Is consciousness an illusion?

[Belindi]

I had not thought you were a Platonist.

You must think Redness is just a concept with no real Existence. If you think more Deeply about Redness and all the other Conscious Experiences, you will gradually understand the Reality of them.

This exchange with you has helped me to think some more about redness and other quantitative abstractions from real experiences, abstractions such as highness, wideness, beforeness, afterness, blueness, goodness, trueness, prettiness, soreness, yellowness, hardness, and so on and so forth.

Each of those abstractions are wrested from the totality of a real experience. All real experiences are experiences of an environment infinitely more than any bit or bob such as one word can express.

I'm happy to help. But you are putting disparate Categories of things into the same Box. So, I have to differ with you that Redness is in the same category as all those things. Highness and Wideness are concepts that arise in any Physical Universe that has Dimensions. The words describe some Physical aspect of that Universe. Whereas, Redness has nothing to do with the Dimensionality of any Physical Universe. Redness is an Experience and not a mere Concept. Beforeness and Afterness are also not in the same Category as Redness. These could mean Before and After in a Timeline, or Before and After in Physical Space. Since Redness is Dimensionless and TImeless it has nothing to do with these things. Then when you lump in Goodness and Trueness into the Box, I feel you really do not yet understand the reality of Redness as a Thing In Itself. Redness is a Conscious Experience that actually Exists in a Conscious Mind and so has an actual Existence in the Manifest Universe. Take the Redness out of the Visual Scene you are looking at and Play with it a little. You might discover something interesting.

Some people are red/green colour blind. Some are unable to to feel hardness or softness. Some can't tell the difference between upness and downness. Some never evaluate goodness or trueness. Every experience is experience of the body. There is no conscious mind that lacks a body.

There is no such thing as perfect red or perfect blue.All colours are relative to other colours and a lot more besides.

Nobody can perceive perfect redness, because any colour hue is altered in the perception by the proximity of other colours or shades of black and white.
Redness and other hues are affected by cultures, emotions, age of the perceiving person, and colour symbolism.

https://www.britannica.com/science/colo ... -of-colour


I can't remember the philosopher who thought, rather like yourself, that colour hues are special.

[SteveKlinko]

You must think Redness is just a concept with no real Existence. If you think more Deeply about Redness and all the other Conscious Experiences, you will gradually understand the Reality of them.

This exchange with you has helped me to think some more about redness and other quantitative abstractions from real experiences, abstractions such as highness, wideness, beforeness, afterness, blueness, goodness, trueness, prettiness, soreness, yellowness, hardness, and so on and so forth.

Each of those abstractions are wrested from the totality of a real experience. All real experiences are experiences of an environment infinitely more than any bit or bob such as one word can express.

I'm happy to help. But you are putting disparate Categories of things into the same Box. So, I have to differ with you that Redness is in the same category as all those things. Highness and Wideness are concepts that arise in any Physical Universe that has Dimensions. The words describe some Physical aspect of that Universe. Whereas, Redness has nothing to do with the Dimensionality of any Physical Universe. Redness is an Experience and not a mere Concept. Beforeness and Afterness are also not in the same Category as Redness. These could mean Before and After in a Timeline, or Before and After in Physical Space. Since Redness is Dimensionless and TImeless it has nothing to do with these things. Then when you lump in Goodness and Trueness into the Box, I feel you really do not yet understand the reality of Redness as a Thing In Itself. Redness is a Conscious Experience that actually Exists in a Conscious Mind and so has an actual Existence in the Manifest Universe. Take the Redness out of the Visual Scene you are looking at and Play with it a little. You might discover something interesting.

Some people are red/green colour blind. Some are unable to to feel hardness or softness. Some can't tell the difference between upness and downness. Some never evaluate goodness or trueness. Every experience is experience of the body. There is no conscious mind that lacks a body.

There is no such thing as perfect red or perfect blue.All colours are relative to other colours and a lot more besides.

Nobody can perceive perfect redness, because any colour hue is altered in the perception by the proximity of other colours or shades of black and white.
Redness and other hues are affected by cultures, emotions, age of the perceiving person, and colour symbolism.

https://www.britannica.com/science/colo ... -of-colour


I can't remember the philosopher who thought, rather like yourself, that colour hues are special.

Seems like a diversion to bring up Color Degeneracies when we don't even understand Normal Color Experience yet. Of course, there will be differences in what different people Experience because we all have slightly different Visual Mechanisms, even among what is considered to be people with Normal Vision. But the Experience of Color, regardless of what any particular person is Experiencing, is the thing that is more than a concept, but it is a real Phenomenon. Someday Science might be able to measure what people are actually Experiencing and Thinking.

[Belindi]

This exchange with you has helped me to think some more about redness and other quantitative abstractions from real experiences, abstractions such as highness, wideness, beforeness, afterness, blueness, goodness, trueness, prettiness, soreness, yellowness, hardness, and so on and so forth.

