IDENTIFYING STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT APPEALING TO SUBJECTS OF EXPERIENCE As A Thesis submitted to the faculty of 3G San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree * Master of Arts In Philosophy by Allison Keiko Allen San Francisco, California January 2016 Copyright by Allison Keiko Allen 2016 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Identifying Streams of Consciousness without Appealing to Subjects of Experience by Allison Keiko Allen, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Philosophy at San Francisco State University. Carlos Montemayor, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy Isabelle Peschardf Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy Ezequiel Morsella, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology IDENTIFYING STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT APPEALING TO SUBJECTS OF EXPERIENCE Allison Keiko Allen San Francisco, California 2016 What are the identity conditions for streams of consciousness? Elizabeth Schecter poses this question in her paper, “The unity of consciousness: subjects and objectivity.” In particular, she is interested in the capacity of a recent thesis about the unity of consciousness, one posed by Tim Bayne in the book, The Unity o f Consciousness. In this paper, I take into consideration the main limitations Schecter finds with Bayne’s view. I use her main points to formulate a new unity thesis—one which addresses a kind of unity that neither Bayne nor Schecter describe, and yet belongs in a complete account of the unity of consciousness. I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis. /JL / 2 /X o]5_ Chair, Thesis Committee Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is dedicated in loving memory to my grandmother, Keiko Sutton. I am especially grateful to my advisors, Dr. Carlos Montemayor and Dr. Ezequiel Morsella, for their outstanding guidance and support over the last few years. Having the opportunity to work with them has been the most enriching experience. I am also thankful to Dr. Isabelle Peschard for her assistance on this project, as well as her support and guidance in related areas of research. Finally, special thanks are due to Dr. Alice Sowaal and Dr. Shelley Wilcox for inspiring me as an undergraduate to pursue studies in philosophy. Without their encouragement I may not have had to courage to try my hand at being a philosopher. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction............................................................................................................................... 7 The Unity of Consciousness................................ ...9 The Subjective-Objective Distinction....................................................................................12 Token Streams and Phenomenal Unity.......................................................................... 14 Subjects Cannot Distinguish Token Streams........................................................................16 Using Causal Streams for Token Streams......................................................................... 17 The Action Unity Thesis .................................................... 18 Assessing the Action Unity Thesis........................................................................................25 Conclusion......................................................................... 28 References....................................................................... 30 Footnotes................................................................................................................................. 32 7 I. Introduction What are the identity conditions for streams of consciousness? In Elizabeth Schecter’s (2012) paper, “The unity of consciousness: subjects and objectivity,” she considers the role subjects of experience may play in individuating and providing identity conditions for streams of consciousness. The question arises as she examines Tim Bayne’s (2010) tripartite account of phenomenal unity in his book, The Unity o f Consciousness. In Bayne’s book, the unity of consciousness is regarded as a three part relationship between the subject of experience, representational content, and phenomenal unity. However, Bayne provides two accounts of the subject of experience which lend themselves to two different interpretations of the unity thesis. For most of the book, Bayne relies on an animalist, or biological, account, according to which subjects are organisms. Then, in the last chapter of his book, he provides a phenomenalist account, according to which subjects are intentional entities. These two accounts come with their own set of limitations. Schecter argues that Bayne must pick between the two accounts: Going the [phenomenal] route allows the tripartite account to articulate the subjective structure of consciousness, but no more; it cannot be used to individuate streams of consciousness or subjects of experience. Going the [biological] route, forgoing a subjective account of the identity of experiences, requires foregoing the conceptual connection between our 8 identities of first-personal perspectives on our own conscious experiences (691). Keeping a clear distinction between subjective explanations and objective explanations of consciousness places pressure on Bayne to select only one of the versions of his account. Bayne’s primary project is to explain the subjective, ‘what it is like,’ structures of consciousness. However Schecter suggests that Bayne’s biological account of the subject introduces an error that confuses the above distinction because it implies there are at least some physical structures (e.g., organisms) at play in delineating boundaries of the subject and, by extension, streams of consciousness. Schecter then considers whether either formulation of Bayne’s unity thesis can identify streams of consciousness, ultimately concluding that his biological account is inadequate but preferred. She explains why within the context of her own proposal one should appeal to causal streams to identify streams of consciousness. I agree with Schecter that the phenomenal formulation of Bayne’s unity thesis is not capable of identifying streams of consciousness, and that one must appeal to something objective in order to do so. Despite this agreement, I think that Schecter dismisses Bayne’s unity thesis too quickly. In this paper, I defend the view that the phenomenal formulation of Bayne’s unity thesis is not at odds with Schecter’s formulation of co-consciousness (which includes her method for individuating streams of consciousness). In addition, I consider some of the strengths of Bayne’s unity thesis in light of Schecter’s criticisms and use some of these insights to formulate a third unity thesis, the action unity thesis. I argue 9 in support of the claims that the action unity thesis is compatible with Bayne and Schecter’s theses and that it is needed for a more complete account of the unity of consciousness. Section II begins by exploring Bayne and Schecter’s different formations of the unity of consciousness. Section III goes on to explain the distinction between subjective and objective explanations of consciousness, a distinction on which Schecter’s criticisms rest. Section IV formulates the problem of tokening streams of consciousness and the main limitations Schecter finds with purely phenomenal accounts of the unity of consciousness. Section V focuses on problems associated with both kinds of subject and is followed by a review of Schecter’s suggestion to use causal systems to identify streams of consciousness in Section VI. With Schecter’s position outlined, Section VII introduces the action unity thesis and its place in the causal system (relative to Bayne and Schecter’s theses). Finally, Section VIII assess the action unity thesis. II. The unity of consciousness Both Bayne and Schecter are concerned in particular with phenomenal consciousness, also referred to as subjective experience, or ‘what it is like’ to be an organism (Block, 1995). The unity of consciousness, then, is ‘what it is like’ to experience two or more conscious states or properties in the same conscious field at the same time.1 Although Bayne and Schecter provide different approaches to this problem, most generally the concern is about how two or more conscious states are experienced at the same time: 10 What kind of relationship holds between two conscious states so that they appear together? To demonstrate this concern more clearly, consider the experience one has while watching a film. Broadly speaking, there are a set of visual experiences one has of the film and another set of auditory experiences one has of the film’s score. According to Bayne, there is something it is like to have each of these experiences independently, <seeing film> and <hearing score>, but the phenomenal unity of consciousness is concerned with ‘what it is like’ to have two qualitatively different conscious contents experienced conjointly at the same time: <seeing film and hearing score>. For Schecter, this formulation of the unity of consciousness runs into particular problems (discussed below) by focusing on the subjective aspects of consciousness. She opts instead for a definition, inspired in part by Susan Hurley (1998) which regards unity as an objective relation held between experiences. In particular, the relation is identified as, “whatever relation it is that holds between experiences in virtue of which