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Unified Consciousness

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In determining what it means for mental states to be unified in consciousness, it becomes apparent that one needs to first identify the various unity relations within and among specific mental states, before then approaching complete conscious unity. From what I can gather, the consensus among philosophers seems to be that for mental states to be unified into a single state of consciousness is for them to be linked by phenomenology. Philosopher Tim Bayne believes that unity consists in the subsumption of all of a subject’s specific conscious states, at one point in time, by a single, total conscious state. Jesse Prinz, on the other hand, introduces a Resonance Theory of Unity. He grants that phenomenology is a core constituent of unified consciousness, …show more content…

Formally, it is written as follows:
Necessarily, for any conscious subject of experience (S) and at any time (t), the simultaneous conscious states that S has at t will be subsumed by a single conscious state—the subject’s total conscious state. (Bayne 16)
A subject of experience enjoys unified consciousness when each of its conscious mental states stands in unity with each other conscious mental state. The subject then has one conscious state, called a total conscious state. This total state is subsumed only by itself. Bayne believes that this unity, alone, is necessary to have a single state of consciousness. I believe the temporal constraint of the Unity Theory is what allows it to withstand the traditional counter-examples to unified streams of consciousness, including the conditions of schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, hypnosis, and split brain …show more content…

I will begin with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia generally involves the significant disruption of thought, emotion, and/or general cognition. The condition is usually divided into negative symptoms (which might include flat affect, anhedonia, poverty of speech) and positive symptoms (delusions, hallucinations). Bayne focuses on the impairments of thought insertion and thought disorder in his discussion, which are typically grouped under the positive domain. Thought disorder is characterized by impairments in selective attention and goal-directedness. Patients who experience thought insertion deny ownership of the thoughts of which they are introspectively aware—they lose the sense of agency that normally accompanies

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