Unity of Consciousness and Bi-Level Externalism

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In a conference hotel recently I accompanied a philosophical friend on a shopping expedition for some bold red and green wrapping papers, to be displayed as props in his upcoming talk on sensory qualia. Most examples used in philosophical discussions of consciousness have this static, snapshot character. The vehicle for a conscious perception of red wrapping paper may be a pattern of activation in a region of the brain devoted to visual input. But while walking, a person can turn her head, notice the wrapping paper, reach out, and grasp it. Our survival often depends on our ability to negotiate a changing environment by simultaneous streams of perception and action. What do vehicles of conscious content look like when there is realistically complex interaction with the world? A dynamic view requires, according to Susan Hurley, a ‘twisted rope’, the strands of which are continuous multi-modal streams of inputs and outputs looping into the environment and back into the central nervous system. The twist in the rope is analogous to the unity of consciousness. The contents of conscious perceptions depend directly— non-instrumentally— on relations among inputs and outputs; similarly for conscious intentions. We are evidently a long way from static red and green sensory qualia. Hurley’s book is a work of formidable ambition and multi-disciplinary erudition. She marshals wide-ranging literatures in the philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and dynamic systems theory. Her Kant and Wittgenstein scholarship is also impressive. Each chapter stands on