Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity

Description

Michael Tye has written some interesting papers; even I have found them interesting, despite disagreeing with most of his views. Unfortunately I didn't find this book to be very interesting at all. There are several reasons for this. First, the book seems to written with an unsophisticated audience in mind. There are some very odd (and not terribly amusing) cartoons in it, for example, a lot of points are spelled out somewhat condescendingly, and some of the topics discussed are rather undergraduate (e.g. the Star Trek transporter paradox). Then there is the fact that I don't really feel in my bones what the main topic of the book is supposed to be (the "unity of consciousness"?) Tye stresses over and over how our conscious experience is a unified whole; I don't understand what the content of this assertion is. Whether one says that conscious experience is unified or has constituents, what one is saying is surely just metaphorical, but the latter analogy is the one I feel more comfortable with: I can change a single color or sound in my overall experience without affecting the rest, after all. Doesn't this demonstrate constituency? On the other hand there are some informative passages here. It just isn't written in a style I feel very comfortable with.