Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 102 of 138
Consciousness is qualitative, subjective and unified
I used to think that these three features, qualitativeness, subjectivity, and unity, could be described as distinct features of consciousness. It now seems to me that that is a mistake; they are all aspects of the same phenomenon. Consciousness is by its very essence qualitative, subjective, and unified. There is no way that a state could be qualitative, in the sense that I have introduced, without it also being subjective in the sense that I have explained. But there is no way that the state could be both qualitative and subjective, without having the kind of unity that I have been describing.