thoughts). Filevich and I define a restricted notion of veto control over one ongoing behaviour, which is flexible enough to allow for cases like the one above.
Metzinger and Regis independently develop similar arguments. Regis argues that daydreams contrast with goal-directed cognition because daydreams proceed without meta-awareness (or “self-reflexivity”). When we daydream, we do not “…have ideas about the ideas we are having” (Regis 2013, p. 10). Against Metzinger, I will object that mind-wandering can proceed with meta-awareness (Sect. 3.3). This objection also applies to Regis, assuming that mind-wandering is a special case of daydreaming.
I discuss these restrictions in Sect. 2.1.
Ribot’s absorption is similar to at least two classic psychological constructs. One is the “flow experience” (Csikszentmihalyi 1991) characteristic of skilled activities like athletic or musical performance (see footnote 17). Another is Tellegen and Atkinson’s (1974) classic account of the personality trait “absorption”: “a disposition for having episodes of “total” attention that fully engage one’s representational (i.e., perceptual, enactive, imaginative, and ideational) resources. This kind of attentional functioning…result[s] in…imperviousness to distracting events” (ibid.). One might argue that Tellegen and Atkinson’s absorption is (at least in part) a disposition to become absorbed in Ribot’s sense. For present purposes, it is relevant that flow and absorption (in Tellegen and Atkinson’s sense) can arguably proceed without meta-awareness. Consider that the performance deficit called “the yips” seems to occur when athletes become meta-aware of their performance, which disrupts the flow state (although this is contentious: see Papineau 2013). Tellegen and Atkinson (1974, p. 274) similarly argue that meta-awareness is rare during absorption. If flow and Tellegen and Atkinson’s absorption often proceed without meta-awareness, these are empirically grounded cases where an antithetical phenomenon to mind-wandering fits Metzinger’s definition.
Metzinger could stipulate such counter-examples away. Indeed, he considers apparent cases of meta-aware mind-wandering and proposes a “terminological solution”: “intentional episodes of daydreaming, to the extent that they do involve [mental autonomy]…, thereby do not count as episodes of mind wandering, which refer only to unintentional episodes of stimulus-independent thought” (Metzinger 2013a, footnote 4). Metzinger argues (convincingly) that his stipulative definition does explanatory work: it clarifies the distinction between tuning and zoning out (ibid., footnote 4). However, it’s not clear why we should identify mind-wandering with zoning out; instead, we could say that Metzinger has clarified an important type of mind-wandering. Furthermore, we’ve seen that Metzinger’s definition does not answer a more fundamental explanandum: why is mind-wandering non-agentive? For cases like Watching the Mind Wander are recognizably non-agentive, even though they proceed with veto control. A unified explanation of why mind-wandering is non-agentive (if available) would surely be fruitful. I thank an anonymous reviewer from Philosophical Studies for pressing me to consider this response.
An anonymous reviewer from Philosophical Studies has wondered if we should characterize mind-wandering in terms of the contents (rather than the dynamics) of our wandering thoughts. I think this approach would be unfruitful for two reasons. First, a wide range of mental states can count as mind-wandering (imagining, remembering, visual imagery, inner speech, etc.). These states will presumably have widely varying contents. Second, the same sequence of mental states can unfold in a wandering way and in a goal-directed way. For example, I can compose lines for lecture, muse that it’s sunny in California, etc. while my mind wanders. Or I can call these thoughts to mind in a goal-directed fashion (e.g. in order to relive the vignette from my paper). On my view, whether this sequence of thoughts counts as mind-wandering depends on whether one is guided to token the thoughts in question.
There are deep issues about whether mind-wandering is a type of attention, which I cannot fully address in this paper. I classify mind-wandering as attention for the following reasons. When your mind wanders, the lights don’t seem to go off. Rather, you seem to have a vivid stream of thoughts, in which your consciousness is selectively focused on various bits of information (e.g. memories, internal speech, imaginings). And many theorists define attention in terms of the selective focusing of consciousness, where focus is variously characterized by enhanced vivacity (e.g. Titchener 1910), rational accessibility (Smithies 2011), a primitive structuring relation (Watzl 2011a), or something else. Given such considerations, it is natural to classify mind-wandering as attention (see Watzl 2011b for a similar argument). For example, William James claims that “the natural tendency of attention when left to itself is to wander to ever new things” (James 1890/1981, p. 422). Yet theorists who define attention in terms of attentive task performance (Mole 2011; Koralus 2014) have reason to classify mind-wandering as the reverse of attention, as distraction. Mind-wandering is not guided in the right way to count as performing a task (Sects. 2.2, 4.1). A fortiori, mind-wandering cannot count as performing a task attentively (see Mole 2011, p. 57 for a similar argument). Thus, mind-wandering may be a choice point between contemporary accounts of attention.
