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>Who claimed it wasn't necessary for functioning? The text boxes and links and windows on your screen are also illusions, they don't actually exist in the scree
by andoando 2y ago
>Who claimed it wasn't necessary for functioning? The text boxes and links and windows on your screen are also illusions, they don't actually exist in the screen or inside the computer, but how useful would a computer be to you without these illusions?
By this reasoning, everything we perceive, including physical reality is an "illusion" (which I am totally onboard with).
There is still the question however, of when does this illusion arise? Is any system that understands its sensory input conscious? Is any system that has the ability to form thoughts in a feedback loop (i.e, the ability to process its own thoughts), consciously experiencing the world in a similar manner as I am? Or what's the criteria?
- naasking 2y ago> By this reasoning, everything we perceive, including physical reality is an "illusion" Yes and no. An illusion is technically a perception that does not correspond to reality. So it's not an illusion to say there's a table in front of you, but some of the table's apparent properties might turn out to be illusions of sorts, eg. its solidity might suggests that it's solid all the way through, but we know it's 99% empty space and the perception of solidity arises from the exchange of photons. This is the kind of illusion that consciousness would end up being: some process that useful in evolutionary terms, but which reduces to something completely different and mechanical in terms of particle exchanges, and which at a high-level leaves us with the belief that we have subjective experience. For one possible model of how this would work, see: https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119 https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119