Experiences And Generators
This is chapter 2 of my work Subject of experience and personal identity.
2.1. An analysis of experience
This is what I mean by “experience”: an experience is the totality of co-present (in/to a particular subject) phenomena. It is the entirety of what is simultaneously existent in the same subjectivity. It is a non-temporally extended unified phenomenal event. An experience exists subjectively, it is dependent on the existence of a subject, for/in which it “has its being”. For an experience, to be means to be in/for a subject.
Every experience has a contentual/qualitative aspect, some content, and is also subjective, i.e. it is immediately present for/in some subject[1].
All experiences that are said to belong to the same subject simply share the same property of mineness. The subject in this sense is nothing above and beyond the particular property of mineness – it is not an independently existing entity to whom experiences happen to belong. Rather, it is just another name for mineness. The subject (in this sense), i.e. mineness, is simply the way experiences exist, the way content is realized.[2] (Henceforth, I will use the terms ‘subject’ and ‘mineness’ interchangeably.)
Because it is conceivable that there are many different qualitatively identical experiences which exist in/for the same subject, experiences might also simply differ in their haecceity. For example, if the universe is cyclical and one is fated to be born again and again (think of Nietzsche’s eternal return), experiencing the same content over and over, or if one is simply experiencing the very same dream every night – in such cases, we would have experiences identical in their content and in their subject, internally indistinguishable[3], that would nevertheless be different experiences, different phenomenal events, different particulars ‒ iterations of the same content-mineness pair. Zuboff (2025), however, denies that it is possible for there to be many different qualitatively identical experiences in/for the same subject, and instead argues for “unificationism” – the view that precisely repeated content is experienced just once[4].
2.2. Generators
I use the word “generator” to refer to an object which directly brings about (causes) the existence of experience and which directly determines its content[5]. Brains (or brain states) are the quintessential generators of experience.
An individual brain consists of many brain states, which are its temporal slices. The same brain can sometimes generate an experience and sometimes not – for example, a dead brain used to generate experiences, but no longer does; an unconscious brain does not currently generate experiences, etc. A brain state, however, either is or is not a generator – it cannot sometimes be a generator and sometimes not, for it is not temporally extended. So a brain state either does or does not have the property of “being a generator of my experience”.
We need to distinguish between the property of “(being) my generator(1)”, where for x to have this property, at least certain (spatio-temporal) parts of x must actually cause my experience to come into being (i.e. “(be) my generator(2)”); and “(being) my generator(2)” in the sense of directly corresponding to and causing an experience for me. For an experience E that is mine, there is (on this theory) a brain state S (a non-temporally extended object) that generates, i.e. brings into being, this experience. S is my generator(2), and any temporally or spatially (or both) extended entity of which S is a part is my generator(1)[6].
The boundaries of brains are fuzzy – it is not clear when something begins or ceases to be a brain, or where precisely its spatial boundaries are (even though in the absolute majority of real cases, we can easily tell a brain from a not-brain, and one brain from another). Whereas it might be less controversial to identify individual brain states (to draw purely spatial boundaries), it seems more controversial to identify individual brains (temporally extended objects), because there are many ways we can draw the boundaries of a single brain.
For example, if we divide a brain in half and put the individual brain hemispheres into bodies of their own (i.e. the scenario of brain fission), do we now have two new brains, or do they continue to be parts of the same brain, or does one of the halves continue to be a part of the same brain and the other not? The question is purely terminological/normative, of course – there is no truth one way or another without setting the criteria for what makes some thing a different brain than some other thing, and this can be done in several ways (i.e. using several different criteria). Picking out an object at a particular moment in time that fully exists at that time (i.e. that is not temporally extended) requires fewer identity specifications; the moment we add another dimension, we need to decide on further criteria of individuation – the same non-temporally extended objects (e.g. brain states) can be made parts of many different temporally extended objects.
