An ability to comprehend meaning is a key indicator of sentience but defining sentience more generally is notoriously difficult. We have no qualms attributing consciousness to ourselves but hesitate to say that a tree, for example, is conscious in spite of the fact that it comprehends meaning in its environment and responds appropriately.

For the purposes of this story I term a being sentient if it has a capacity for experience. That is, it has a capacity to perceive its environment (and perhaps itself in it), comprehend serial and perhaps other meaning, respond to or initiate actions on its environment, and display an intent by which it can attach value to its comprehensions, and initiate actions and responses that are in accord with those values rather than always responding predictably to the compulsions of its environment.

A tree is sentient.

I term a being conscious if it is sentient of its sentience. That is, it can perceive that it is perceiving, can comprehend that it is comprehending, and can choose among its values and intentions. A tree is not conscious.

(Or rather, I do not see consciousness in a tree. We only comprehend the fields of expression available to us, according to how we as functional organisms have aggregated. People and trees, as organisms that have aggregated along very different paths, have very different fields of expression available to them. So while I do not see consciousness in a tree, trees may well see consciousness in each other. Deeming an organism to be conscious depends on who is doing the deeming.)

Consciousness - sentience of one's own sentience - opens up dimensions of reflection, attention, introspection, association, abstraction, conception and imagination, facilitating a considered evaluation of one's experience. I see thought as an implementation of consciousness, I see will as intent when features of consciousness are brought to bear, and I see memory as a sometime supplement to sentience but necessary for consciousness.

Importantly, consciousness - sentience of one's own sentience - delivers an experience of being sentient, bestowing on the consciousness a sense of 'I', an ownership of its sentience and self-awareness, which includes a responsibility for the direction of its attention and for its choices and actions. I see such a sense of 'I' being necessary for the experience of emotion. A conscious being can develop a personality - a collection of preferred values and emotions - which include tastes, styles of action and a characteristic disposition.

A conscious being may also be sentient of the sentience in others. It may even recognize an experience of sentience in another, that is, it might recognize another's consciousness. I see attention, compassion, playfulness and humour as expressions by which consciousness (rather than only sentience) can be recognized. A sentience that is not conscious experiences its environment and acts in its own interest, but does not reflect on its experience, does not have a sense of 'I' and does not have a sense of humour.

In this way I see all functional organisms, from the greatest trees to the tiniest viruses, to have the possibility of sentience, but see the possibility of consciousness only in animals. (Sentiences we might attribute to spirits are explored in Part III.)

The human capacity for consciousness is not static. As our cultures and environments evolve, we acquire new fields of expression. Technology specifically has afforded us vast new fields of expression to play in. Importantly for this discussion, many of these new fields of expression have widened, not only the ranges and kinds of pattern we can perceive (perhaps only indirectly via these new tools), but have widened the ranges and kinds of pattern we can conceive of, as the microscope and telescope have extended our perceptions and conceptions of the very small and the very big.

Widening the range of our discernible patterns also allows us to discern patterns in patterns; that is, our discernment of pattern may not only be widened but may be deepened by the acquisition of new fields of expression. Extending our understanding of the very small to atomic scales and of the very big to galactic scales has significantly altered our understanding of our place in the universe and the way we relate to it. These extensions have not been shared by other animals. Perhaps a significant difference between our own sentience and that of other animals (and between them and plants) is of the kind, width and depth of pattern and meaning we are capable of discerning. The capacity to perceive pattern and comprehend meaning is crucial to sentience.

Modes of Sentience

As compound functional phenomena, our brains utilize both modes of interaction and comprehend both modes of serial meaning, allowing us to negotiate our bimodal world successfully.

However, with serial meanings of one mode not comprehensible in the context of the other, our brains must be in the mode of any phenomenon in order to comprehend its serial expressions.

The comprehension of serial meaning is an essential element of sentience so there would be gaps in our sentience if our brains were to comprehend only one mode or switch from one to the other, for they would then be blind to the serial expressions not in their current mode. Our brains must operate two sentiences concurrently, one comprehending the architective and the other comprehending the connective mode of serial meaning, if they are to ensure a continuing and inclusive comprehension of serial meaning and narrative.

