One Awareness, Many Minds
From the Experience of Individuality to the Recognition of Unity (The Nature of Consciousness #20)
We usually take it for granted that there are many minds, yours, mine and countless others, each enclosed within a body and separated from the world and from one another. This way of seeing feels obvious and unquestioned, and it shapes how we understand ourselves, others and reality as a whole. Yet when experience is examined more closely, this picture softens. What appears as a multitude of separate inner lives may be something quite different. This essay explores the possibility that the apparent multiplicity of minds does not divide reality at all, but is the way a single, indivisible awareness comes to know itself from many points of view.
This week we’re exploring pages 101–103,* where we conclude Chapter 10, ‘Existence Is Identical to Awareness’.
(*The page numbers indicated here each week refer to the original publication of the physical book – they may vary slightly from more recent versions, owing to the publisher’s design modifications.)
The Multiplicity of Minds
We tend to experience ourselves as separate minds, each seemingly enclosed within a body, looking out at a world of objects and other minds. This assumption feels so natural, so self-evident, that it rarely comes into question. Yet if awareness is whole, indivisible and one, what are we to make of this apparent multiplicity of minds?