Something which might further complicate the matter is the fact that, conceivably, the very same object (brain state) can generate more than one experience at the same time, i.e. be a multi-generator. For example, it is conceivable that the brain state which brought about this particular experience (that is mine) also simultaneously generated an experience with a different or even the same content for another subject, or perhaps even for the same subject. So conceivably, some brain state being a generator of an experience that is not mine does not preclude that very same state from also being the generator of an experience that is mine.
We do not seem to believe this is how generators work. But that this is sometimes the case might turn out to be the best solution to fusion scenarios if each brain generator carries its own mineness. In fusion, two (or more) generators are combined into a single one. Where previously there were two brains, each with its own distinct stream of continuous content (two “streams of consciousness”), now we only have one physical structure and one stream of content. If it is the case that each stream of consciousness corresponding to each brain has its own mineness, it is conceivable that both streams of consciousness continue, but now they share the same content. This solution is perhaps preferable to an arbitrary cessation of existence of either stream of consciousness, and of its mineness with it.
To explicate this further: if we have two brain states, A and B, both at T1, A generating an experience for mineness M1 (let’s say, for me – i.e. with the quality of mineness that this experience of Edralis writing this sentence has), B for mineness M2 (let’s say, for you – i.e. with the quality of mineness that this experience now of you reading this sentence has), and the brains of which they are a part are fused so that now we have a brain state C at T2 which is continuous equally with both A and B, and assuming that any brain state that is continuous with some other brain state, if it is a generator, generates experiences for the same mineness, we would expect C to be a double generator, i.e. to generate experiences both for M1 and M2. That is, the fused brain at T2 would bring forth two experiences simultaneously, both with the same content, each with a different mineness.
Alternatively, perhaps it is the case that continuity between two brain states is not sufficient for the property of “being my generator” to be “inherited” by the later brain state. For example, a particular generator property might only be “contagious” if there is no other generator property vying to infect a certain brain state. That is: if a certain brain state is equally continuous with two different brain states, both of them with the property of being a generator, but with a different species of that property (one being a generator of experience for M1, the other for M2), because (ex hypothesi) every brain state can only instantiate a single species of property of the category “generator” (i.e. every brain state can only generate a single experience, for a single mineness), they “cancel each other out” and so the resulting brain state does not come to possess either of the generator properties, but instead has the property of being a generator for a new mineness, M3 (i.e. it generates a new mineness), or simply is a zombie, i.e. it lacks any generator property (generates no experience), or perhaps it is randomly decided which property infects the resulting brain state.
If the rule “every brain state only possesses a single generator property” is true, there must be additional rules which specify what is to happen upon fusion. If it is true that the continuity rule holds above all, regardless of how many experiences (for how many minenesses) a single brain state would, as a result, have to generate, then after fusion the resulting brain state simply generates more than one experience, one for every mineness.
Perhaps a single brain state even under normal circumstances sometimes gives rise to more than one experience. For example, there might be multiple centers in the brain that are generators (generating experiences with different content), in which case a single brain state (a temporal slice of the temporally extended object “brain”) would contain multiple generator sub-brain states. Would then the overall brain state be a multi-generator? In a sense, it would, because as a whole, it would cause more than one experience to come into existence. But it would rather be a generator(1), for it is actually its parts, not the state as a whole, that directly cause the experiences; and the individual sub-states are then generators(2), and not themselves multi-generators.[7]
2.3. Content
Let us call the sum of the content in any given experience “phenomenal scenery”. The same phenomenal scenery can hypothetically be realized many times, in different individual experiences. The same experience, however, can never be repeated[8]. It only ever happens once.
For example, when I look down right now, I see my hands and the black keyboard, I can hear the hum of the computer cooling fan, and feel the tactile experience of my fingertips touching the keys. I feel certain feelings, think certain thoughts, etc. All these phenomena, which might themselves be analyzed into smaller phenomenal parts (e.g. parts of the visual aspect of the overall experience include the individual keys of my keyboard, the white letters on the keys, my fingernails, the shape of my wrists etc.), exist unified in a single experiential event ‒ they co-constitute the current experience. This experience is a particular actualization of a particular phenomenal scenery, in/for my mineness. If my brain as it is now were copied, the experience that the copy would generate would be contentually identical, even though it would be a different experience (a different experiential event).
