The unity of consciousness, within subjects and between subjects

Abstract

The unity of consciousness has so far been studied only as a relation holding among the many experiences of a single subject. I investigate whether this relation could hold between the experiences of distinct subjects, considering three major arguments against the possibility of such 'between-subjects unity'. The first argument, based on the popular idea that unity implies subsumption by a composite experience, can be deflected by allowing for limited forms of 'experience-sharing', in which the same token experience belongs to more than one subject. The second argument, based on the phenomenological claim that unified experiences have interdependent phenomenal characters, I show to rest on an equivocation. Finally, the third argument accuses between-subjects unity of being unimaginable, or more broadly a formal possibility corresponding to nothing we can make sense of. I argue that the familiar experience of perceptual co-presentation gives us an adequate phenomenological grasp on what between-subjects unity might be like.

What is a Mathematical Structure of Conscious Experience?

“…Much has been written about the question of phenomenal unity in the literature, for example [4,5,11,47,53,71], and in order to make use of some of the results, we assume that the term 'aspect' denotes an instantiated phenomenal property or quale. The set of aspects A(e), then, comprises the phenomenal properties or qualia which are instantiated in the experience e, also called the phenomenal states of the experience e. 16 Our question, then, is what it means that "any set of phenomenal states of a subject at a time is phenomenally unified" [5, p. 12].…”

Consciousness, Revelation, and Confusion

“…How do the huge range of phenomenal qualities that humans experience arise from a fundamental base which appears to involve only a quite small number of fundamental properties? One solution is the "small palette hypothesis": there are only a few basic phenomenal qualities, corresponding to the fundamental physical properties, which are somehow "blended" to generate a plethora of different qualities for different macroscopic creatures (see Roelofs 2014;Coleman 2015Coleman , 2017Chalmers 2017, 204-6), whose pattern of similarities and differences are explained by their differing proportions of the basic ingredients. Some critics of the small palette hypothesis object that some of our phenomenal qualities are too heterogeneous to be blended out of a small set of common elements, because they are completely dissimilar, with nothing phenomenally in common.…”

Panpsychism’s Combination Problem Is a Problem for Everyone

“…On the thin view of subjects, there would then be three subjects of experience: the subject of e1, the subject of e2, and the subject of e1 and e2 together. Indeed, Roelofs (2016) suggests that such a view is true and helpful to panpsychism, helping us make sense of how experiences can be shared between distinct microphysical and macrophysical entities. 11…”

“…The alleged difference is that in the case of new experiences arising from phenomenal unity and mental structure, the new experiences are experiences of the same subjects that experience the combined experiences, 11 The denial of (B) amounts to a denial of Dainton's (2000, p. 246) "exclusivity principle," which states that any experience can have only one subject, and an endorsement of Basile's (2010) "sharing principle," which states that an experience can be shared by two psychical wholes. Roelofs (2016) argues that denying the exclusivity principle allows us to block an argument against the possibility of between-subjects (phenomenal) unity, allowing that two experiences e1 and e2 had by distinct subjects can be phenomenally unified if there is a third subject with an experience subsuming both e1 and e2. He further suggests that the possibility of between-subjects unity is helpful to panpsychism.…”