Each of those abstractions are wrested from the totality of a real experience. All real experiences are experiences of an environment infinitely more than any bit or bob such as one word can express.

I'm happy to help. But you are putting disparate Categories of things into the same Box. So, I have to differ with you that Redness is in the same category as all those things. Highness and Wideness are concepts that arise in any Physical Universe that has Dimensions. The words describe some Physical aspect of that Universe. Whereas, Redness has nothing to do with the Dimensionality of any Physical Universe. Redness is an Experience and not a mere Concept. Beforeness and Afterness are also not in the same Category as Redness. These could mean Before and After in a Timeline, or Before and After in Physical Space. Since Redness is Dimensionless and TImeless it has nothing to do with these things. Then when you lump in Goodness and Trueness into the Box, I feel you really do not yet understand the reality of Redness as a Thing In Itself. Redness is a Conscious Experience that actually Exists in a Conscious Mind and so has an actual Existence in the Manifest Universe. Take the Redness out of the Visual Scene you are looking at and Play with it a little. You might discover something interesting.

Some people are red/green colour blind. Some are unable to to feel hardness or softness. Some can't tell the difference between upness and downness. Some never evaluate goodness or trueness. Every experience is experience of the body. There is no conscious mind that lacks a body.

There is no such thing as perfect red or perfect blue.All colours are relative to other colours and a lot more besides.

Nobody can perceive perfect redness, because any colour hue is altered in the perception by the proximity of other colours or shades of black and white.
Redness and other hues are affected by cultures, emotions, age of the perceiving person, and colour symbolism.

https://www.britannica.com/science/colo ... -of-colour


I can't remember the philosopher who thought, rather like yourself, that colour hues are special.

Seems like a diversion to bring up Color Degeneracies when we don't even understand Normal Color Experience yet. Of course, there will be differences in what different people Experience because we all have slightly different Visual Mechanisms, even among what is considered to be people with Normal Vision. But the Experience of Color, regardless of what any particular person is Experiencing, is the thing that is more than a concept, but it is a real Phenomenon. Someday Science might be able to measure what people are actually Experiencing and Thinking.

"

----the Experience of Color, regardless of what any particular person is Experiencing, is the thing that is more than a concept, but it is a real Phenomenon.

Any experience is experience of a phenomenon. A phenomenon is what is experienced.

Do you claim there is such a thing as pure red? No painter or fashion designer would agree with you.

[Gertie]

Weak illusionism claims that phenomenal experience exists, but isn't what we think it is based on our own introspection. But it seems to me it's impossible to be mistaken about the content of our own experience, because the experience and its content are the same thing. To have a particular conscious experience (eg seeing a red apple) is to have knowledge of the content of that experience. Hence experience is directly known, and there is no gap between the experiencing and having knowledge of the experience where error can occur.

So Illusionism is as daft as it sounds.

That doesn't mean our experiences give us perfect direct knowledge about the world 'out there'. We can have optical illusions for example...

I'm curious if you would put cognitive distortions and cognitive biases in this same category with optical illusions. Certainly our prejudices, preconceptions, wishes and fears can cause us to misinterpret the nature of our actual perceptions and experiences, such that we are fully convinced that we are having an experience that does not match the reality of what is happening. Ironically, perhaps the most common bias is the illusion of objectivity, or the idea that we can look out into the world and directly see the true nature of events.

I think I would, as they don't seem to negate, but only distort our experiences. I don't think this changes the evident truth of what you said; it's just another example of a different kind of illusion.

Yeah I would too. My view is that we create experiential models of the world, rather than act like video recorders which perfectly capture reality except when there is a glitch (eg what we usually think of as an optical illusion). In that sense, seeing a table as solid (rather than mostly empty space), or filling in our blind spot is as much an optical illusion as the party trick type. It's not consciousness itself which is the illusion, it's the idea that it records the real world, rather than represents our interaction with it.

The unified field of consciousness we experience, is a result of all our neural subsystems interacting, influencing, filtering and focussing to produce something coherent and useful to us which will integrate into our existing world model (via building on existing neural patterns) and adds extra complexity to the way specific systems like seeing work. Our past experiences feed into our current ones correlated in patterns of neural connections, and enable short cuts, conscious and nonconscious dispositions or biases. (Anil Seth even talks about consciousness as utility based predictive hallucination). We don't have to think everything through from scratch when faced with a situation similar to ones encountered before. Those neural connections are already in place, to be fired in slightly different ways, forming slightly different new patterns. In this way, bias or predisposition, is inherent in the system.

Cognitive/thinky distortion and bias will be affected too, I think, especially as the neural connectivity required for a unified field of consciousness will make all kinds of associations between a new situation and previous ones - spark memories, emotions, thoughts, etc. And even if the neural correlates of those past connections don't fire into consciousness, they might still be activated and playing some role in what does. Think about how childhood experience influences our adult psychology, maybe not consciously, but those broad patterns of neural connections might still partially be around to be activated when triggered, even if not conscious, and distorted to create something coherent to the current situation.