A perspective, a point of view (POV), requires a center – or, borrowing a fitting gaming term, a player character (PC). The focal point of any particular experience is the body of the person or other being whose point of view the experience constitutes. For example, the center (PC) of this experience is Edralis, as this experience is that of Edralis sitting at her desk, writing these sentences: the experience, and the world in that experience, are centered around this person. It is from her POV, from her eyes, that the world is seen and her thoughts and feelings are felt. The center is experienced from the first-person POV, as opposed to all other people or beings in experience, who are experienced from the third-person POV. Under normal circumstances, there is a sense of identification with that person, and a sense of ownership and control over their actions.[9]
Centeredness, then, is the degree to which the center is in focus in any particular experience. For example, walking in a park talking to a friend is more centered than being lost in thought. Broad engagement with one’s surroundings is more centered than deep concentration on a particular object, where less of the world framed by one’s POV is present, and one’s awareness of one’s own body is attenuated. For example, when I (Edralis) am concentrating on learning a piano piece, although I am watching my (Edralis’s) hands and so I am constantly aware of my (Edralis’s) body, there is a sense in which I “forget myself”, lose myself (as Edralis) in the flow, as opposed to when I am more directly aware of myself being a person among other people, for example in conversation.
Not all experiences are centered: centeredness requires a point of view of a world. It requires the existence of an experiential world (real or not) – a space filled with interacting entities (persons, animals, etc.) who share that world with the PC and from whose POV there exist (or at least could exist) experiences in which counterparts of that experiential world are found, including the counterparts of the other interacting entities, and those entities themselves as centers. And it requires the existence of something at the center of the experience that is itself a part of the experiential world and interacts with the rest of it – that is, the PC.
If there is no world in experience, and one momentarily does not remember that they are a person (i.e. they do not identify with the entity from whose POV the world is seen), such as in hypnagogic or meditative states, the experience can truly lack a center. For example, imagine a state of deep, single-pointed concentration on a particular sensation, in which the tactile experience of the fingertip of one’s thumb touching one’s palm “fills up” the phenomenal space and constitutes the entirety of the occurrent phenomenal scenery – there is no room for a center in the experience.
Also, some dreams or visualizations are given from a point of view, but, as in a movie, that point of view is empty, i.e. there is no person in the dream-world/imaginary world to whom it belongs. Rather, the dream-/imaginary world is seen “from without” – this is another sense in which an experience might lack a center, in spite of being perspectival.
A body is recognized as that of my center because it is usually literally in the center of my experience, and it is there wherever I go. Because I encounter it so often, and because the experiences which are uniquely bound to it are mine (e.g. I can only feel the limbs of that body moving, and feel the pain associated only with that body), and because I have first-person memories connected to this particular body (and person), and no other, I come to see this body as mine, something that is closely connected to me, or perhaps even a part of me or something that is identical to me.
Thoughts, pains, feelings, and mental images are also identified as, or recognized as, “one’s own”, and their content (under normal circumstances) corresponds to what is happening with one’s center. Unlike with perceptions, where not every hand that one sees is one’s own hand, any pain or hunger or anger or love that one feels, and any thoughts that one has, are recognized as “one’s own”[10].
Compare PCs to Kolak’s “phenomenal selves”, consisting of a phenomenal body and a phenomenal mind: “the Phenomenal Self is a psycho-phenomenological matrix that is experienced from the first-person point of view, what I the subject am identified as (i.e., my phenomenal body-mind, my “mind-body image”)”[11]. The subject is “bound” to a human being in their experience via the Fact of Exclusive Conjoinment, the “apparent ability to control immediately certain borders directly in experience onto which the subject is conjoined at the exclusion of others.”[12] The subject identifies as its phenomenal self: it wears its self “like a mask”. The “I am” of predication or identification is confused with the “I am” of identity ‒ we confuse ourselves with the person that we happen to be: “[…] when I say, “I am Kolak,” I am (mistakenly) ascribing my identity to that which I am within my own Phenomenal World identified as—the Phenomenal Self.”[13] [14]
The PC is contrasted with non-player characters (NPCs): relative to some experience, beings from whose POV the world is not experienced, but who appear in experience. These are usually assumed to also have PC-counterparts, i.e. it is assumed that there exist experiences from their corresponding POV. For example, Edralis’s mother is an NPC in my experience, but I also assume she is not a zombie, and so I assume there exist experiences where she is a PC – where it is Edralis who is an NPC.
