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Agreed, I've never understood this argument. A hallucination or an illusion, or whatever this school of thought likes to call it, exists within consciousness. I

Agreed, I've never understood this argument. A hallucination or an illusion, or whatever this school of thought likes to call it, exists within consciousness. It's a qualitative experience. If my consciousness is an illusion, then who or what is experiencing that illusion, and how? Is that experience also just an illusion? Illusions all the way down? Perhaps I misunderstand Dennet's ideas. Maybe he means something entirely different by "illusion" and "consciousness" than what I understand those terms to mean. But these theories certainly appear to me to be a clever semantic way to ignore the question rather than answer it.

naasking 2y ago
> It's a qualitative experience. If my consciousness is an illusion, then who or what is experiencing that illusion, and how? Asking "who" begs the question that subjects are necessary, therefore "what" is the only question that matters. What "experiences the illusion" that experiences exist too. But "what perceives the illusion" dissolves the hard problem entirely since it permits a mechanistic system, where an illusion is a perception that entails a false conclusion, all things that don't require admitting privileged subjects into your ontology.
- roarcher 2y ago
  I said "who or what" in anticipation of this exact tiresome semantic game. Use whichever word you prefer, it's irrelevant to my point. My point is that qualia exist. You can call them an illusion, but we still "feel" them. Why are we able to feel anything, illusory or real? My ontology does not require "privileged subjects". I make no claims about where qualia may or may not exist outside of human minds. I merely acknowledge that they do exist in the human mind, the one place where they can be observed and self-reported. And I think the question of what produces them is worth investigating. Unfortunately any discussion is drowned out by the thought-terminating cliche, "it's an illusion". What exactly do you mean by an "illusion", anyway? Do you mean that I'm programmed by evolution to believe and behave as if I have internal experiences, but I actually don't? I would beg to differ, but I suppose by your reasoning, that's exactly what a befuddled meat robot such as myself would say.
  - naasking 2y ago
    > it's irrelevant to my point. It's not though, the existence of true subjectivity is the central point of the hard problem of consciousness. Science consists of third party objective facts, and so accepting the existence of first person subjective facts is incompatible with materialist science. > And I think the question of what produces them is worth investigating. I agree, I don't think anybody disputes that. Illusionism doesn't preclude investigation into how the illusion is produced, it's just a framework for interpreting the results of experiments in a way that's compatible with materialism. > Do you mean that I'm programmed by evolution to believe and behave as if I have internal experiences, but I actually don't? Your perceptions of subjective qualitative experience are incompatible with materialist science, as I said. You then have two choices: choose to privilege your perceptions and claim that you have some direct access to some aspect of reality, or accept that your perceptions of subjectivity are not a direct perception of reality and thus illusory.
    - roarcher 2y ago
      > or accept that your perceptions of subjectivity are not a direct perception of reality and thus illusory. I see now that we're using the word "illusion" in different ways and talking past each other. I agree that qualia are not a direct or accurate experience of reality. Dreams consist of qualia, but most people would not argue that what happens in their dreams must actually be happening. What is not illusory is the fact that subjective experience exists, and that's the sense in which I use the word. I and everyone else (I presume) experience qualia. The fact that the content of consciousness consists of illusions is undoubtedly correct and quite easy to demonstrate, but that is a different and unrelated matter. It is also unsurprising, since what we actually experience is presumably derived from the inner physical state of our brain, which is at best only a proxy for the reality of our surroundings. I do not believe that Dennett himself actually makes this distinction. He seems to sometimes ignore and sometimes outright deny the existence of qualia, which is an absolutely baffling position for any introspective conscious being to take. In regards to whether qualia are compatible with materialism, I will just point out that if a scientific theory denies the existence of a thing that obviously exists, then the problem is with the theory, not the thing. I can think of nothing more un-scientific than insisting on the theory just to spite reality for not conforming to our materialist ideals.

naasking 2y ago

> It's a qualitative experience. If my consciousness is an illusion, then who or what is experiencing that illusion, and how? Asking "who" begs the question that subjects are necessary, therefore "what" is the only question that matters. What "experiences the illusion" that experiences exist too. But "what perceives the illusion" dissolves the hard problem entirely since it permits a mechanistic system, where an illusion is a perception that entails a false conclusion, all things that don't require admitting privileged subjects into your ontology.

roarcher 2y ago
I said "who or what" in anticipation of this exact tiresome semantic game. Use whichever word you prefer, it's irrelevant to my point. My point is that qualia exist. You can call them an illusion, but we still "feel" them. Why are we able to feel anything, illusory or real? My ontology does not require "privileged subjects". I make no claims about where qualia may or may not exist outside of human minds. I merely acknowledge that they do exist in the human mind, the one place where they can be observed and self-reported. And I think the question of what produces them is worth investigating. Unfortunately any discussion is drowned out by the thought-terminating cliche, "it's an illusion". What exactly do you mean by an "illusion", anyway? Do you mean that I'm programmed by evolution to believe and behave as if I have internal experiences, but I actually don't? I would beg to differ, but I suppose by your reasoning, that's exactly what a befuddled meat robot such as myself would say.
- naasking 2y ago
  > it's irrelevant to my point. It's not though, the existence of true subjectivity is the central point of the hard problem of consciousness. Science consists of third party objective facts, and so accepting the existence of first person subjective facts is incompatible with materialist science. > And I think the question of what produces them is worth investigating. I agree, I don't think anybody disputes that. Illusionism doesn't preclude investigation into how the illusion is produced, it's just a framework for interpreting the results of experiments in a way that's compatible with materialism. > Do you mean that I'm programmed by evolution to believe and behave as if I have internal experiences, but I actually don't? Your perceptions of subjective qualitative experience are incompatible with materialist science, as I said. You then have two choices: choose to privilege your perceptions and claim that you have some direct access to some aspect of reality, or accept that your perceptions of subjectivity are not a direct perception of reality and thus illusory.
  - roarcher 2y ago
    > or accept that your perceptions of subjectivity are not a direct perception of reality and thus illusory. I see now that we're using the word "illusion" in different ways and talking past each other. I agree that qualia are not a direct or accurate experience of reality. Dreams consist of qualia, but most people would not argue that what happens in their dreams must actually be happening. What is not illusory is the fact that subjective experience exists, and that's the sense in which I use the word. I and everyone else (I presume) experience qualia. The fact that the content of consciousness consists of illusions is undoubtedly correct and quite easy to demonstrate, but that is a different and unrelated matter. It is also unsurprising, since what we actually experience is presumably derived from the inner physical state of our brain, which is at best only a proxy for the reality of our surroundings. I do not believe that Dennett himself actually makes this distinction. He seems to sometimes ignore and sometimes outright deny the existence of qualia, which is an absolutely baffling position for any introspective conscious being to take. In regards to whether qualia are compatible with materialism, I will just point out that if a scientific theory denies the existence of a thing that obviously exists, then the problem is with the theory, not the thing. I can think of nothing more un-scientific than insisting on the theory just to spite reality for not conforming to our materialist ideals.