That's just my thinking, I have no detailed expertise, but it makes sense in terms of what we do know. So my view is cognitive bias is likely systemic rather than a glitch, like seeing a table as solid is systemically useful so we don't bang our knee. But the thinky voice in our heads is capable of explicitly reasoning us around our biases, at least sometimes. Tho like you I haven't noticed people who wear their objectivity like a badge of honour as being especially better at it

[SteveKlinko]

I'm happy to help. But you are putting disparate Categories of things into the same Box. So, I have to differ with you that Redness is in the same category as all those things. Highness and Wideness are concepts that arise in any Physical Universe that has Dimensions. The words describe some Physical aspect of that Universe. Whereas, Redness has nothing to do with the Dimensionality of any Physical Universe. Redness is an Experience and not a mere Concept. Beforeness and Afterness are also not in the same Category as Redness. These could mean Before and After in a Timeline, or Before and After in Physical Space. Since Redness is Dimensionless and TImeless it has nothing to do with these things. Then when you lump in Goodness and Trueness into the Box, I feel you really do not yet understand the reality of Redness as a Thing In Itself. Redness is a Conscious Experience that actually Exists in a Conscious Mind and so has an actual Existence in the Manifest Universe. Take the Redness out of the Visual Scene you are looking at and Play with it a little. You might discover something interesting.

Some people are red/green colour blind. Some are unable to to feel hardness or softness. Some can't tell the difference between upness and downness. Some never evaluate goodness or trueness. Every experience is experience of the body. There is no conscious mind that lacks a body.

There is no such thing as perfect red or perfect blue.All colours are relative to other colours and a lot more besides.

Nobody can perceive perfect redness, because any colour hue is altered in the perception by the proximity of other colours or shades of black and white.
Redness and other hues are affected by cultures, emotions, age of the perceiving person, and colour symbolism.

https://www.britannica.com/science/colo ... -of-colour


I can't remember the philosopher who thought, rather like yourself, that colour hues are special.

Seems like a diversion to bring up Color Degeneracies when we don't even understand Normal Color Experience yet. Of course, there will be differences in what different people Experience because we all have slightly different Visual Mechanisms, even among what is considered to be people with Normal Vision. But the Experience of Color, regardless of what any particular person is Experiencing, is the thing that is more than a concept, but it is a real Phenomenon. Someday Science might be able to measure what people are actually Experiencing and Thinking.

"

----the Experience of Color, regardless of what any particular person is Experiencing, is the thing that is more than a concept, but it is a real Phenomenon.

Any experience is experience of a phenomenon. A phenomenon is what is experienced.

Do you claim there is such a thing as pure red? No painter or fashion designer would agree with you.

There is no Pure anything. There is only all the Colors. A million types of Red, a million types of Green, and a million types of Blue. Then a million times a million times a million possible combinations. The point about what I say is not trying to find some Pure Red. The Point is in the Experience of any particular Color no matter what it is. I choose Red as my Reference Point. Whatever you see for Red when you see Red, will do. If you are completely Color Blind, then you should concentrate on your shades of Gray. Assuming that is what you are Seeing. Maybe your Visual Experience is composed of Shades of Red, or Shades of Green, or Shades of Blue. Note that you would not know that you were Seeing shades of these Colors. This is why Science needs to develop a way to measure exactly what a person is Experiencing. Nobody knows what a Color Blind person actually Sees, and the Color Blind person cannot tell you. If you are Totally Blind, then you can concentrate on various Tones of Hearing.

[chewybrian]

Weak illusionism claims that phenomenal experience exists, but isn't what we think it is based on our own introspection. But it seems to me it's impossible to be mistaken about the content of our own experience, because the experience and its content are the same thing. To have a particular conscious experience (eg seeing a red apple) is to have knowledge of the content of that experience. Hence experience is directly known, and there is no gap between the experiencing and having knowledge of the experience where error can occur.

So Illusionism is as daft as it sounds.

That doesn't mean our experiences give us perfect direct knowledge about the world 'out there'. We can have optical illusions for example...

I'm curious if you would put cognitive distortions and cognitive biases in this same category with optical illusions. Certainly our prejudices, preconceptions, wishes and fears can cause us to misinterpret the nature of our actual perceptions and experiences, such that we are fully convinced that we are having an experience that does not match the reality of what is happening. Ironically, perhaps the most common bias is the illusion of objectivity, or the idea that we can look out into the world and directly see the true nature of events.

I think I would, as they don't seem to negate, but only distort our experiences. I don't think this changes the evident truth of what you said; it's just another example of a different kind of illusion.

Yeah I would too. My view is that we create experiential models of the world, rather than act like video recorders which perfectly capture reality except when there is a glitch (eg what we usually think of as an optical illusion). In that sense, seeing a table as solid (rather than mostly empty space), or filling in our blind spot is as much an optical illusion as the party trick type. It's not consciousness itself which is the illusion, it's the idea that it records the real world, rather than represents our interaction with it.

