# Consciousness Unifies What the Brain Keeps Distributed by Vilayanur Ramachandran > "What does this have to do with consciousness? Instead of focusing on pedantic philosophical issues, Crick and Koch began with their naïve intuitions. "Consciousness" has many attributes—continuity in time, a sense of agency or free will, recursiveness or "self-awareness," etc. But one attribute that stands out is subjective unity: you experience all your diverse sense impressions, thoughts, willed actions and memories as being a unity—not jittery or fragmented. This attribute of consciousness, with the accompanying sense of the immediate "present" or "here and now," is so obvious that we don't usually think about it; we regard it as axiomatic." > **— Vilayanur Ramachandran**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [Genes, Claustrum, and Consciousness](https://www.edge.org/responses/what-is-your-favorite-deep-elegant-or-beautiful-explanation) — Edge published this passage in its 2012 Annual Question collection, *What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?*. The full response preserves the qualifications and argument surrounding this exact extract. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2012 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2012 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first archive record for the complete yearly response cohort. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]] - **Article:** [[articles/Escape Hatch in the Skull|Escape Hatch in the Skull]] - **Article:** [[articles/Science of Digital Consciousness|Science of Digital Consciousness]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Host Infrastructure Overview]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Global Workspace Theory|Global Workspace Theory]] - [[wiki/Consciousness Continuity Infrastructure|Consciousness Continuity Infrastructure]] - [[wiki/Consciousness|Consciousness]] - [[wiki/Neural Interface|Neural Interface]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "What does this have to do with consciousness? Instead of focusing on pedantic philosophical issues, Crick and Koch began with their naïve intuitions. "Consciousness" has many attributes—continuity in time, a sense of agency or free will, recursiveness or "self-awareness," etc. But one attribute that stands out is subjective unity: you experience all your diverse sense impressions, thoughts, willed actions and memories as being a unity—not jittery or fragmented. This attribute of consciousness, with the accompanying sense of the immediate "present" or "here and now," is so obvious that we don't usually think about it; we regard it as axiomatic." — Vilayanur Ramachandran, 2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-vilayanur-ramachandran-consciousness-unifies-brain ```