I speak of connective and architective modes of sentience, according to the mode of serial meaning a sentience is able to comprehend.

All interactions take place in the single material reality which both our sentiences perceive, even though each only comprehends the serial meanings of its own mode. Entirely different realms of serial meaning are negotiated by each sentience, with each perceiving interactions of both modes but comprehending the serial meanings and following the narratives of its own mode only.

Connective and Architective Sentience

One's architective and connective sentiences perceive the same world but experience and respond to it very differently.

One's architective sentience experiences the stasis of things. It experiences the endurance of objects, their enduring separateness, identity and composition. It is adept at managing stasis and certainty. One's architective sentience is aware of one being separate from and different to others. It values outcomes that sustain its existence or further its growth and processional development. It acts to maintain one's architective viability.

One's connective sentience experiences and manages free flowing motion and change, waves and vibrations. It can negotiate uncertainty and can experience limitless subtlety and grandeur. It experiences bodily pain and pleasure. It values freedom of movement and smoothness of motion, and acts to sustain these.

One's architective sentience acts by controlling and/or organizing itself, one's body or one's environment according to its intention. The action of one's connective sentience is not a matter of control or organization but of responding to the connectivity in one's body and in one's environment.

Each sentience memorizes experiences of its own mode only. One's connective sentience memorizes flowing movements and sensations while one's architective sentience memorizes snapshots - configurations, images, symbols and representations - and sequences or arrangements of these. Each sentience can access memories of either mode but can comprehend serial meanings that are in its own mode only.

One's connective sentience responds to all relevant stimuli while one's architective sentience tends to be focused, usually on the item of greatest urgency or strength. One's architective sentience reaches or fails to reach objectives while one's connective sentience journeys through landscapes of greater or lesser value. From a connective point of view, life is an ongoing and varying participation in the world rather than a reaching for conclusions. For a connective sentience it is the passing sensations along the way, for an architective sentience it is the stations and destinations that count.

Modes of Consciousness

Since our sentiences comprehend serial meanings of their own mode only, each of our sentiences cannot comprehend the serial meaning or follow the narratives of its opposite sentience. My architective sentience cannot follow the narratives my connective sentience is following, and vice versa.

This also means that my architective sentience cannot be sentient of my connective sentience - and vice versa - since sentience necessarily involves a comprehension of serial meaning. Consciousness - sentience of a sentience - requires that the sentiences' modes be the same. A consciousness can only recognize another sentience when both are in the same mode. Sentience of one's own sentience is feasible but only when the subject and object sentiences are of the same mode. Each of our sentiences could be sentient of itself but would be oblivious of its opposite sentience, let alone be unable to follow its serial meaning and narratives. To a conscious sentience, its own opposite sentience lies unrecognized (though actively sentient) in a manner we term subconscious.

I perceive my consciousness - my sense of 'I' - to be singular. There are no two 'I's experiencing myself at the same time. I am not running simultaneous consciousnesses even though I may be running simultaneous sentiences. My consciousness may switch from one sentience to the other but only one of my sentiences is conscious at a time. At any one moment 'I' am an unabashed consciousness of only one of my sentiences, while my sentience of the opposite mode lurks unseen in subconsciousness, sentient but without a sense of 'I'. Only when the conscious/subconscious status of the sentiences is switched does the sentience that was subconscious become aware of itself and acquire a sense of 'I'. In this way my experience of 'I' is different in each mode of consciousness.

In answer to the question "Who am I?", in the architective mode of consciousness I might identify with my body (as being separate from others), with my profession, ancestry, cultural heritage and social status, for example. I would have opinions, expectations and a self-image acquired over my personal history and these would be difficult to change. On the other hand, in the connective mode of consciousness I would respond to the question "Who am I?" along the lines of "I am here, sitting comfortably, enjoying the breeze and the sounds of birds coming through the window while I tap at this keyboard." My connective sense of 'I' is a vibrant feeling of being, a receiver and giver of connective sensation. If asked how it was feeling, it would describe the sensations it was experiencing now and these would be different tomorrow.