The unified field of consciousness we experience, is a result of all our neural subsystems interacting, influencing, filtering and focussing to produce something coherent and useful to us which will integrate into our existing world model (via building on existing neural patterns) and adds extra complexity to the way specific systems like seeing work. Our past experiences feed into our current ones correlated in patterns of neural connections, and enable short cuts, conscious and nonconscious dispositions or biases. (Anil Seth even talks about consciousness as utility based predictive hallucination). We don't have to think everything through from scratch when faced with a situation similar to ones encountered before. Those neural connections are already in place, to be fired in slightly different ways, forming slightly different new patterns. In this way, bias or predisposition, is inherent in the system.

Cognitive/thinky distortion and bias will be affected too, I think, especially as the neural connectivity required for a unified field of consciousness will make all kinds of associations between a new situation and previous ones - spark memories, emotions, thoughts, etc. And even if the neural correlates of those past connections don't fire into consciousness, they might still be activated and playing some role in what does. Think about how childhood experience influences our adult psychology, maybe not consciously, but those broad patterns of neural connections might still partially be around to be activated when triggered, even if not conscious, and distorted to create something coherent to the current situation.

That's just my thinking, I have no detailed expertise, but it makes sense in terms of what we do know. So my view is cognitive bias is likely systemic rather than a glitch, like seeing a table as solid is systemically useful so we don't bang our knee. But the thinky voice in our heads is capable of explicitly reasoning us around our biases, at least sometimes. Tho like you I haven't noticed people who wear their objectivity like a badge of honour as being especially better at it

I think your description of consciousness is as accurate as reasonably possible. Huxley said there is 'mind at large', in which we experience everything that presents itself to us all at once, much like a young child or a puppy. But, then the mind learns (or is pre-programmed) to act as a filter in what is usually our best interest. For example. you need to scan the environment first for signs of danger (not much else matters if there is a loose tiger in your field of vision!). Then you perhaps move up the ladder through Maslow's hierarchy as conditions permit, falling right back down as new threats or needs re-emerge.

There are lots of interesting examples in which we have shown our minds at work patching things together for us and presenting our perceptions in useful packages. Our eyes only see color in the center of our vision, and the mind fills in the rest with what it expects should be there, like green for grass and such. Our vision comes to the mind like a youtube video playing over a crappy internet connection, but the mind fills in those gaps, too, such that we can quickly scan the environment and what we see appears seamless. When there is a conflict between what we see and what we hear, our brain can override the sound and send a perception of a sound that matches the sight. It evidently decides that sight is more trustworthy than sound, which does not seem unreasonable, but it is amazing that our subconscious would make these decisions before passing on perceptions to the conscious mind.

Once we understand the sensory illusions, it is easy enough for most of us to act on reality rather than the illusion. But, I think the cognitive problems can be tougher for most people to overcome. We all have some level of conceit, fear, desire, a need to fit in and such that reinforces the bias rather than reality. These things can be overcome, but it takes a dose of humility and hard work and courage to do so.

[Gertie]

Chewy

I think your description of consciousness is as accurate as reasonably possible. Huxley said there is 'mind at large', in which we experience everything that presents itself to us all at once, much like a young child or a puppy. But, then the mind learns (or is pre-programmed) to act as a filter in what is usually our best interest. For example. you need to scan the environment first for signs of danger (not much else matters if there is a loose tiger in your field of vision!). Then you perhaps move up the ladder through Maslow's hierarchy as conditions permit, falling right back down as new threats or needs re-emerge.

There are lots of interesting examples in which we have shown our minds at work patching things together for us and presenting our perceptions in useful packages. Our eyes only see color in the center of our vision, and the mind fills in the rest with what it expects should be there, like green for grass and such. Our vision comes to the mind like a youtube video playing over a crappy internet connection, but the mind fills in those gaps, too, such that we can quickly scan the environment and what we see appears seamless. When there is a conflict between what we see and what we hear, our brain can override the sound and send a perception of a sound that matches the sight. It evidently decides that sight is more trustworthy than sound, which does not seem unreasonable, but it is amazing that our subconscious would make these decisions before passing on perceptions to the conscious mind.

Right. And this all pretty wild, but makes evolutionary sense. The evlutionary value of the model, of the world and the self too, lies in utility rather than perfect accuracy.

Once we understand the sensory illusions, it is easy enough for most of us to act on reality rather than the illusion. But, I think the cognitive problems can be tougher for most people to overcome. We all have some level of conceit, fear, desire, a need to fit in and such that reinforces the bias rather than reality. These things can be overcome, but it takes a dose of humility and hard work and courage to do so.

Hah true! Understanding the whys and hows of the way we are helps, but I know I have biases I don't care to change because they mean too much to me. And I think that's generally true when we think about love of family, for example, but there's more trivial stuff too. I think in the public square, where we try to establish shared (inter-subjective) truths and values to live by together, is where we really need to strive for minimising bias.