NPCs are usually “alive” (people, animals) and usually presumed not to be zombies. But certain very simple animals and perhaps also bacteria might be considered NPCs, since they are motile and manifesting goal-oriented behavior, even though we don’t expect them to be conscious.
The purpose of the PC-NPC distinction is to point out the fact that in experience, there appear many characters –some of them presumably conscious, some of them perhaps not‒, but that there is only a single character in every experience that is the fulcrum of that experience, i.e. from whose POV the experience is, around whom it revolves, and with whom we have the tendency to identify (to think of them as our own self). When Edralis is walking on a crowded street, there are many human beings in Edralis’s experience – but, by definition, only one of those humans, i.e. Edralis, is the center of that experience, that is, the PC. All other people in that experience are NPCs, and presumably PCs in some other experience, where the street is seen from their POV, and where Edralis is an NPC. The same person can, in different experiences, figure either as a PC or as an NPC.
2.4. Illustrating with an example
Imagine some generator – some brain, let’s call it B. B is a generator(1), because it contains, as temporal parts, generators(2), i.e. individual brain states. Let’s call the experiences which are generated by this particular brain B-experiences. B-experiences and B are in a causal and determinative relation: the brain (the brain states) causes the existence of and determines the content of B-experiences. Let’s also imagine B is not in a vat, but actually placed in a body moving around in the world, and so B is connected by various sense organs to its environment, which is then (veridically) represented in B-experiences.
B is placed in a particular body, of a particular human animal – let’s call this human animal Frank. Frank is a human being, with a body and a brain (i.e. B) and a personality, with interests and relationships with other people and animals. The majority of B-experiences are Frank-centered – they have Frank[15] as their PC. Many of these experiences contain a visual image (representation) of Frank’s body right at their center, and most of them (with the exception of dreams, visualized fantasies of imaginary worlds, etc.) are representations of the world that Frank shares with other sentient entities. These entities are veridically represented as NPCs in the experiences that brain B generates, and as PCs in the experiences their own brains generate.
The phenomenal world of B-experiences is under normal circumstances a faithful representation of the world as it exists in the vicinity of Frank’s body and his sensory organs – this makes the experiences veridical.
In the case of B-experiences, Frank-centered experiences are (under normal circumstances) veridical, but theoretically the very same Frank-centered content (the very same phenomenal scenery) could be actualized in a non-veridical experience, for example in a BIV that used to belong to a completely different person. But even a B-generated Frank-centered experience could be non-veridical: for example, if Frank’s brain (i.e. B) is turned into a BIV and artificially made to produce experiences that are Frank-centered; or if Frank has a dream from his own POV. These Frank-centered experiences would be Frank’s, in virtue of being generated by brain B, which belongs to the human animal Frank; but they would not be veridically Frank-centered.
Note that Frank-centeredness does not make an experience automatically Frank’s (i.e. generated by B), nor does the fact that an experience is generated by B (i.e. that it belongs to the human animal Frank) make it automatically Frank-centered. An experience being Frank-centered is here understood as a function of its content, and its belonging to Frank tells us which generator it was produced by (i.e. B).
To explicate further, we need to distinguish between Frank as a center –a feature of the content of experience‒, and Frank as a human animal with a brain. Frank-ness of experience (i.e. an experience being Frank’s) pertains to its relation to an objectively existent entity, Frank – that is, it is an extrinsic property of experience (unlike Frank-centeredness). PC-Frank (a center) relates to an experience as its content (or abstraction therefrom[16]); Frank-human animal relates to an experience in that it is the physical (non-phenomenally existent[17]) object that houses its generator. An experience can be centered around PC-Frank (or its parts), and generated by Frank-human animal’s brain. There is a certain correspondence between Frank the PC and Frank the human animal, of course – PC-Frank normally represents Frank the human animal[18].
