Partial Unity of Consciousness A Preliminary Defense

• Published in: Sensory Integration and the Unity of Consciousness p. 347
• Main Author: Elizabeth Schechter
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States The MIT Press 31.10.2014; MIT Press
• Subjects: Anatomy; Arts; Behavioral sciences; Biological sciences; Biology; Brain; Central nervous system; Cerebral cortex; Cerebral hemispheres; Cerebrum; Cognitive psychology; Concept of mind; Consciousness; Consciousness theory; Corpus callosum; Dualism; Geometric shapes; Geometry; Health sciences; Hemispheres; Human consciousness; Literary modes; Literature; Mathematics; Medical procedures; Medical specialties; Medical treatment; Metaphysics; Nervous system; Neurology; Neuropsychology; Neurosurgical procedures; Philosophy; Philosophy of mind; Psychology; Pure mathematics; Split brain procedure; Stream of consciousness; Surgical procedures; Unified consciousness
• ISBN: 026202778X; 9780262027786
• DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/9746.003.0016

Under the experimental conditions characteristic of the “split-brain” experiment, a split-brain subject’s conscious experience appears oddly dissociated, as if each hemisphere is associated with its own stream of consciousness. On the whole, however, split-brain subjects appear no different from “normal” subjects, whom we assume have only a single stream of consciousness. The tension between these impressions gives rise to a debate about the structure of consciousness: the split-brain consciousness debate.¹ That debate has for the most part been pitched between two possibilities: that a split-brain subject has a single stream of consciousness, associated with the brain (or with the subject)