I often realize that I’ve had a headache for a while and had not noticed it. It has real effects—I’m feeling grumpy, I’m not being productive—but it’s been filtered out before my conscious brain noticed it. I think it’s unreasonable to say that I didn’t have a headache, just because my conscious brain didn’t notice it, when the unconscious parts of my brain very much did notice it.
After a split-brain surgery, patients can experience someone on one side of their body and not notice it with the portion of the brain that is controlling speaking, that is, the portion that seems conscious, but the other portion of the brain still experiences the sensation and reacts to it in a way that can seem inexplicable to the conscious portion of the brain (though the conscious brain will try to make up some sort of explanation for it).
The brain is not unitary, and it is so un-unitary that it seems like a mistake to even act as if subjective experience is a single reality.
I often realize that I’ve had a headache for a while and had not noticed it. It has real effects—I’m feeling grumpy, I’m not being productive—but it’s been filtered out before my conscious brain noticed it. I think it’s unreasonable to say that I didn’t have a headache, just because my conscious brain didn’t notice it, when the unconscious parts of my brain very much did notice it.
After a split-brain surgery, patients can experience someone on one side of their body and not notice it with the portion of the brain that is controlling speaking, that is, the portion that seems conscious, but the other portion of the brain still experiences the sensation and reacts to it in a way that can seem inexplicable to the conscious portion of the brain (though the conscious brain will try to make up some sort of explanation for it).
The brain is not unitary, and it is so un-unitary that it seems like a mistake to even act as if subjective experience is a single reality.