p.231 Consciousness, in short, cannot be analyzed; it cannot be
resolved into elements or constituents. It is precisely what it is and not some product of our afterthought that we are pleased
to substitute for it.
p.231-232 Whatever conclusion we may ultimately reach regarding the nature of consciousness,
the whole drift of psychological and biological investigation seems to indicate that an adequate conception of consciousness
and of the distinctive problem of psychology can be attained only on the basis of a painstaking reflection on the
facts of behavior.
p.237-238 conscious behavior involves a certain process of organization...
The new organization, moreover, is not determined by a mechanism antecedently provided, but has a peculiar flexibility, so
as to meet the demands of a new situation... the response that results... is tentative or experimental in character,
and "by a process of trial and error, perhaps, the elements necessary to effect the adaptive response may be assembled and
the problem solved."
p.238 the reflex arc... is all set up and ready for use by the time the reflex
act appears upon the scene. In the case of conscious activity... The arc is not first constructed and then used, but is constructed
as the act proceeds; and this progressive organization is, in the end, what is meant by conscious behavior... the progress
of a conscious act is more like a band of explorers, who hew their path and build their bridges as they go along.
p.240 that response is selected which gives promise of forwarding the business
of the moment.
p.240 This control... consists in giving direction to behavior with reference to
results that are still in the future. The basis for this anticipation of the future is furnished by the nascent responses
which foreshadow further activity, even while they are still under the thraldom of the inhibitions which hold them back.
These suppressed activities furnish a sort of diagram or sketch of further possible behavior, and the problem of consciousness
is the problem of making the result or outcome of these incipient responses effective in the control of behavior.
p.240-241 Future results or consequences must be converted into present
stimuli; and the accomplishment of this conversion is the miracle of consciousness. To be conscious is to
have a future possible result of present behavior embodied as a present existence functioning as a stimulus to further behavior.
Thus the qualities of a perceptual experience may be interpreted,
without exception, as anticipations of the results of activities which are as yet in an embryonic stage.
p.242 By hypothesis, however, the response is inhibited, and it is this inhibition which calls forth the perception of the object. If the response encountered no obstruction, adaptation would be complete and perception would not occur. Since there is a blocking of the response, nature resorts to a special device
in order to overcome the difficulty, and this device consists in furnishing the organism with a new type of stimulus... a
stimulus which controls or directs the organism by results which have not yet occurred, but which will, or may, occur in the
future. The uniqueness of such a stimulus lies in the fact that a contingent result somehow becomes operative as a present
fact; the future is transferred into the present so as to become effective in the guidance of behavior.
This control by a future that is made present is what constitutes
consciousness.
p.243 the whole mystery of consciousness is just this rendering of future stimulations
or results into terms of present existence. Consciousness, accordingly, is a name for a certain change that
takes place in the stimulus; or, more specifically, it is a name for the control of conduct by future results or consequences.
p.243 Perception, therefore, is a point where present and future coincide.
p.244 The response... is foreshadowed and operates as a stimulus to prevent such
maladaption... Consciousness, accordingly, is just a future adaptation that has been set to work
so as to bring about its own realization.
p.247 This inherent uncertainty means that conscious behavior... is essentially
experimental. The uncertainty exists precisely because an effort is under way to clear up the uncertainty.
p.248 we may say that the conscious stimulus of the moment induces the investigation
or scrutiny which presently results in the arrival of a stimulus that is adequate to the situation. The stimulus,
in other words, provides for its own successor; or we may say that the process as a whole is a self-directing, self-determining
activity.
p.249 All
experience is a kind of intelligence, a control of present behavior with
reference to future adjustment. To be in experience at all is to have the future
operate in the present.
p.250 To be conscious at all is to duplicate in principle the agility of
the tight-rope performer, who continuously establishes new co-ordinations according to the exigencies of the moment and
with constant reference to the controlling consideration of keeping right side up. The sensory stimulus provides
continuously for its own rehabilitation or appropriate transformation, and in a similar way the neural organization is never
a finished thing, but is in constant process of readjustment to meet the demands of an adaptation that still lies in the future.
It is this relationship of present response to the response of the next
moment that constitutes the distinctive trait of conscious behavior.
p.251 future consequences become transformed into a stimulus for further behavior.
p.251 According to the doctrine of parallelism, conscious behavior is nothing more
than a complicated form of reflex
p.255 From the simplest perception to the most ideal aspiration or the wildest
hallucination, our human experience is reality engaged in the guidance or control of behavior.
p.257-258 the key to a consistent and fruitful interpretation of consciousness
and psychology lies in behavior.
p.260 What, then, is meant by focus and margin?
p.260-261 All consciousness possesses the distinction of focus and margin in some
degree
p.265 [James] "This is no science [JLJ - psychology as a study of behavior], it is only the hope of a science."
p.267 The distinction of focus and margin, then, is
based ultimately upon the function of experience in the control of behavior. The
given situation is a present fact and is in functional change; or, in terms of
our present discussion, it has both a focus and a margin. As present fact it is
a reality which requires recognition in the form of adjustment; as in functional
change it provides opportunity for bringing the adjustment to fruition. That is,
the experience both sets a task or makes a demand and it points the way.
p.268-269 What is the meaning of these uncanny sensations and images, which nobody experiences, unless it be their character as symbols of adjustment? They
have no legitimate status, and psychology, by consequence, has no legitimate
problem, except in so far as they represent those possible acts of adaptation
which are the sole and proper concern of psychology.
p.270 the principle of selection is, in the end, the ability to modify behavior
through the anticipation of possible consequences
p.274 the current psychological doctrine of focus and margin is an attempt to reduce the changes in the stimulus to terms of static entities denominated sensations and images. By abstracting from change we convert the new stimulus that is already on the way into inert sensory material, which lends itself to purely analytic treatment... the
sensations are not existences, but representatives or symbols of our nascent
activities; they are the static equivalents of this foreshadowing or reference
to the future.
p.275-276 Focus and margin, in short, have to do with movement, with transition,
and not with a static field. These situations are felt as inherently unstable and in the process of reconstruction.There is a peculiar sense of activity, of "something doing," of a future knocking on the door of the present.
What is thus on its way to the present we can designate only in terms of the object as it is after it has arrived.
p.276 Conscious life, we find, is a continuous adjustment;
each of its moments is a "transitive state." The more evenly flowing experiences are likewise endowed with a focus
and margin, not in the form of static elements, but as a dynamic relationship of what is with what is to be.
p.280 By way of conclusion I venture to urge once more that a proper consideration
of the facts of behavior will furnish us with a key that will unlock many a door.
