Introduction to 'Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness'

This is a short introduction to my 2016 paper 'Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness', prepared at the request of James Andow, who was teaching the paper to his students. I talk about my motivation for writing this piece, how my thinking has developed since it was published, and which objections to its arguments I take most seriously.

[completely_worthless_being]

The mystery of consciousness is so offensive to materialists they actually resort to labeling it a kind of magic.

[mdesm]

if the mind is the brain in action, subject to the limits of biology, chemistry, and physics, then trying to get an intuitively satisfying feel for what intuition is, could be an attempt at infinite regress. Which is not possible. So stop asking "why does blue seems the way it does", because that's really a desire to have an intuitive feel for intuition.

[elk]

Is this a panpsychist theory? If human consciousness is nothing but an informational and reactive process, and yet it leads to preconceptual consciousness, pain, pleasure, perceptions and other subjective states, doesn't that mean that the whole of the universe is conscious as well?

You say that it is the self-monitoring that leads to the illusion of having an inner experience. We only believe we have one because of our metacognition, because we have thoughts about ourselves, this makes total sense. But self monitoring cannot account for raw sensitivity to the enviroment or awareness. It cannot account for preconceptual consciousness.

Every configuration of matter processes information and reacts to its enviroment to one degree or another, none of that is exclusive to the brain. It makes no sense to expect something like a bacteria or an atom to have self-awareness, but why wouldn't your theory imply that they do have preconceptual consciousness or mere awareness?

Atoms and bacteria are informational and reactive processes, ultimately, in essence no different than the brain, just less complex and with different structure. If informational processes lead to preconceptual consciousness in the case of the brain, they should lead to that in the rest of nature, or we are talking dualism or strong emergence here. To say otherwise would be to place the human brain in a pedestal, to say that it plays by different rules to the rest of the universe, just like the vitalists did with life. If proposing an "élan vital" is absurd, then proposing only the brain has consciousness would be absurd too. I'm sure you wouldn't fall for such a misguided error in reasoning.

So are you a panpsychist then?

[johnstotts]

"Strong" illusionism - the idea that one's own conscious experiences are illusory - is the most absurd thought a person can possibly have. A more absurd thought is not possible.

[JohnSmith-bqnf]

Can you fold a feeling into a napkin? It seems to me that mental states can't be reduced to physical states.

[schmendenend]

thank you I'm doing an essay on illusionism for uni and both ur article and this video have been super helpful !!

[Safelyacrosstheroad]

[edit: typos] Do I have this right? Frankish does not appear to be on the side of what people 'pre-theoretically' mean by consciousness/mind at all. But he tries to get that presupposition by us without proper justification. People implicitly mean 'phenomenal, felt consciousness' when they refer to the mind etc. That much is obvious. And that's just ordinary language analysis.

Interesting, then, that Frankish would appeal to a rhetoric that would have us think otherwise. That strikes me as suspicious.

This connects, further, to the contradiction in 'I'm not denying the reality of pain' etc., but also saying (when enough time has passed) 'that pain doesn't mean *phenomenal* pain' -- when, of course, 'reality of pain' is only taken to precisely mean 'phenomenal, felt pain'. Pain is of ethical importance and urgent meaning precisely because of the reality of its subjective experience. An illusion of pain that convinces you that is not really just an illusion...is hardly an illusion. And what exactly can the 'you' or 'I' refer to in this confusion? (As Sir Roger Penrose points out). Pain hurts -- phenomenally.

Or as Wittgenstein might put it: 'If pain weren't an illusion, then how would real pain feel compared to now?'

Do you see?

[numericalcode]

Wild goose chases is the best way to put it.

[notexactlyrocketscience]

illusory conscioussness turtles all the way down

[ftlbaby]

Thank you for this! I heard you on Nous and didn't understand the theory. I'm still not clear so I'll let it simmer and come back to watch this again soon.

[fzollo]

Thanks for this very clear explication of ideas that, to say the least, are counter-intuitive. Seems very consistent with the thrust of Sam Harris' meditation app Waking Up.

[davidferrer]

More videos like this please, very interesting 👌

[bigtexnick]

good stuff. very deep and interesting. thank you

[GodlessPhilosopher]

Fascinating. I love hearing your thoughts. I'm currently reading your anti-panpsychism paper.

[doctauglyd]

Lights and simple shapes got the monkeys all fucked up thinking they in s complex reality