I have an idea for discussing the so-called subjective aspect of human action (feeling, perceiving, thinking, etc.) in comparison to the so-called objective aspect (human processes and structures that we can observe from the outside and measure). Historically, we have come to talk about them as if they were two different things that mysteriously interact with each other. But that is kind of like thinking of magnetism and electricity as two different processes. Just as one discovers that they are two aspects of the same reality called electromagnetism, so two, one can discover that the subjective/objective are likewise two different aspects of the same hylomorphic reality. Of course, this analogy limps if you take it too far...
This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...
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