Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author's Abstract

The stream of consciousness of the waking conscious manifests both meaningfulness and interiority as (say) the dream does not. The variety of meaning involved is spelt out. It emerges that it is a derivative of the overall mental activeness of consciousness together with the fact that the activeness pre-eminently includes the thinking process. This is the one active experiential line that carries its own rationale, for thinking is a mental willing, which par excellence knows where it is going, indeed is the meaning-giver par excellence in the mind. The nature of thinking is investigated, including the rationale of its close link with the use of language. Thinking is an active process of engendering phenomena in one's understanding, whose object is a changing entity expressed in the symbolism that encapsulates thought. It lies at the heart of consciousness, being the custodial agency responsible for the continuing state of rationality necessary for the state, and is coincident₁ …