The Consciousness

When we die there are two things that happen, and it is very plain to see: First, our consciousness is completely divorced from our physical form, very different from sleeping, different from a trance, different from anything else. Second, our physical form decays, as the vessel which held our consciousness before, now holds nothing and is returning (with the help of bacteria, chemicals and whatnot) back to a state of matter. These two things are very obvious and is something that almost everybody has seen, or at least seen the effects of at some point in their life, whether it be with a human, a dog, a fish, or even a dying fly. What isn't plain to see is what happens to the consciousness, something that was there previously is not there anymore. We do not "know" with our logic, what is the next stage of consciousness, but we do, instinctively, have some idea of what happens on an irrational, animal level. The same as the physical body returns to the greater physical earth, the consciousness returns to the greater level of consciousness, as Yeats called it the Spiritus Mundi, as Jung called it The Collective Unconscious. Effectively, the spirit world.

John Locke arrived on a similar conclusion, although in a more roundabout way that was a lot more tied to Victorian-era vocabulary and thinking. In his, Identity and Diversity he states that "...The consciousness is tied to, and is a state of, a single immaterial consciousness." That the a person is less a physical individual, and more of a conscious individual. However, the nature of that person's conscious identity is shaped by that same vessel identity. "Person is the name for Self", etc. So that while 2 physical entities cannot occupy the same space, 1 conscious entity may be able to.

Sixth Sense is in essence a movie about what happens when a consciousness is divorced from its physical body, but does not move on to the Spirit World, as it were. The consciousness doesn't realize it hasn't moved on, so is stuck trying to exorcise itself by aping its physical actions. The "self" or "personality" of Bruce Willis' character is in essence remembering all of its past actions and trying to redo them or replay them so as to move on to the Spirit World. Therein lies the purpose of Haley Joel Osment's character, a being who is also between the Spirit World and the Physical World, but has kept his physical shell. They are in some ways, as Locke would describe them, 2 consciousness' occupying the same space. Which is why they both push and pull each other back into balance, Willis back to the Spirit World, Osment back into the Physical World.