To reiterate: Frank’s experiences need not be Frank-centered (for example, when B generates dream-experiences centered around Marilyn Monroe [i.e. when Frank dreams that he is not himself]), and even if they are Frank-centered, they need not be veridical (for example, when B generates dream-experiences centered around Frank [i.e. when Frank dreams that he is himself]); and Frank-centered experiences need not be Frank’s (for example, if I dreamed that I was Frank); but veridical Frank-centered experiences must be Frank’s (a Frank-centered experience is only veridical if it actually faithfully represents the world, i.e. is an experience from the POV of Frank, whose brain generated it).
Not all experiences generated by Frank’s brain are Frank-centered. For example, in hypnagogic states, the world “around Frank”, and PC-Frank himself with it, are lost (even though the subject of Frank’s experiences, and also Frank “out there” in the objective world, himself having an objective existence[19], remain). Also, in dreams, the B-experiences are usually not Frank-centered, and they are not veridical: B-generated dream-experiences do not represent (depict) B’s environment, even though they might be Frank-centered – especially in lucid dreams, where one “remembers who one is” and is aware of oneself as dreaming, as actually being that person or another, currently asleep and dreaming, temporarily suspended in one’s own “inner world”.
When does an experience count as Frank-centered? When it is centered around Frank, i.e. when Frank is the PC – but how do we determine whether some experience has Frank as its PC, as opposed to somebody else, perhaps similar to Frank? The issue is not clear-cut – in order to determine whether some experience is Frank-centered, one needs to first specify what makes a PC Frank. Frank, being an object in experience, like all ordinary objects, is fuzzy – whether something is Frank or not is not specified for all possible situations.
PC-Frank occurs in experience “in bits and pieces”: every experience he is in has some piece of him, i.e. some part of it is him (as his part) or something that belongs to him, e.g. a thought, a hunger-pang, a memory, a visual of his hands or legs from the first-person POV.
Again, one needs to distinguish between Frank as a center – a feature of content, and Frank as an animal in the world. To say “this experience is from Frank’s POV” might be confusing inasmuch as the word “Frank” can be understood to refer either 1) to the center of that experience, so an experience being from Frank’s POV in this sense translates to having a PC with particular qualities, i.e. “from Frank’s POV” is then just a synonym for “being Frank-centered”; or 2) to the human animal which houses the brain that generates the experience that is said to be from Frank’s POV, in which case the experience does not have to be Frank-centered, just generated by the particular brain in Frank’s body (so when Frank dreams he is Marilyn Monroe, the dream is nevertheless from Frank’s POV in this sense [because it is generated by the Frank-human animal’s brain]). Frank-human animal is not Frank-PC. Frank-PC is a representation of Frank-human animal if the experience is veridical. But again, not just Frank-centeredness, but also veridicality[20] (i.e. whether what is phenomenally existent is a representation of a shared world) is a matter of degree.
But in the majority of actual cases, we can clearly tell one human animal from another, and one PC from another. Frank has a certain body, certain personality, etc. An experience can be more or less Frank-centered, but in the end, whether some experience is Frank-centered or not is usually quite clear. For example, I can tell that this particular experience, of Edralis writing this, is not Frank-centered, because the person at its center is clearly not Frank. Perhaps I actually am Frank (i.e. this experience is generated by Frank’s brain), dreaming that I am Edralis writing this – it would seem that, in toying with the idea, the experience just became a little more Frank-like, because its content is “closer to Frank”. One can imagine that B (Frank) actually has a dream like this, in which he is Edralis writing this very sentence – in which case, wouldn’t he be, while reflecting on the possibility of this actually being a Frank-experience, closer to his “actual” (veridical) Frank-self, even though, being a dream, the experience would not be veridical? When I think that I might actually be Frank (i.e. that this experience is actually generated by B), the experience becomes a little more Frank-centered, and, if it is actually the case, then it also becomes a little more veridical.
