> The question is also 'why does a human form a single consciousness?'
The answer should be obvious to anyone earnestly thinking about the question: it doesn't. The "single consciousness" is just the abstraction we apply. We can, and often do, apply that same model to entire groups of people from cliques, to communities, to cultures, to nation states and just about any cross section of humanity one cares to. With a little effort we can apply the same model to internal mental processes[0].
The human mind is good at abstraction, which is fortunate because abstractions are useful. Unfortunately, it is often so preoccupied with any given abstraction that it forgets that abstractions are only useful contextually, because abstractions are not reality.
[0] As in Internal Family Systems, a model sometimes used in therapeutic contexts.
Absolutely, even ancient Buddhist thinking comes to the same conclusion: consciousness isn't a single "thing", it arises moment to moment in contact with sense organs (including "thinking" or "mind" as a sense organ). There isn't a single point of consciousness that is "I", that's just an abstraction we develop.
The answer should be obvious to anyone earnestly thinking about the question: it doesn't. The "single consciousness" is just the abstraction we apply. We can, and often do, apply that same model to entire groups of people from cliques, to communities, to cultures, to nation states and just about any cross section of humanity one cares to. With a little effort we can apply the same model to internal mental processes[0].
The human mind is good at abstraction, which is fortunate because abstractions are useful. Unfortunately, it is often so preoccupied with any given abstraction that it forgets that abstractions are only useful contextually, because abstractions are not reality.
[0] As in Internal Family Systems, a model sometimes used in therapeutic contexts.