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15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind

[unified character of the thinking mind]

22 ideas
The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato]
The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato]
If the soul is composed of many physical parts, it can't be a true unity [Aristotle]
What unifies the soul would have to be a super-soul, which seems absurd [Aristotle]
The rational and irrational parts of the soul are either truly separate, or merely described that way [Aristotle]
The separate elements and capacities of a mind cannot be distinguished [Lucretius]
How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero]
The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero]
If soul was like body, its parts would be separate, without communication [Plotinus]
Faculties of the mind aren't parts, as one mind uses them [Descartes]
Spinoza held that the mind is just a bundle of ideas [Spinoza, by Schmid]
No machine or mere organised matter could have a unified self [Leibniz]
A person is a unity, and doesn't come in degrees [Reid]
With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad [Nietzsche]
Unity is not in the conscious 'I', but in the organism, which uses the self as a tool [Nietzsche]
It is a major blunder to think of consciousness as a unity, and hence as an entity, a thing [Nietzsche]
The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it [Sartre]
Explanation of how we unify our mental stimuli into a single experience is the 'binding problem' [Searle]
We experience unity at an instant and across time [Searle]
Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood]
Why are minds homogeneous and brains fine-grained? [Chalmers]
A conscious human being rapidly reunifies its mind after any damage to the brain [Edelman/Tononi]