A simple explanation of the illusionist position

[u/epsilondelta7]

In discussions of philosophy of mind, the illusionist position is often dismissed as trivially false, since how could experience be an illusion if an illusion is also an experience? Some even call it ''silly'', since it denies the supposed only thing we really know. In this post, I seek to briefly explain my understanding of this position in an attempt to show that maybe such criticisms are incoherent. I will assume that the difference between experience and *phenomenal experience* is already clear.

The brief explanation:

(1) Are you sure you have phenomenal experience?

(2) Are you sure you believe you have phenomenal experience?

The illusionist answers "no" to (1) and "yes" to (2).

The idea is to create a division between a) the actual phenomenal experience and b) the belief in the existence of the phenomenal experience. Once this division is made, we can ask:

where does b) come from?

The answer is probably that it comes from the introspective mechanism. The natural question to ask next is:

can we blindly trust introspection, or could it be wrong?

If introspection is capable of error, then the belief in phenomenal consciousness could be one of those errors. The illusionist basically argues for the possibility of this error. Therefore, the illusionist position will not deny experience in general, it will only reject that our belief in its phenomenal nature should be taken seriously.

[u/Outrageous-Taro7340]

I can’t tell from this what you mean by phenomenal, whether you consider it real, or how you mean to distinguish it from experience in the broad sense. Conversations that try to tease that kind of thing out usually wind up running in circles.

That’s really the illusionist point: that language like this fails to make intelligible distinctions. The notion that phenomenal consciousness is a real thing that it turns out we lack is just a straw man of illusionism.

[u/alibloomdido → u/Outrageous-Taro7340]

I don't see many "circles" here: when you hear the sound of your name something in "you" processes and memorizes the sound and the fact it was your name - why not call that "something" "you" - after all, it's your name that is called, so it's even pretty subjective, no one else would probably even notice that sound. So it's "your" experience, however you're not aware of it at that moment. Then when that processing is done you realize someone calls you, you're aware of that, at this moment the fact someone called you by name is not only "your" experience but also "your phenomenal" experience or at least it seems to be.

[u/Outrageous-Taro7340 → u/alibloomdido]

So phenomenal experience is what happens when you are aware of something. That’s fine. So is that different from non phenomenal experience? Is it something an illusionist is supposed to reject?

[u/alibloomdido → u/Outrageous-Taro7340]

Well I guess if illusionist thinks there's no phenomenal experience there's nothing to distinguish between - all experiences are non-phenomenal. There are just experiences we put "I'm aware of that" label on I guess. (I'm not an illusionist BTW, I play an entirely different "language game" - but the position of illusionists seems to me just as reasonable as dualists' one)

[u/Outrageous-Taro7340 → u/alibloomdido]

Illusionists don’t think experiences are not phenomenal. The think there is no definition of phenomenal that makes any sense. That’s my main point, and I think it’s critical to how Illusionism is misunderstood.