Continuing to think out loud.
I’m still at the stage of clarifying (for me) precisely what is a state of attention. It seems to be a relatively modern, pragmatic concept which overlaps with ideas about mindfulness (often within a meditative religious framework), epistemology and cognitive functions – which all involve mental focus in controlling and directing the mind. Attention directs consciousness (or is it that consciousness directs attention?), it seems and, philosophically at least, plays a role in the development of a personal identity.
Importantly, most definitions of “attention” (especially if viewed as an active process in identity) require an element of active, reflective focus and concentration: we need to be aware of what we are doing in order to maintain our attention. (And attention requires focus on one thing at a time – a point made by Herbert A. Simon when he described humans as perating as serial devices.)That self-awareness through reflective activity is therefore a crucial foundation in the development of personal identity. Then there’s the issue of agency or, more simply, freedom. Quite simply, is the current age of distraction and inattention (or perhaps auto-directed attention) doing much more than wasting people’s time? Is it actually damaging their sense of self and a coherent narrative of their own lives?
So, I guess we’re back to Locke.
Locke’s concept of reflection presented in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding establishes a view that the inward mind in activity is a source of knowledge. It is:
The perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got.
Reflection, for Locke, requires a second-order, self-awareness when we perceive something (act of recognition requires some degree of attention).
Locke’s definition of personal identity:
Personal identity consists not in the identity of substance, but in the identity of consciousness.
is based on self-awareness and (reflective) consciousness and directly involves memory (linking the awareness of what is apprehended in the present to past experiences and existing knowledge).
A great deal of the second half of Book 2 is given over to Locke’s thoughts about the Will and its relationship with freedom/liberty:
What is it determines the will? the true and proper answer is, The mind. For that which determines the general power of directing, to this or that particular direction, is nothing but the agent itself exercising the power it has that particular way.
(Will, Locke insists, is brought into being by what he calls “the Uneasiness of Desire” by the mind. The removal of “Uneasiness” brings happiness – and the pursuit of true happiness is the foundation of Liberty.)
So where am I going with this?
I wonder to what extent this sort of thinking about personal identity influences current concerns about distraction/attention/digital tech? If a reflective self-directed, self-aware attention is persistently being hijacked by the distractions of things like new (social) media and smartphones, is it eroding or fragmenting a coherent sense of personal identity? Looking at the state of politics and the obvious role of new technologies in shaping and influencing opinions on a mass, almost global scale is a (Lockean) sense of a coherent personal identity at risk?
Considering doomscrolling, this point in the Essay:
if a man sitting still has not a power to remove himself, he is not at liberty