I get accused of this "style" of communication from time to time. My observations have indicated that what is referred to is my ability to dump conceptualized information in the form of simple metaphors and with brief tie-ins to functional reality.


Good thing or bad thing?

Just "thing" -- "good", "bad" or any other label the reader chooses to apply is just that, what they choose to apply.

OTOH, "stream of consciousness" is probably not appropriate for technical documentation!

That would not be my definition of "stream of consciousness". They way that I typically see this used is to describe how someone gives their thoughts on something without stopping to organize the information---they simply relate their feeling and ideas as they think of them----ie as they happen to come into their conscious mind.

If you are, for example, trying to explain a technical issue to someone, "stream of consciousness" would probably not be the way to do it.

Molly Bloom's soliloquy in the last chapter of "Ulysses". Yes.

Stream of consciousness (by my definition):

The time slices that for an information processing system are subjectively contiguous, yet for others they objectively may not be with respect to the stream of time.

This brings up the question of what is truly objective. Objective here assumes that you know for sure your stream of consciousness is contiguous / uninterrupted compared to the stream of time, and can thus observe if someone else stream is interrupted. Subjective would mean that there's a chance your stream of consciousness is interrupted with respect to the stream of time and thus can be observed by others.

Personally I think that one's stream of consciousness could be considered infinite, because even if you die this means only that others objectively observe that your stream of consciousness has ended, but has it really ? Maybe to you it has not, maybe you instantly enter another stream (a stream of consciousness is always contiguous to you), yet there's no way for anyone else to know that, as it could be millions of years from now and millions of miles from here. Or maybe your stream of consciousness ends permanently at death, but then how did you even enter a stream of consciousness in the first place ? What is consciousness ?

I think consciousness is the illusion of uniqueness. What if we were to connect your brain to say the internet or to another brain. I bet the two consciousnesses would merge to make a new one, and maybe would evolve further. Take a look at some of the split brain operations, the results are quite interesting. Another question would be, how can we preserve your stream of consciousness, can we say replace your brain piece by piece with say some type of synthetic, durable neural network and maintain your consciousness ? I say we try.

P.S.
I promise not to post anything political ever again, I hate it anyway, so why bother with it.

How would we know?

Are you trying to communicate with other people and failing? That's bad for them if they need the information, bad for you if you want or need to communicate.

Do I get the sense that you don't like metaphor or analogy? In some professions, you don't need either - programming needs neither, for example. However, to explain your work to others, using metaphors or analogies can help them understand.

So, if you sit in a cubicle banging away at whatever you bang away at and never have to explain anything to anyone else, your communication style (just the facts) is fine. Otherwise, it isn't.

I'd draw an analogy here, but that might be pointless :-)

Oh, and I don't understand the other question.

I thought the term 'stream of consciousness' was just something used by those on LSD or other types of hallucinogenic drugs.

Stream of consciousness is where you put your mouth in gear before you put your brain in motion you know you're just spitting words out not really editing anyting or fixing your speling mistakes and you just keep talking and saying nothing in particular until everyone around you falls asleep unless you are a professor then you can keep them awake because if they fall asleep in your class youll give them a pop quiz and so you do that now and then but it's not a good way to get tenure but who cares about tenure anyway its really just about capitalist control over the creative process and we should all be just pondering the deeper meaning of life and #premature_end_of_file process_terminated thank_goodness#

Fail.

Oh Mighty Omniscient Wikipedia, bestow upon us thy wisdom concerning "stream of consciousness".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_...rative_mode%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_...8psychology%29

Everywhere I go buddhism stares at me like.. "You know you really should come to the hills of tibet.. You'd fit in wonderfully."

I dunno, but I've found that wiki definitions are not the best ... in most cases.

Thou shalt not doubt Wikipedia.

I've never heard "stream of consciousness" mentioned in a positive light. It almost always has been used as a polite way to say that a person rambles.

All the other stuff aside, if people are telling you this, you may want to start thinking a bit more carefully before speaking (especially in a workplace conversation).