The paper argues about the human mind exhibits unity; that it can perceive various activities occurring at the same time together as elements of a single conscious state. The unity of consciousness is fundamental to human cognitive functions. It is the basis in which we merge our senses and our minds to recognise, act and react. The unified consciousness is responsible for our ability to make comparisons based on our senses weaving it into one experience.
The notion of the unity of consciousness is the basis of cognitive research stemming from notable work by Descartes, Leibniz and Kant. Descartes’ argument of mind body duality that the mind is not made up of parts, and as a thinking thing, he could only assume that he was one completely being (Descartes, 1641, p.196). Because of the difficulty to comprehend him in parts but as a thinking thing, he concluded that he is a whole and not in parts. This could only be achieved through a unified consciousness, the aim being that unified consciousness is not a system of connected parts. Similarly, Kant (1781) theorised the notion of unified consciousness that the mind is a cache of categorized experiences that are moulded into knowledge. These categories are space, time, cause and effect, substance unity plurality and possibility necessity space.
Kant theorised that the mind is because of a unified consciousness to bring about knowledge through our rational and empirical components (the mind and senses respectively). These aspects make up the qualitative, quantitative, relational and modal concepts. This ties the concept of knowledge with the concept of unity of consciousness and the mind body duality as a whole. Unity of consciousness can be said to be then a function of the body and mind as whole that are fuelled by knowledge which are fed by experiences.
A complex experience is made up of two or more experiences: (i) combined either in part or (ii) in synchrony. The first premise is called subsumption. It occurs when particular experiences are unified to a single encompassing state of consciousness (Bayne and Chalmers, 2003: p. 27). Such experiences are said to be subsumptively unified relenting to a distinct phenomenology; that the two have a conjoint phenomenology. This means that the two subsumptively unified states appear to the subject as simultaneous experiences. The second premise is known as co-consciousness, which asserts a relation between conscious states that make the experiences happen in synchrony (James, 1909: p. 221). The two premises are similar in the sense that they both require experiential parts and show a relation of the experiences. The two notions are also symbiotic in nature, Dainton (2000) defines co-consciousness as experiences happening together which is a trait of subsumption (p.236) and Shoemaker (2003) explains co-consciousness as experiences characterised by virtue of being components of a single state of consciousness, which is also a subsumption trait (p.65). These two premises can be justified to show unified consciousness.
The first justification to both premises is that the character of unified consciousness is both compatible with experiential and non-experiential parts. In unified states of consciousness, the experiences occur together and enter into a phenomenal content, which could also be a content of a non-composite experience (Tye, 2003: p.36). The idea is enforced by the notion of joint consciousness by Brook and Raymont (2006). Joint consciousness holds for an experience that allows for consciousness of other items or group of items. This neutral approach is not subjective to the experiential part of the two premises. However, it holds a relation to Bayne and Chalmers subsumption notion, which alludes to something being in two conscious states simultaneously. This means that both experiential parts and non-experiential parts are important semantically but not fundamentally to unified consciousness.
Another basis for the argument is that unified consciousness can assume a variety of forms. Tye (2003) differentiates spatial unity, phenomenal unity, introspective unity, neurophysical unity, object unity and spatial unity in his study (p.11-15). He chooses to expound on phenomenal unity as the main focus of his study into unity of consciousness. In a similar fashion, Bayne and Chalmers secern subsumptive unity, subject unity, spatial unity, and objectual unity (p.24-27). They choose to delve into subsumptive unity, which is further broken down into phenomenal and access unity. Their definition of phenomenal unity and that of Tye is similar and thus can be said to share the same doctrine. Kant breaks down the phenomenal unity further into representation, subject, content or object and assign each its form of unified consciousness. These can be expressed in terms of joint consciousness earlier mentioned. The Kantian form of unified consciousness of individual objects is similar to object unity, which has a relation with Bayne and Chalmers’ objectual unity. Hardcastle (1998) and Revonsuo (1999) explain this process as binding. Binding combines various aspects of a visual scene detected by the visual cortex together to form a unified, three-dimensional object.
This means that to have unified consciousness of an object; we must be also jointly conscious of the various elements it comprises. Unified consciousness of contents is the unified consciousness of multiple objects; an experience that provides consciousness of an object also provides consciousness to other items. Kant distinguishes these two states as acts of synthesis; there are different synthesis acts that are required to attain the consciousness of a single object, as opposed to an array of objects to be experienced by a single subject. This kind of consciousness then provides us with the basis of comparison in terms of the different aspects of visual scenes like distance, shapes and sizes. If the consciousness was not unified, it would be difficult to discern the aspects of visual scenes as they appear to us. This form of unified consciousness of objects forms the basis of human cognition. This form of unified consciousness of objects forms the basis of human cognition. The conclusion is, therefore, that the human mind exhibits unity.
Works Cited
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Dainton, B. Stream of Consciousness. London: Routledge, 2000.
Descartes, Rene. “Meditations on First Philosophy.” Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Works of Descartes. Trans. E S Haldane and G R T Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1641.
Hardcastle, V. “The Binding Problem .” Hardcastle, V. A companion to Cognitive Science. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.
James, W. “A pluralistic Universe.” James, W. Essays in Radical Empiricism and a Pluralistic Universe. Ed. P Smith. Gloucester, 1909.
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Shoemaker, S. Consciousness and Co-Consciousness. Cleeremans, 2003.
Tye, M. Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