Other philosophers draw similar distinctions. For example, Searle (1983) contrasts Davidsonian intentions with intentions in action. Mele (1992) and Pacherie (2008) contrast Davidsonian intentions with proximal intentions. Of these philosophers, Pacherie’s account is closest to my own, since her account of proximal intentions is grounded in a notion of guidance similar to my habitual guidance. I thank Elizabeth Pacherie for clarifying my thoughts on this point.
My account of habitual guidance is adapted from Railton (2009, p. 8). Similar accounts are developed by Brownstein and Madva (2012), Rietveld (2008), and Kelly (2010), among others. In particular, my account of attentional guidance is indebted to conversations with Aaron Henry, who is writing a dissertation on perceptual activity.
Sometimes, rumination also seems goal-directed: e.g. when I obsessively consider how to improve my teaching, in light of a sub-par evaluation. I can subsume such cases under my account of goal-directed attention.
Absorption bears some similarities to the construct of “flow”. Flow occurs when “attention is completely absorbed” (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 2005, p. 601; cf. Bruya 2010) in skilled activities like athletic or musical performance. During both absorption and flow, attention is structured around one’s goals: “flow tends to occur when the activity one engages in contains a clear set of goals. These goals serve to add direction and purpose to behavior. Their value lies in their capacity to structure experience by channeling attention” (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 2005, p. 601). And during flow, attention and behaviour are subject to the kind of fine-grained adjustments characteristic of habitual guidance: “flow is dependent on the presence of clear and immediate feedback…[that] informs the individual how well he or she is progressing in the activity, and dictates whether to adjust or maintain the present course of action” (ibid., p. 601). One dis-analogy is that my examples of absorption are purely intellectual, whereas the paradigm examples of flow are sensorimotor activities. However, Csikszentmihalyi (1991, Chapter 6) argues that intellectual cases of flow can occur while reading or solving mental puzzles, for example. I thank an anonymous reviewer from Philosophical Studies for suggesting that I relate absorption and flow.
Using these resources, I can subsume Dorsch’s distinction between mind-wandering and focused daydreaming (Dorsch 2014; cf. footnotes 1 and 4). Dorsch argues that, unlike mind-wandering, focused daydreaming is a form of mental agency and possesses narrative structure (ibid., Sect. 1.5). On my view, what Dorsch calls ‘focused daydreaming’ is one among many types of goal-directed attention. Conceptions of a goal can have various types of structure, including narrative structure in Dorsch’s sense. Focused daydreaming inherits this structure: e.g. the daydreamer is guided to attend to each segment of her narrative in order. One advantage of my account is that I provide explanatory unification, showing how focused daydreaming is an instance of a more general category. Furthermore, I elucidate the sense in which focused daydreaming involves agency (it is guided and goal-directed). I thank an anonymous reviewer from Philosophical Studies for suggesting that I engage with Dorsch.
This example is adapted from Williamson (2000, p. 123). Williamson’s stability is comparable to robustness under perturbations to initial conditions. Robustness plays a central role in philosophical discussions of biological purposefulness (e.g. Thompson 2007; Walsh 2013). I thank Jonathan Weisberg for suggesting that I use Williamson’s notion of stability.
I thank Kalina Christoff and an anonymous reviewer from Phil Studies for urging me to clarify these points.
I have presented earlier versions of this paper at The Society of Philosophy and Psychology in June 2013, the University of Toronto’s Graduate Form in March 2014, Berkeley’s Wollheim Philosophy Society in May 2014, Evan Thompson’s graduate seminar at the University of British Columbia in September 2014, and the University of Antwerp’s Conference on Intentions in December 2014. I am grateful to everyone who participated in discussions on these occasions. For their comments on drafts of this paper, I thank Diana Raffman, Evan Thompson, Jennifer Nagel, Andrew Sepielli, Ronnie de Sousa, Jonathan Weisberg, Alex Madva, Kalina Christoff, Aaron Henry, Chris Mole, Dominic Alford-Duguid, Sheisha Kulkarni, Sina Fazelpour, Jelena Markovic, Kousaku Yui, and two anonymous referees for Philosophical Studies. This research was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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Irving, Z.C. Mind-wandering is unguided attention: accounting for the “purposeful” wanderer. Philos Stud 173, 547–571 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0506-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0506-1