There's a bit of a post-modern crisis of confidence at the moment. The current penchant for conspiracy theories, individualistic relativism, religious fundamentalism and tribalism, looks like an infantile reaction to the loss of first religious certainty and salvation, then enlightment certainty and progress. These losses put a lot of responsibility on us to do the hard grown up work of creating a new framing for shared truths and values to live by together, and we'd better get our heads down pronto. That includes philosophy.

[chewybrian]

Once we understand the sensory illusions, it is easy enough for most of us to act on reality rather than the illusion. But, I think the cognitive problems can be tougher for most people to overcome. We all have some level of conceit, fear, desire, a need to fit in and such that reinforces the bias rather than reality. These things can be overcome, but it takes a dose of humility and hard work and courage to do so.

Hah true! Understanding the whys and hows of the way we are helps, but I know I have biases I don't care to change because they mean too much to me. And I think that's generally true when we think about love of family, for example, but there's more trivial stuff too. I think in the public square, where we try to establish shared (inter-subjective) truths and values to live by together, is where we really need to strive for minimising bias.

There's a bit of a post-modern crisis of confidence at the moment. The current penchant for conspiracy theories, individualistic relativism, religious fundamentalism and tribalism, looks like an infantile reaction to the loss of first religious certainty and salvation, then enlightment certainty and progress. These losses put a lot of responsibility on us to do the hard grown up work of creating a new framing for shared truths and values to live by together, and we'd better get our heads down pronto. That includes philosophy.

It sounds like you are giving Nietzsche credit for predicting our times, and I won't disagree.

I think the problem traces to our attempts to 'protect' children from reality, especially in terms of death. In the end, this only cements the idea in their heads that reality is frightening, and therefore they need the escape of religion or drugs or video games or whatever. It starts with Santa Claus and fairy tales, and carries on as we conceal all sorts of elements of reality from most of us, most of the time. When we have to face death, we seem to assume it can only be endured when viewed through the lens of religion, which tells the children that they can't expect to face these elements of reality squarely. These traditions create the fear they are intended to curtail.

Epictetus says it is not the thing itself that disturbs us, for it does not disturb another. Death, he says, did not disturb Socrates. Socrates said that it is a mark of conceit to fear death, since we don't know the experience first hand or even second hand.

You can, intentionally or not, teach a dog that anything is frightening by your actions toward it in their presence. We do the same with young children. Just like the dog, once the fear is learned, it is very difficult to go back. If, instead, we treated death as neutral, then perhaps we would not need to fall back on all these unproductive attempts to deny reality. There seems to be nothing to be gained by fearing or 'avoiding' something both inevitable and completely unknown.

I think you are correct that philosophy is the answer. It offers relief based in reality rather than fantasy. It offers acceptance of the inevitable realities of life rather than escape. When we accept these things, then we can get on with living our lives within reality rather than living in a state of denial with these other crutches.

[Gertie]

I'm not so concerned about individuals' ways of coping with life, we all find our own ways, and crutches aren't necessarily bad.

The way I see it the other key aspect of consciousness is its qualiative nature, we have a quality of life, we can suffer or thrive. And that's what makes life meaningful. For some that might mean staring life hard in the face and accepting the ups and downs with equanimity, but I wouldn't want to be prescriptive about something like that. Others find solace and motivation to do good in religion, or whatever, I don't have a prob with that.

But I do believe we need some shared public model of what we collectively treat as true and right when it comes to public policy and institutions. Philosophy has a role there, I'd say a responsibility, to inform what that should be like, because right now we're in a bit of a post-modernist limbo, patchily hanging onto habits in lieu of old binding certainties.

[psyreporter]

The following question is unanswered:

I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist").

... I'm convinced that the mind is simply brain processes.

When mind originates from the physical, how can consciousness not be an illusion?

Obviously I do not agree with it. Hence me informing you that even if we're only talking about the world in absence of any living creatures, I'm not a determinist.

What would be the argumentative foundation for the idea that you can escape determinism when you consider intrinsic existence of 'physical reality' without mind?

What aspect would result in a theoretical foundation for free will or the ability to argue that you are not a determinist?

1. Do you believe in intrinsic existence without mind?
2. Do you believe that mind has a cause within the scope of physical reality?

Yes and yes. I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist").

I'm not a realist on physical laws.

What factor do you consider to be valid within the scope of what can be named 'physical reality' that does not amount to 'law' and that enables you to escape determinism?

And re free will being an illusion, I know we've done this discussion before, but to try to do it again, let's keep it simple to start.

First, let's momentarily forget about living creatures and consciousness. Let's say that we have the physical world with no living creatures in it, no consciousness.

On my view, that physical world is NOT deterministic.

What would allow for the consideration that the aspect free is applicable to a world consisting solely of what can be termed 'physical reality' and in which no mind or consciousness exists or is applicable?

What else than 'physical reality' is there to be considered to allow the possibility for that world to be undetermined?