While my consciousness may be switching between my sentiences, the experience of being conscious, the experience of being sentient of my sentience regardless of its mode, is a continuous one, and it is the continuity of this experience that gives me the perception that my consciousness is singular.

The relevance of this arrangement for the present discussion is that when one's connective sentience is conscious all one's comprehension of architective serial meaning, expression and narrative is subconscious, and when one's architective sentience is conscious all one's comprehension of connective serial meaning is subconscious. We are sentient in both modes simultaneously but conscious in only one at a time. Again, this does not mean we cannot be conscious of interactions of both modes at the same time, only that we cannot consciously comprehend serial meanings of both modes at the same time ^#14.

Narratives in its opposite mode are completely opaque to a consciousness. One's consciousness could at best cobble together an approximation of what a narrative or experience of its opposite mode might be like using what few concepts it has to convey something that is totally alien to it. The act of reading or writing this book, for example, is an architective one - no words on these pages can convey what the experience of music is like, while no (wordless) music can possibly convey the ideas presented in this book. I can see or hear the words in both modes, but I will only understand them in one. Consciously, I either read a book or listen to music, or switch rapidly between them, but I cannot consciously do both simultaneously. I can do both simultaneously, but only one will be conscious.

We see the glory of this arrangement when a musician, having consciously mastered the architective mechanics required to perform a piece of music, consigns this architective mastery to their subconscious, allowing a connective consciousness to direct the performance in an empathic expression conveying the musician's feelings rather than their architective exertions.

Architective and Connective Consciousness

The experiences of architective and connective consciousness are again very different. One's consciousness would of course experience everything one's sentience experiences, but being sentient of that experience is a much richer experience. Attention, reflection, introspection, association, abstraction, conception and imagination come into play, as well as emotion, preference and intelligence.

In the architective mode, one's consciousness evaluates identity, placement, fit, firmness, composition, commitment and challenge. It distinguishes between wholeness and impairment, submission and domination, and gain and loss. It experiences poverty and plenitude. It employs certainty, precision and exactness to achieve its aims. It responds to good or bad figurate fits, attends to contests and responds to loss or gain in a contest. It might take steps towards definite goals (whether constructive or destructive), exercise control or subservience and develop architective skills and strategies for maximizing one's strength. It might take pleasure in having things in their proper place (or otherwise) and in the complexities and aesthetics of construction and its greatness. It might enjoy following rules and playing well-defined roles. Its feelings and emotions would be of achievement or failure, superiority or inferiority, anger or supplication, triumph or fear, comfort or vexation. It could experience the whole gamut of architective sociality - familial ties and cultural traditions, the intrigues, jokes and drama of architective relationships and theatre. It might take an interest in ethics, in the correctness (or otherwise) of social behaviour, perhaps preferring altruism over selfishness. It could play games of rank and power, and promote authority or obedience. It could demonstrate commitment to a nation, an ideology or a place. Whatever its choices, they would be resistant to change.

In the connective mode, one's consciousness evaluates motion and change, waves and vibrations and their interplay, and the flows of empathy and antipathy in personal relationships. It distinguishes speeds and accelerations, harmonies and dissonances in these. It can play with uncertainty and appreciate infinity. Its feelings and emotions are of attraction or repulsion, frustration or exhilaration, satisfaction or longing. It delights in colour, music, sensuality and love. Whatever its choices, it's always open to change.

One's architective intelligence thinks and calculates while one's connective intelligence feels. One's connective intelligence judges flows, harmonies and empathies, feeling its way uncertainly, by giving and taking, acting and responding. One's architective intelligence judges matters of position, threat, composition, identity, rank, and fidelity - precisely - by analyzing them, categorizing them and perhaps planning steps to achieve specific aims. One's architective intelligence makes things and breaks things. It puts things in place or takes them out. It distinguishes the proper places for things and constrains relationships to fixed roles.

