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Are We Many, or One?
A Philosophical Dialogue on Relational Mind, Identity, and the Ethics of Consciousness
I recently published an article — The Single Mind Theory of Consciousness — in which I argued for the idea that the appearance of separate selves is an illusion, and that minds exist in an abstract space, albeit one derived from the physical states of brains. Minds, I claim, are “coherent communicative complexes” that are not separated in physical space, but in informational, or mental space, and thus overlap to the extent that they share their “configurations”. In this dialogue with Benjamin Cain, I defend and clarify that idea.
Benjamin
How many minds are there?
It likely seems obvious that there are many minds, both organic and, increasingly, artificial. Yet monists have thought otherwise since at least the Axial Age, when early Hindus and Buddhists argued on first-personal grounds that the barriers between conscious selves are illusory.
Perhaps, if “consciousness” and “mind” are suitably redefined to suit an ultimate view of things, there’s really only one underlying conscious mind, and we’re fooling ourselves when we think egoistically about our personal self-interest.