Saying that consciousness is an illusion there is incoherent. So "How consciousness can not be an illusion" is answered by "The very notion of consciousness being an illusion is completely incoherent." It doesn't even make sense to ask how it could be an illusion.

Wouldn't it be obvious that 'doesn't appear as it really is' refers to 'meaningful experience' that humans tend to attach to consciousness, by which it is said that consciousness is other than that (thus: an illusion)?

When you ask 'what' is an illusion from a purely empirical perspective, it would imply that consciousness would be non-existent as opposed to existent.

When it concerns meaningful experience, it cannot be captured in an empirical measurement (note the philosophical zombie theory that indicates that it is impossible to know whether another human is conscious). Thus when one argues that consciousness is an illusion, one essentially argues that the meaningful experience that one assigns to consciousness, is an illusion. And in that case, the non-existence of consciousness is not applicable when the term illusion is used.

[SteveKlinko]

Hello Philosophers!

I have two questions up for consideration:

Mr. Nicholas Humphry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Humphrey was asked whether consciousness is an illusion and he replied: "Yes", that he believed it was. Nicholas is a self proclaimed Materialist, and a cognitive scientist. As such, it begs the question: is his belief in the concept of 'illusion' self-refuting, ironic, and paradoxical? The philosophical reason why this belief may be paradoxical is because the definition of 'illusion' in itself, is a 'metaphysical phenomenon' (or is it)?

Essential Meaning of illusion

1 : something that looks or seems different from what it is : something that is false or not real but that seems to be true or real
//The video game is designed to give the illusion that you are in control of an airplane.

//They used paint to create the illusion of metal.

//She says that all progress is just an illusion.


2 : an incorrect idea : an idea that is based on something that is not true
//She had/harbored no illusions about how much work the project would require. [=she knew the project would require a lot of work]

//He was under the illusion [=he mistakenly believed] that he was a good player.

Full Definition of illusion

1a(1) : a misleading image presented to the vision : optical illusion

(2) : something that deceives or misleads intellectually

b(1) : perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature

(2) : hallucination sense 1

(3) : a pattern capable of reversible perspective

2a(1) : the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled : misapprehension

(2) : an instance of such deception
b obsolete : the action of deceiving

One ancillary question to the foregoing is, how does he use logical concepts to arrive at the conclusion of consciousness being illusionary, I wonder? Well, this is one possibility:

2. Philosophically, does the explanation of consciousness itself break the rules of formal logic (a priori) and other logical axioms such as Bivalence and LEM? I would submit yes it does. It does by virtue of the infamous 'driving while daydreaming' scenario where both the conscious and subconscious mind is perceived to be operating independently of each other. This suggests that consciousness cannot be explained/described logically in the formal sense. Alternatively, should one be also prepared to embrace other absurdities about the perceptions of reality (Subjective Idealism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_idealism ) and conclude that consciousness itself (which is apparently 'logically impossible' by formal definition standards, yet exists) is all that we know exists?

Other philosophical concerns resulting from the limitations of 'pure reason' might include the questions about the paradoxical apperceptions of reality. Is "I think therefore I am" proof of a reality that exists only in one's mind? How can logic and rationality save us from this nightmare?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum

Scientists can describe the Neural Activity that occurs in the Brain when we See. But they seem to be completely puzzled by the Conscious Visual Experience that we have that is correlated with the Neural Activity. Incredibly, some even come to the conclusion that the Conscious Experience is not even necessary! They can not find the Conscious Experience in the Neurons so the Experience must not have any function in the Visual process. They believe that the Neural Activity is sufficient for us to move around in the world without bumping into things. This is insane denial of the obvious purpose for Visual Consciousness. Neural Activity is not enough. We would be blind without the Conscious Visual Experience. From a Systems Engineering and Signal Processing point of view it is clear that the Conscious Visual Experience is a further Processing stage that comes after the Neural Activity. The Conscious Visual Experience is the thing that allows us to move around in the world. The Conscious Visual Experience contains vast amounts of information about the external world all packed up into a single thing. To implement all the functionality of the Conscious Visual Experience with only Neural Activity would probably require a Brain as big as a refrigerator.

So the reality is that Consciousness is not only Not an Illusion, but it is absolutely Necessary for us to See. The Conscious Visual Experience is How we See. It cannot Logically be an Illusion. Take the Visual Experience away and the resultant Zombie would be Blind.

[3017Metaphysician]

Hello Philosophers!

I have two questions up for consideration:

Mr. Nicholas Humphry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Humphrey was asked whether consciousness is an illusion and he replied: "Yes", that he believed it was. Nicholas is a self proclaimed Materialist, and a cognitive scientist. As such, it begs the question: is his belief in the concept of 'illusion' self-refuting, ironic, and paradoxical? The philosophical reason why this belief may be paradoxical is because the definition of 'illusion' in itself, is a 'metaphysical phenomenon' (or is it)?

Essential Meaning of illusion

1 : something that looks or seems different from what it is : something that is false or not real but that seems to be true or real
//The video game is designed to give the illusion that you are in control of an airplane.

