 One partial exception to this pattern of neglect was Gestalt psychology. Indeed, Gestalt psychology was sufficiently influential in its time that some positivists tried to make their systems compatible with it (Smith 1994: 23). For instance, Carnap chose to avoid any commitment to atoms of experience as the elements of his system, opting instead for ‘total experiences’. As we will see, a notion similar to his concept of irreducible experiential wholes can be fruitful  (Section 7.4).  However, Carnap seems to have had something rather different in mind from what philosophers now have in mind when they speak of the unity of consciousness. Gestalt unity is a unity in a structure of which one is conscious, where the way in which each part appears is derived from the structure of the whole (Tye 2003: 11–5; Bayne &amp; Chalmers 2003: 27). This is distinct from unity in one’s consciousness of objects, objects that need not themselves exhibit the qualities of gestalt structures.