William Adams

The Granularity of Consciousness Is consciousness continuous like a flowing stream or composed of discrete units? William James described consciousness as a stream but also used metaphors suggesting interruption and segmentation, such as a bird alternating between flights and perchings. Modern theories of mind are divided between continuous and discrete models. To address this difference, a hypothetical minimal unit of mentality is proposed, the “Quantum Mental Process” (QMP). It is the smallest possible unit of mental activity, consisting of two poles, subjectivity and objectivity, linked by reciprocal processes of intentionality and accommodation. A complete QMP cycle lasting roughly 50 to 300 milliseconds constitutes a single mental act (Adams, 2026). Its individual components are not conscious. Consciousness is any span of QMP cycles. Imagine that mentality in general consists of three interacting QMP-based systems: the socio-linguistic mind (SLM), contextualized by self-reflection and phenomenal awareness; the sensorimotor cycle (SMC), associated with bodily feelings and intuition; and the intrinsic motivational source (IMS), linked to motivation. The trio of QMPs usually operates harmoniously, though disjunctions create puzzling experiences such as contradictory motives or performance errors. Consciousness appears continuous or granular depending on the scale of observation. Over experience lasting seconds or minutes, it seems smooth. Across a lifetime it is segmented by non-mental periods such as dreamless sleep. At very brief timescales, consciousness appears bursty, as revealed in meditation and experimental psychology studies. Below the duration of a QMP, no conscious experience is detectable. This architecture discriminates granular mentality from overall conscious experience, analogous to a three-cylinder combustion engine. The approach could guide philosophical investigations of consciousness in animals, plants, or machines, and may even provide a blueprint for constructing conscious artificial intelligence. Reference Adams, W.X. (2026). Subjective Realism: A theory of subjectivity. www.PsiFiBooks.com.

William A. Adams, Ph.D., is a cognitive psychologist who left academia for the information technology industry. He writes psychological nonfiction and fiction from Portland, Oregon as William X. Adams. Contact him at www.psifibooks.com/contact.