//They used paint to create the illusion of metal.

//She says that all progress is just an illusion.


2 : an incorrect idea : an idea that is based on something that is not true
//She had/harbored no illusions about how much work the project would require. [=she knew the project would require a lot of work]

//He was under the illusion [=he mistakenly believed] that he was a good player.

Full Definition of illusion

1a(1) : a misleading image presented to the vision : optical illusion

(2) : something that deceives or misleads intellectually

b(1) : perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature

(2) : hallucination sense 1

(3) : a pattern capable of reversible perspective

2a(1) : the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled : misapprehension

(2) : an instance of such deception
b obsolete : the action of deceiving

One ancillary question to the foregoing is, how does he use logical concepts to arrive at the conclusion of consciousness being illusionary, I wonder? Well, this is one possibility:

2. Philosophically, does the explanation of consciousness itself break the rules of formal logic (a priori) and other logical axioms such as Bivalence and LEM? I would submit yes it does. It does by virtue of the infamous 'driving while daydreaming' scenario where both the conscious and subconscious mind is perceived to be operating independently of each other. This suggests that consciousness cannot be explained/described logically in the formal sense. Alternatively, should one be also prepared to embrace other absurdities about the perceptions of reality (Subjective Idealism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_idealism ) and conclude that consciousness itself (which is apparently 'logically impossible' by formal definition standards, yet exists) is all that we know exists?

Other philosophical concerns resulting from the limitations of 'pure reason' might include the questions about the paradoxical apperceptions of reality. Is "I think therefore I am" proof of a reality that exists only in one's mind? How can logic and rationality save us from this nightmare?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum

Scientists can describe the Neural Activity that occurs in the Brain when we See. But they seem to be completely puzzled by the Conscious Visual Experience that we have that is correlated with the Neural Activity. Incredibly, some even come to the conclusion that the Conscious Experience is not even necessary! They can not find the Conscious Experience in the Neurons so the Experience must not have any function in the Visual process. They believe that the Neural Activity is sufficient for us to move around in the world without bumping into things. This is insane denial of the obvious purpose for Visual Consciousness. Neural Activity is not enough. We would be blind without the Conscious Visual Experience. From a Systems Engineering and Signal Processing point of view it is clear that the Conscious Visual Experience is a further Processing stage that comes after the Neural Activity. The Conscious Visual Experience is the thing that allows us to move around in the world. The Conscious Visual Experience contains vast amounts of information about the external world all packed up into a single thing. To implement all the functionality of the Conscious Visual Experience with only Neural Activity would probably require a Brain as big as a refrigerator.

So the reality is that Consciousness is not only Not an Illusion, but it is absolutely Necessary for us to See. The Conscious Visual Experience is How we See. It cannot Logically be an Illusion. Take the Visual Experience away and the resultant Zombie would be Blind.

Thank you Steve for sharing your thoughts... . And thanks for quoting the original post (it's been a while thank you). In bullet point fashion my first reaction is, I'm thinking that there are still some challenges to overcome (for those who consider all concrete objects exclusive to all of reality).

* If the materialist considers all of reality concrete, how do they reconcile the obvious contradiction resulting from their own conclusion that one can experience an actual illusion? On the surface, it seems for them, believing in an illusion (that an illusion actually exists--and what all that means-- since illusions themselves are not material reality because they are not defined as such) inconsistent with their belief system?

* A visual experience consists of at least two existing precepts; the subject and the object. In both a mental and material world, the materialist's challenges include say, defining where cosmic singularity originated (material objects themselves), and explaining the material causes behind all human motivation (the phenomenon of all subjective experiences). For example what is it like to experience an experience (visual and non visual- think Hellen Keller here).

* If illusions then, themselves, are what they are defined as (are real only to the subject experiencing the illusion), it almost becomes tantamount to subjective idealism, which of course is a metaphysical principle. In spite of that, even if the mind and the human experience(s) can be quantified mathematically, then I think it still presents a 'meta-physical' challenge for the materialist since cognizing mathematics itself is a metaphysical exercise (a mentally abstract form of reality). And of course confers little to no biological survival advantages. Also, that does not include the quality distinctions ( versus quantity) of an individual having a subjective 'experience'. In other words, it doesn't capture the explanation of the full sentient human experience or phenomena (the feeling of experiencing an experience).


Those are just some random thoughts that first came to mind. Please feel free to educate me on the tenets of what it means to have an actual experience associated with the Conscious Visual Experience... , as I'm not familiar with that.

Slightly off topic, this discussion is inspiring me to start a thread on human causation. Meaning, what actually causes a human to be or become a some-thing (kind of like the why is there something and not nothing debate, only with a subjective/metaphysical/propagation twist).

[Sy Borg]

* If the materialist considers all of reality concrete, how do they reconcile the obvious contradiction resulting from their own conclusion that one can experience an actual illusion? On the surface, it seems for them, believing in an illusion (that an illusion actually exists--and what all that means-- since illusions themselves are not material reality because they are not defined as such) inconsistent with their belief system?

