The disunity of consciousness

The orthodox view that phenomenal consciousness is unified at any moment—a single thing produced by one brain mechanism—is mistaken. Instead, conscious experience is a multiplicity, an aggregate of phenomenal elements, each generated by a distinct consciousness-making mechanism in the brain. Cognitive science therefore requires a multi-track theory of consciousness: a computational model that recognizes the manifold nature of experience and its distributed neural basis.

Study at a glance

Abstract

It is commonplace for both philosophers and cognitive scientists to express their allegiance to the “unity of consciousness”. This is the claim that a subject’s phenomenal consciousness, at any one moment in time, is a single thing. This view has had a major influence on computational theories of consciousness. In particular, what we call single-track theories dominate the literature, theories which contend that our conscious experience is the result of a single consciousness-making process or mechanism in the brain. We argue that the orthodox view is quite wrong: phenomenal experience is not a unity, in the sense of being a single thing at each instant. It is a multiplicity, an aggregate of phenomenal elements, each of which is the product of a distinct consciousness-making mechanism in the brain. Consequently, cognitive science is in need of a multi-track theory of consciousness; a computational model that acknowledges both the manifold nature of experience, and its distributed neural basis. 1.