Originally Posted by Redeyedwolfking
I'll try to make this as clear as possible. Does it make more sense to assume that consciousness within the individual is a singularity, so that we each have just one, or can each separate experience be regarded as a separate consciousness within the same brain becoming one with the others only through shared memory and personality programmed into the brain itself?
Both maybe, or I'm not really understanding. I am currently conscious of a glass of water, well an empty glass which I wish had water in it. The consciousness, the experience of seeing this object, is created by the actual glass in existential reality, in combination with my current sensory perception and my past experiences of glasses. In one sense of the word, my consciousness is the second two, it's my body, my brain, sensory organs, etc. And often the effects of these things are called consciousness and it is viewed as being separate from the rest of reality. But reality is one thing, which can also be said as everything is connected or interdependent. My consciousness of the glass is also made of the glass itself, and without it the experience is impossible.
So on the one hand there is you, the discrete entity. And you are you. You are a conscious being, you have a consciousness. In this sense it is your first option, a singularity. But without the existential world we have nothing to be conscious of, so we are in essence not conscious, have no consciousness(not to mention the fact that without existential reality your consciousness could never develop in the first place).
In theory, could you ever hook up the right half of the brain of one individual with the left half of another individual, so that all memories, thoughts, decisions and feelings are now shared between the two halves in the same way they are between the halves of the regular human brain? It seems like if this ever happened it would result in these former individuals no longer being able to think or experience the world independently, and certainly this newly formed brain would have internal dilemmas, but in the same way regular humans do within their own minds, with one idea eventually overshadowing the other. If two minds can theoretically become one only through the power of nerve circuitry then it seems like that's all that's keeping our own unique experiences from becoming subjective experiences in their own right within a single brain, so that they may be understood as one coherent experience instead.
Sounds impossible, I don't know science too good, but even if you did this you would be creating a new unique individual who is the combination of the two old. There would only be one individual because there would only be one body so of course they couldn't act independently, at least not as separate individuals. I'm pretty sure brain hemispheres don't act independently, they act in conjunction with one another. Even when performing separate functions, they aren't at war with each other or anything, unless you have severe mental problems(but I dunno, just a guess, I don't know how the brain works exactly).
What do you mean by this part? Our experiences already are subjective experiences.
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