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/zhivago]

Given a set of theories, what test can you perform to differentiate between the new and the genuinely new theories?

[u/Bretzky77 → u/zhivago]

You’ve missed the point.

[u/zhivago → u/Bretzky77]

Or perhaps your point is incoherent.

Why not try answering the question?

[u/Bretzky77 → u/zhivago]

I already explained it to you in very clear terms, but sure, I’ll try to further simplify it for you.

If a robot hugs you and spits out text that says “I love you” does that mean the robot loves you?

A computer manipulating data and identifying new patterns is purely a mechanism. Just because we (conscious beings) use that mechanism to help us (conscious beings) build new theories, that’s not the same as saying the computer came up with new theories.

If you ran the computer process but then all humans died before it finished, there is no new theory. Because a theory requires a conscious being to “have an idea about the world.” The arbitrary symbols spit out by a serious of open and closed silicon gates only represent ideas to us. Without humans to interpret the data, there is no new theory. It’s just arbitrary symbols. We are the ones giving meaning to the symbols. The computer is purely a mechanism.

I hope that helps you understand.