Flow

Flow is just ordinary physical stuff moving in a coherent way, like water in a river or electrons in an electrical circuit. Flow is a basic component of the energy-flow model of the mind.

In order to have flow, you need two things:

  1. The channel
  2. The stuff that's flowing

A river has its riverbanks that make up the channel, and then there is the water, which is the stuff that's flowing.

An electrical current has a conductor such as a copper wire, and the insulation such as a plastic sheath encasing the wire. These make up the channel, and then there are the actual electrons or the electrical energy that flows through the wire.

Not all movement is flow! That's because flow must be coherent. It must form a distinct stream that goes in some particular direction.

  1. Flow cannot be in all directions at once. For example, the energy from the sun, on the whole, does not "flow." On the other hand, you could talk about a particular instance of energy flowing from the sun into a plant, for example.

  2. Flow cannot be in random directions all over the place. Brownian motion, for example, does not count as "flow."

  3. Flow cannot be completely circular. It must somehow go somewhere or accomplish something in order to count as flow.

Again, there's nothing magical about flow. It's an entirely physical phenomenon - just particles in motion. People who believe in an immaterial reality often point to particles in motion and suggest that it is non-physical somehow, but I think they're forgetting that mass and energy are just two forms of the same thing. Here is an illustrative dialog.


See also:
  1. Intentionality is flow.
  2. Meaning is flow.
  3. Goals and purposes embody flow.
  4. Symbols have an essential component of flow.