Model Unity and the Unity of Consciousness: Developments in Expected Float Entropy Minimisation

The unity of consciousness, or, more precisely, phenomenal unity, is an important property of consciousness and an important area of research in mathematical consciousness science and the scientific study of consciousness. Due to the numerous aspects and complexity of consciousness, the property tends to engender loose or inadequate characterizations. In this article, we introduce the concept and mathematical formulation of model unity. A system has model unity if a single relational model, stretched across the whole system, is optimal. Alternatively, model unity may only be present for subsystems, although there may still be unity at some higher level. As a development in the theory of expected float entropy minimisation, such relational models provide an interpretation of system states and the theory may help to provide insights into questions such as why experience of the visual field is unified and why different people do not have a unified consciousness, for example. This article constitutes a relatively small initial study of model unity. Four investigations were undertaken and are given as examples. A postulate is also given, distilling the foundations of EFE minimisation into a clear statement allowing others to consider whether or not the postulate identifies a self-evident fundamental property of consciousness.

The Multiplicity of I

If in heteronymic simulation I am a subject other than the subject I am, there are evidently as many other I’s as there are possible acts of simulation. Pessoa, inhabiting countless lives, says that by creating in imagination a multiplicity of virtual subjects, each of which is him, he has ‘ubiquitized’ himself. So he affirms a thesis I will call ‘Subject Plurality’: I am many subjects other than the subject I am. We need, though, to distinguish two versions of this thesis, for it can be read as making either a diachronic claim or a synchronic one. Interpreters of Pessoa have been drawn to present the Pessoan self as a sort of parliament or confederation of souls. Despite Pessoa’s appeal, once, to the metaphor of a colony—and there only in connection with the phenomenal unity of consciousness rather than with reference to the multiplicity of heteronyms—the ‘confederation’ theory is not Pessoa’s. It is a Proustian, not a Pessoan, picture of multiplicity. An appreciation of this distinction is crucial to seeing why Pessoa’s multiplicity of I is not reducible to another mental illness, multiple personality disorder. The distinction between successive and simultaneous subject plurality has found a surprising application: understanding Afrofuturism’s experimentation with multiple sonic selves.

The Phenomenal Unity of Consciousness

Philosophical interest in unity of consciousness goes back at least to Kant. A recent revival of interest among analytic philosophers of mind focuses on unity of consciousness, construed as phenomenal unity. This chapter will survey some of the issues and questions that have been central to this recent work before sketching an alternative to what may be seen as a dominant, though implicit, tendency in the recent literature on unity: to formulate the idea that phenomenal unity is a natural feature of consciousness in terms of what the chapter will term the Unity Thesis. According to this thesis, all synchronous experiences of a conscious subject at a moment are phenomenally unified with each other. The chapter then rebuts another trend in recent literature: the tendency to understand phenomenal unity as obtaining in virtue of a type of oneness or singularity. The chapter advances an alternative that sees phenomenal unity as obtaining in virtue of connectivity conditions over relations among phenomenal experiences.

What Is It Like to Experience a Third Man? The Phenomenological Bradley and How to Solve It

This chapter first discusses a problem that is central to accounts of phenomenal unity, which is here called the phenomenological Bradley (PB). Basically, the problem is to explain how two phenomenal parts can be connected to each other (without treating this “connectedness” as a primitive relation about which one cannot say more). This problem is structurally similar to a problem known as “Bradley’s regress” in metaphysics. Considering possible solutions to the metaphysical version of the problem is at least heuristically fruitful for the project at hand, because these solutions can, to some extent, also be applied to the phenomenological version of the problem. In particular, the chapter presents four possible solutions to PB and draws connections to historical precursors and existing accounts of phenomenal unity. After that, the mélange model is proposed, which suggests a way in which different possible solutions to PB can be integrated.

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of this book, starting with a summary of the account of phenomenal unity developed here. The summary also contains pointers to all other chapters. Readers who are interested in a particular part of the account will find the reference here. The other sections outline and discuss some philosophical background assumptions (e.g., on representationalism, phenomenal consciousness, access unity, and interdisciplinary research).

Think Globally, Experience Locally?

This chapter explores how accounts of phenomenal unity can not only satisfy the phenomenality constraint, but also a version of globality. Global phenomenal unity could then be called phenomenal holism. First, different relevant versions of globality are discussed, as well as notions of holism that can be applied to consciousness. According to accounts of strong phenomenal holism, every phenomenal part of a phenomenal field depends for its existence on all other phenomenal parts of the same phenomenal field. It is argued that accounts which defend such a strong phenomenal holism are ultimately not tenable. Hence, the globality constraint can only be used in its weaker, relaxed versions. It is suggested that a substantial version of phenomenal holism should combine relaxed versions of globality with the assumption that experienced wholes are hierarchically ordered. Furthermore, three features that make this idea more specific are identified: Multiplicity, Graduality, and Invariance. Finally, the ideas presented in this chapter are wrapped up by presenting the regularity account of phenomenal unity (RPU).

Framing the Problem of Phenomenal Unity (PPU)

This chapter lays the conceptual foundation for the rest of the book. The problem of phenomenal unity (PPU) is defined and a general path to its solution is proposed. Apart from that, the chapter discusses the relation between synchronic and diachronic phenomenal unity (i.e., unity at a time and unity over time). Finally, a list of requirements on accounts of phenomenal unity is provided, in order to constrain the class of possible answers to PPU. Any adequate account of phenomenal unity should at least satisfy the following three constraints: Phenomenality, globality, and necessity.

The Regularity Account of Phenomenal Unity

This chapter presents the regularity account of phenomenal unity (RPU). The basic idea of RPU is that when the brain tracks a regularity that is predictive of different features (or of different objects or events), there will be an experienced connection between those features (or the respective objects or events). We can then say that the regularity connects those features (or objects or events). According to RPU, unity comes in degrees, and in ordinary conscious experience we find a hierarchy of experienced wholes. This chapter provides a preliminary taxonomy of experienced wholes, with many examples. Drawing on formal concepts of the predictive processing framework, a formal description of possible computational underpinnings of experienced wholeness is given. Finally, a rigorous formulation of the mélange model (first proposed in chapter 4) is provided.

Experienced Wholeness

The unity of the experienced world and the experienced self have puzzled humanity for centuries. How can we understand this and related types of phenomenal (i.e., experienced) unity? This book develops an interdisciplinary account of phenomenal unity. It focuses on examples of experienced wholes such as perceived objects (chairs and tables, but also groups of objects), bodily experiences, successions of events, and the attentional structure of consciousness. As a first step, the book investigates how the unity of consciousness can be characterized phenomenologically: what is it like to experience wholes, what is the experiential contribution of phenomenal unity? This raises conceptual and empirical questions. In addressing these questions, connections are drawn to phenomenological accounts and research on Gestalt theory. As a second step, the book suggests how phenomenal unity can be analyzed computationally, by drawing on concepts and ideas of the framework of predictive processing. The result is a conceptual framework, as well as an interdisciplinary account of phenomenal unity: the regularity account of phenomenal unity. According to this account, experienced wholes correspond to a hierarchy of connecting regularities. The brain tracks these regularities by hierarchical prediction error minimization, which approximates hierarchical Bayesian inference.