[1] See e.g. Strawson 2003. Also cf. Klawonn 2009: “we may therefore distinguish between two aspects of a mental life − the variable element of content and the invariable element of consciousness/givenness”
[2] In another sense (among many others), “subject“ can be the name given to the set of experiences that possess some particular mineness. Klawonn (2009, p. 95) refers to the subject in this sense as “Cartesian I-substance“. This is not the concept I am referring to by my use of the word “subject“ in the present work. “Subject” is here understood to be simply the synonym for mineness.
[3] And of course, as all experiences, objectively non-existent – thus not amenable to empirical investigation, i.e. not something that can be represented in other experiences.
[4] Zuboff (2025) disagrees that it is possible for there to be many different qualitatively identical experiences in/for the same subject, and instead argues for ‘unificationism’ – the view that precisely repeated content is experienced just once. “[...] the view regards all the precisely repeated content as, for the haver of the experience, unified into just one non-repeating content of experience.” (p. 32) Note that Zuboff himself doesn’t seem to agree that experiences can be distinguished by what we here call subject, i.e. mineness, but that all experiences have the same mineness. Even though I agree that all experiences have the same mineness, I find it conceivable that they don’t, and thus that there is more than one subject, i.e. more than one property of mineness.
[5] There is a certain structural correspondence between a generator and the experience we presume is its product (the existence of a causal link between them is inferred from this correspondence). The structure of the generator reflects the structure of experience. This seems to be the default view: The objective (i.e. not existing phenomenally, not realized in mineness) universe brings forth the brain state, i.e. it structures the matter in the brain in a particular way (the brain state itself being a part of the objective universe), which (i.e. the brain state) brings forth the experience (or at least determines or correlates with its content). The structure of the generator itself is determined by external (to it) factors, i.e. by the rest of the universe, and by its own previous structure. The brain state reflects the universe (while remaining its part), and the experience reflects the brain state (and it is not in itself a part of the objective, empirically accessible universe) – in that sense also, the experience reflects the universe. For example, the structure of matter of the brain state that causes the existence of the experience of a red cup in front of me is „ordered into place“ (i.e. caused to exist, i.e. the matter is „moved around“ to create that structure) by input from the brain’s environment modulated through sensory organs acting on the previous structure of the brain (so the (indirect) determiners of the experiential content are, i.a. the „red cup“ itself (even though strictly speaking without a phenomenal color and without a phenomenal shape, since those are phenomenal, and also co-determined by other parts of the input, not just properties of the cup itself); the light that carries the information about it to my eyes; my eyes; the nerves that bring the information to my brain; the in situ structure of the brain itself before the input acts on it; etc. – all these determine (the structure of) the brain state (and act together, or in a causal cascade, to bring it about), and so indirectly determine the content of (and indirectly co-cause) the experience, via the brain state, which is itself the generator of the experience [i.e. its direct cause – or so it is generally believed]).
[6] Note that under this definition, also the universe is my generator(1), and this room is my generator(1), etc. because some part of it sometimes is my generator(2).
[7] In the same sense, e.g. the universe is a multi-generator, for its parts (i.e. individual brain states contained therein) directly cause experiences with different minenesses (or at least this is what we assume is the case).
[8] Unless Zuboff’s unificationism is true.