One's architective consciousness has a capacity for representation whereby its perceptions and feelings can be captured or abstracted into well-defined objects such as words, symbols or images, and these in turn can be analyzed, categorized, systematized or judged intelligibly or emotionally; while one's connective consciousness, though able to give connective patterns greater depth by abstracting them, is not able to capture them in a fixed representation such as a verbal, visual or mathematical language.

Fear of extinction is an architective experience, for only architectures are subject to the possibility of demise. Our architective frailty necessarily imbues our lives with a sense of insecurity and I suspect the entire gamut of our existential fears have an architective component.

Since one's connective sentience responds to all relevant stimuli while one's architective sentience tends to be focused, one's consciousness can attend to multiple musics simultaneously (though not necessarily independently), whether in concert or noisy, but one's architective consciousness would have great difficulty attending to multiple sentences at the same time. Multiple musical instruments played at the same time could be a symphony but speakers have to raise their voices to be heard above a crowd.

One's architective consciousness follows architective narratives - stories and epics of construction and destruction, identity, intrigue, challenge, gain and loss, submission and domination, achievement and failure. One's connective consciousness follows connective narratives - dances of speed and agility, whirls and gyres, discords and harmonies, excitements and tranquilities.

We may consider the narratives of our sentiences - whether conscious or subconscious - to constitute our experience of being an organism: One's ongoing connective narratives deliver one's sensation of being alive while one's architective narratives deliver the story of one's life.

Architective attention jumps from one point of interest to another while connective attention can access all its interests concurrently. A quiescence of one's architective attention (say by means of meditation) allows the merging of a wider connective perception rather than providing more points for it to jump between.

Art can be appreciated in both modes. Connectively we may have preferences regarding degrees or styles of subtlety, curvature and motion, the smoothness of a ride, perhaps preferring one dance or music to another. Our architective preferences may be in regard to the straightness of lines, the symmetry of forms, clarity of distinction, and the reasonableness of an argument.

One's architective consciousness may develop preferences for construction, growth, comfort, justice, equity and balance, but it could also develop preferences for destruction, existential angst, physical and emotional discomfort, greed, oppressive control, dogmatic fixedness, excessive submissiveness or obsessive organization.

We may develop a preference for one mode of consciousness rather than the other. We may prefer to see everything in its proper place, have well-charted avenues of social interaction, enjoy precision of expectation, fidelity of information, clear categorizations, respect for rank, and take pleasure in expressions of strength, control or subservience. Alternatively we may relish the connective interplay of feelings, colours and sounds, the excitements of empathies and harmonies, and the surprises of uncertainty. Of course we may enjoy both.

I suspect one's connective and architective consciousness have very different experiences of time, in that one's architective consciousness experiences time as a series of distinct events while one's connective consciousness experiences time as an indivisible, uncategorizable, ongoing duration. One's architective consciousness enjoys drama in stories - sequences of architective events situated in time - while there are no stories for one's connective consciousness - only the ongoing flows and stimulations of harmony, surprise and constellation. I think life becomes more problematic when we rush from station to station and don't enjoy the journey in between.

While we are not conscious of our subconscious sentience, others may be aware of it through our subconscious expressions. However, they too can only be conscious of our subconscious sentience when their conscious and our subconscious sentiences are in the same mode. Similarly, I might be conscious of someone else's subconscious sentience that is in the mode of my consciousness.

This also means that one cannot be conscious of both of another person's sentiences simultaneously (though of course one might switch from one to the other).

Any serial meaning being communicated, consciously or subconsciously, must be of the same mode as the sentiences involved. Connective consciousnesses might communicate vibrationally while architective consciousnesses might communicate symbolically, for example.

Keep in mind that the narratives each sentience comprehends are mostly seamless, since the serial meanings in its opposite mode are meaningless or irrelevant to it. Each sentience will likely experience seamless narratives even though it may be switching in and out of consciousness.

A conscious sentience brings the features of consciousness to bear on the development of its narratives. The conscious attention a narrative receives is interrupted by switching one's mode of consciousness, so holding one's consciousness to the same mode allows narratives of that mode to reap the benefits of consciousness more fully, and perhaps plumb greater depths of meaning.

