ABSTRACT
Since my main topic is the way experiences are interrelated within streams of consciousness, some preliminary clarifications concerning what I mean by ‘experience’ and ‘consciousness’ are in order. There is of course a limit on what can be said on this topic: if you do not know what it is like to have experience, words will not help, and there is probably no ‘you’ there to find out. But although ‘consciousness’ and ‘experience’ are to some extent primitive notions, they are also as hotly contested as any in philosophy. The literature is full of distinctions between different types of consciousness, theories about what can and cannot be said about consciousness, and the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. In this opening chapter I will indicate where I stand on a few of these issues, those that are relevant to what follows. In particular, I will have something to say about two distinctive types of experience, the experience of understanding and perceptual experience. I focus on the latter to avoid possible misunderstandings, and on the former because it is often ignored altogether. Also, as I will be spending a good deal of time trying to describe various features of our experience, I make some general comments on phenomenology and related matters.
