One History, Multiple Readers : The Pilcrow Theory (¶)

This document presents the fifth version of a research programme devoted to a form of serial monism applied to consciousness. By monism, the programme means a precise metaphysical commitment: one fundamental reality, one primitive Actuality, and one effectively actualized history, within which multiple lineages and multiple readers may nevertheless emerge. The starting idea can be expressed without technical vocabulary : Imagine that there is only one effective history of the world, written step by step. At each new step, some continuations that were still possible cease to be possible. Yet this history is not lived from a single point of view: several lineages can form within it, and each can be sensitive to different differences in the same world. The framework then asks four questions, in this order:1. How does a single history become determined?2. How do some occurrences form lineages that persist through that history?3. How does a lineage become a point of view on the same global world?4. How is that point of view realized as rich phenomenal experience?