[10] This seems to not necessarily be the case in one sense for sufferers of various ipseity (self-) disorders. For example, schizophrenics sometimes have thoughts that they identify as not “their own” (see e.g. Mishara et al. 2014). But note that, that there is a disturbance in self-perception, where some thought is recognized as “not mine” does not mean that the thought does not possess mineness, i.e. what Zahavi (e.g. 2005) calls pre-refective self-awareness. The experience, e.g. the thought, is still there for the subject, i.e. the experience possesses the quality of mineness peculiar to that subject, but, in the same way that perception of other bodies, as well as my own body, occur in my experience, but it is only Edralis’s body which is identified as “my own”, the thought can come to be seen as not belonging to the person that one is, i.e. the self-identification with that thought can be lost. The “self” in “disturbance of self-perception” seems to be the self in the sense of the particular person that one is (Edralis), not in the sense of subject/mineness. That is, arguably, if I suffered from this sort of disturbance, the thought that I would deem “not mine” would still be mine, in the sense of possessing the quality of mineness, i.e. immediate givenness peculiar to me (otherwise I would not be experiencing it!), but it would not be mine (or identified as such) in the sense that it would be recognized as not belonging to the person that I am, i.e. as not Edralis’s. And so whether such disordered thoughts qualify as “mine” depends on what we mean by “me”. “Mineness”, if what “me” is understood to be is a certain human person (i.e. mineness in the sense of belonging-ness to a certain person), is not the same thing as “mineness” in the sense of the immediate givenness of experience (i.e. the “me” in the sense of the empty subject ‒ not the human person). For the discussion of the issue that reaches the same conclusion, i.e. that the fact that these disturbances in self-conception exist does not conflict with the thesis that necessarily all experiences possess the quality of mineness, see e.g. Zahavi & Kriegel 2015.
[11] Kolak 2004, p. 424
[12] ibid, p. 44
[13] ibid., p. 407
[14] In the Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedānta, the self-identification of the subject (ātman) with/as the central person in its experience is called superimposition (adhyāsa): “This ‘self-experience’ as a particular psychophysical being means that we identify a certain special sphere of what is experientially given to us as ‘ourselves’: that is, we constantly distinguish within the realm of phenomenal contents between what belongs to ‘ourselves’—one’s body, one’s thoughts, and so on—and what is located ‘outside of ourselves’” (Fasching 2010). Albahari (2002) elaborates: “Through ignorance (avidya), the infinite and indescribable nature of Atman is superimposed (adhyasa) upon what is finite and describable (the physical and mental coverings of body and intellect). The ensuing sense of individual self (jiva) is a hybrid of Appearance and Reality; the sense of immutability and witness-consciousness issuing from Atman; the sense of separation from the world – manifested in egoistic tendencies towards ‘I-the-agent’ and ‘mine’ – arising from the illusory coverings of maya.” In the Advaitic model, the subject/mineness/primary self-awareness seems to correspond to the ātman (which in Advaita is identical to Brahman, the ultimate reality), and PC, or the individual human being, to jīva. Arguably the same or similar distinction can be found e.g. in Kant, who differentiates between empirical self and transcendental subject (Thomson 2008). The subject or ātman also seems to correspond or be identical to Wittgenstein’s metaphysical subject (see e.g. Sluga 1996).
[15] Or, more precisely, Frank’s phenomenal counterpart. Frank, the human animal, the object in the objective world, who does not have phenomenal existence, does not himself exist in experience, but is rather represented in it.
[16] For all that appears in experience, i.e. is phenomenally existent, are rather “snapshots” of Frank, e.g. a perception of a hand, a thought, etc. So PC-Frank is either a sum of or an abstraction from these subjectively existent entities, and so not itself subjectively existent.
[17] And neither is it made out of phenomenally existent parts.
[18] Even though, as already mentioned, PC-Frank could exist without Frank the human animal, and vice-versa. An experience where Frank=PC is not necessarily a representation of Frank the human animal (for example because there is no such animal in the first place, for example if the experience is a computer simulation), but we assume this is normally the case.
[19] I.e. it is not an existence in/for a subject ‒ it does not exist as mine, in mineness.
[20] Note that veridicality does not apply to “mind-experiences”, e.g. thoughts and feelings or mind-images, but primarily (only?) to perceptual experience, i.e. to those parts of experience that are thought to represent the objective (non-phenomenal) world, which is taken to be inter-subjective, and so also represented in experience of other perceiving entities, sharing that world. (Is blurred vision caused by e.g. short-sightedness “veridical”? It does reflect something about “the world”, i.e. the state of the eye, but not anything inter-subjective (perhaps only in scenarios where several brains are connected to the same sensory organs). Is the blurriness a “representation” of the world? What about olfaction, or the perception of heat?)