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space. And since TWE is universal mental space ([12]), it is empirically coherent to infer that dissociati on can happen at a universal level as well. Inference [13] allows discrete centers of experience to form within the all-encompassing and otherwise unitary TWE, through top-down dissociation. The challenge we must now tackle is the so-called ‘boundary problem for experiencing subjects’ (Rosenberg 2004, pp. 77-90): What physical arrangements in nature correspond to dissociated alters of TWE? We know that we, human beings, do. Do animals too? What about plants? Rocks? Atoms? Subatomic particles? [14]

As Gregg Rosenberg put it, ‘we must find something in nature to ground [the boundaries of] an experiencing subject’ (Rosenberg 2004, p. 80)—that is, the boundaries of a dissociated alter of TWE. This ‘something in nature’ must be a physical arrangement whose structural and functional characteristics allow us to differentiate it from everything else. After all, only on the basis of this differentiation can we delineate the boundaries of dissociated alters from an extrinsic perspective. But just what is the physical arrangement Rosenberg was looking for? The answer seems empirically obvious to me:

metabolizing life

. My reasoning is simple: since we only have intrinsic access to ourselves,

we

are the only physical arrangements

known

to have dissociated streams of inner experiences. We also know that our metabolism is essential for the maintenance of this dissociation, for when it slows down or stops the dissociation seems to reduce or end (Kastrup 2014, pp. 42-50). These observations alone suggest strongly that metabolizing life is the physical arrangement corresponding to alters of TWE. But there is more: insofar as it resembles our own, the extrinsic behavior of

all

metabolizing organisms is also suggestive of their having dissociated streams of inner experiences analogous to ours in some sense. This is obvious enough for cats and dogs, but—you might ask—what about single-celled organisms such as amoebae? Well, consider this: ‘many types of amoeba construct glassy shells by picking up sand grains from the mud in which they live. The typical

Difflugia

shell, for example, is shaped like a vase, and has a remarkable symmetry’ (Ford 2010, p. 26). Clearly, thus, even single-celled organisms exhibit extrinsic behavior somewhat analogous to our own, further suggesting that they, too, have dissociated streams of inner experiences. Of course, the same

cannot

be said of any inanimate object or phe nomenon that has n’t bee n eng ineered by hu mans. Fin ally, the re is no doubt that metabolism is a highly differentiated process. Consider DNA, morphogenesis, transcription, protein folding, m itosis, etc.: nothing else in nature e xhibits stru ctural an d funct ional cha racteristics such as these. And it is these characteristics that unify all metabolizing life into a unique, clearly distinct natural category, despite the wildly different forms organisms can take. This category is the unambiguously demarcated ‘something in nature’ that Rosenberg was looking for.

Metabolizin g organis ms are the extrinsic view of dissociated alters of TWE

. By taking

complete

living beings to be

unitary

experiencing subjects, inference [14] avoids the so-called ‘combination problem’

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that plagues Micropsychism. Increasingly popular in academia, the metaphysics of Micropsychism posits that entities as small as subatomic particles are experiencing subjects in their own merit (Strawson et al. 2006, pp. 24-29). In other words, electrons are supposed to be sentient. Micropsychists imagine that the unitary consciousness of more complex experiencing subjects, such as human beings, arise from

bottom-up combination

of countless simpler subjects. Leaving aside the complete lack of empirical substantiation for the alleged sentience of electrons, the problem is that the bottom-up combination of subjects is an unexplainable

process, perhaps even inc oherent (Coleman 2014). It is as much an appeal to magic as the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (Goff 2009). Inference [14] circumvents this altogether by positing that

top-down dissociati on

—instead of b ottom-up combinatio n—happe ns e xactly at the level of individual living creatures with unitary consciousness, such as ourselves. And unlike bottom-up combination, we actually understand and have plenty of empirical evidence for top-down dissociation, as discussed in the context of inference [13]. The motivation for Micropsychism is that, undeniably, subatomic particles are the discernible pixels of the physical world we see. But to imagine, for this reason alone, that the awareness of living beings is c omposed of myriad subatomic-level subjects makes a rather simple mistake: it attributes to TWE itself a structure that is discernible only in the

excitations

of TWE—that is, in our experience of the physical world ([10]). This is entirely equivalent to saying, for instance, that water is made of ripples simply because one can discern individual ripples in water. Obviously, individual ripples make up the structure of the

movements

of water, not of water itself. In exactly the same way, subatomic particles are the pixels of the observable ‘movements’ of TWE, not the building blocks of TWE itself. Our unitary awareness is not composed of micro-subjects for exactly the same reason that water is not made up of ripples. The essence of inference [14] is that there is something a dissociated alter of TWE looks like—namely, a metabolizing body. By now this shouldn’t come as a surprise: recall that, as per inference [12], the universe as a whole is akin to a cosmic nervous system. Recall also that a study has shown that dissociati ve processes in the nervous systems of DID patients have a distinct extrinsic view, detectable by brain scans. Therefore, it is only natural that dissociation in the cosmic nervous system should

also

have a distinct extrinsic view. It so happens that this view is what we call

2

Skrbina describes the combination problem as ‘the question of how