In each mode of consciousness one would not only be oblivious of one's sentience in the opposite mode but of the content of one's consciousness of the opposite mode. The thoughts or feelings of one's consciousness of the opposite mode, its associations, abstractions and conceptions would all be opaque to the currently conscious sentience. In the connective mode, for example, my consciousness would be unaware of the thoughts I had while in the architective mode, while in the architective mode my consciousness would be unaware of the feelings I had while in the connective mode.

Serial expressions that were comprehended by one's subconscious sentience (and therefore in the mode of that sentience) cannot percolate through to one's conscious sentience, only perhaps when one's consciousness has switched into that mode. For example, during a business meeting one might subconsciously be attracted to another attendee, but it is only if one disengages from the architectivity of the business matter that one may consciously recognize the attraction.

In his book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World ^#6, Dr. Iain McGilchrist has suggested that the operations of our left and right brain hemispheres display different characteristics: He sees the left hemisphere being responsible for a focused attention to detail and precision, as being manipulative, restraining, limiting, fragmented and isolating; offering a knowledge of the parts, of the composition of things rather than a view of their contextual setting. The left hemisphere employs definition, representation, abstraction and rationality in its understanding of what things are while the right hemisphere employs intuition to guess uncertainly at how things change and how they might relate. The left hemisphere pursues perfection in its placement of detail and attempts to eliminate rivals or pieces that don't fit its understanding, while the right hemisphere permits compromise and seeks diversity and freedom in its aim for a wider harmony.

You will notice, as he has, ^#15 how closely the behaviour of the left hemisphere approaches architectivity while that of the right approaches connectivity. It would seem that our brains have coped with the necessity of running two sentiences by providing two hemispheres. The appearance of a bilateral division to the brain was probably a major event in the evolution of life.

Choice of Consciousness

My consciousness delivers my sense of who I am, and it is mode dependent. In the connective mode I am a flowing sense of being while in the architective mode I am an identity with a placement and history. My mode of consciousness significantly flavours my sense of who I am at any one moment.

My mode of consciousness also flavours my interaction with my environment and my appreciation of other sentiences, for it is only serial expressions of that mode I can evaluate and implement reflectively, and only sentiences of that mode I can recognize in others. It is my conscious sentience that reflects on questions of ethics and responsibility, and it does so in the context of its own mode only.

While my actions may have the same results whichever mode I have conscious, the results may sometimes be contradictory. In these cases my choice of which sentience to engage consciously will decide in which mode my personal narrative will unfold and which mode in my environment I will promote.

The choice of which sentience to engage consciously is not a trivial one.

But who is making this choice? Is there another 'me', someone who is neither of these sentiences choosing which to implement consciously? I think not: The sentience that is conscious is making the choice.

In the next chapter I show how our lives are dominated by architectivity, through environmental and social pressures and because our sense of insecurity requires that we be in control at all times. Under these pressures, our architective consciousness insists on consciousness while our connective consciousness is considerably less anxious, so architective consciousness becomes our default, only to be released - perhaps - when not under architective pressure. It is an architective judgment that is made as to whether or not our architective consciousness can be released. Architective consciousness can become so habituated that an architective consciousness will always choose itself. A connective consciousness, on the other hand, will happily let go.

That an architective consciousness invariably chooses itself is the main reason why the conscious choice of mode of consciousness is so important. I think a major step in one's personal development (and one's success in negotiating a psychedelic experience) is having one's architective consciousness learn how and when to let go.

The habituation of architective consciousness is probably a trait we acquire in order to accommodate the overwhelming dominance of architectivity in our lives. It is quite likely that as babies, or at least before becoming aware of our need to consciously respond to architective pressures, that the connective mode of consciousness was our default - and which we subsequently let go.

The terms 'connectivity' and 'architectivity' thus describe not only modes of physical, biological and social interaction, but are relevant to the meaning we find in things, our states of mind and our mentality.

(In discussing sentience in this chapter I have been thinking only of our waking state. States such as sleep or coma require a different discussion.)

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