I'm not a "materialist" but perhaps close enough to answer.

The answer is that, indeed, illusions are material in that they can only exist in the context of a physical substrate (a brained body).

* A visual experience consists of at least two existing precepts; the subject and the object. In both a mental and material world, the materialist's challenges include say, defining where cosmic singularity originated (material objects themselves), and explaining the material causes behind all human motivation (the phenomenon of all subjective experiences). For example what is it like to experience an experience (visual and non visual- think Hellen Keller here).

In humans visible light consists of photons of a wavelength between 400THz (red) and 790THz (violent). Many animals can visually perceive ultraviolet and infra-red light. Humans perceive all frequencies from infra-red upwards as heat (lower frequencies tend to simply pass though us).

The main reason (aside from having eyes) that visible light is not usually thought of in terms of temperature is that infra-red is far more dominant in the environment than higher frequencies, so we routinely receive enough of those frequencies to feel them. By contrast, ultra-violet is a higher frequency and thus far hotter, but it is also vastly less prevalent in our environment. If it was, life on Earth could not survive.

* If illusions then, themselves, are what they are defined as (are real only to the subject experiencing the illusion), it almost becomes tantamount to subjective idealism, which of course is a metaphysical principle. In spite of that, even if the mind and the human experience(s) can be quantified mathematically, then I think it still presents a 'meta-physical' challenge for the materialist since cognizing mathematics itself is a metaphysical exercise (a mentally abstract form of reality). And of course confers little to no biological survival advantages. Also, that does not include the quality distinctions ( versus quantity) of an individual having a subjective 'experience'. In other words, it doesn't capture the explanation of the full sentient human experience or phenomena (the feeling of experiencing an experience).

This seems like a long way of saying that the answer to Chalmers's hard problem of consciousness remains elusive.

Cognising relative quantities, aka mathematics, is certainly naturally selected. Numerous species can count, including "gorillas, rhesus, capuchin, and squirrel monkeys, lemurs, dolphins, elephants, birds, salamanders and fish". (Google)

Dogs might not count, as such, but they certainly know the difference if they receive fewer treats than another. Social species need to keep track of favours so that some members of a group are doing all the giving while others just take.

[SteveKlinko]

Thank you Steve for sharing your thoughts... . And thanks for quoting the original post (it's been a while thank you). In bullet point fashion my first reaction is, I'm thinking that there are still some challenges to overcome (for those who consider all concrete objects exclusive to all of reality).

* If the materialist considers all of reality concrete, how do they reconcile the obvious contradiction resulting from their own conclusion that one can experience an actual illusion? On the surface, it seems for them, believing in an illusion (that an illusion actually exists--and what all that means-- since illusions themselves are not material reality because they are not defined as such) inconsistent with their belief system?

* A visual experience consists of at least two existing precepts; the subject and the object. In both a mental and material world, the materialist's challenges include say, defining where cosmic singularity originated (material objects themselves), and explaining the material causes behind all human motivation (the phenomenon of all subjective experiences). For example what is it like to experience an experience (visual and non visual- think Hellen Keller here).

* If illusions then, themselves, are what they are defined as (are real only to the subject experiencing the illusion), it almost becomes tantamount to subjective idealism, which of course is a metaphysical principle. In spite of that, even if the mind and the human experience(s) can be quantified mathematically, then I think it still presents a 'meta-physical' challenge for the materialist since cognizing mathematics itself is a metaphysical exercise (a mentally abstract form of reality). And of course confers little to no biological survival advantages. Also, that does not include the quality distinctions ( versus quantity) of an individual having a subjective 'experience'. In other words, it doesn't capture the explanation of the full sentient human experience or phenomena (the feeling of experiencing an experience).


Those are just some random thoughts that first came to mind. Please feel free to educate me on the tenets of what it means to have an actual experience associated with the Conscious Visual Experience... , as I'm not familiar with that.

Slightly off topic, this discussion is inspiring me to start a thread on human causation. Meaning, what actually causes a human to be or become a some-thing (kind of like the why is there something and not nothing debate, only with a subjective/metaphysical/propagation twist).

A lot of Materialists like to say Consciousness is an Illusion. In my way of thinking they are just saying that they are having a Conscious Experience when they say it is an Illusion. You are correct, they cannot reconcile these Conscious Experiences they have with their Materialist Beliefs. The only strategy they have is to go further and say that not only is Conscious Experience an Illusion but that it does not even really exist. When you confront them with the obvious Incoherence of that they will just smugly and with a grin say that you are just not thinking properly about Conscious Experience. They will not listen when I tell them my argument that the Conscious Visual Experience is the next stage in the Processing after the Neural Activity.

If you would like to see more of my thinking about Consciousness, Light, and the Visual Experience please visit https://TheInterMind.com, to specifically read something on the Visual Experience and the Conscious Light Screen visit https://TheInterMind.com/#ConsciousLightScreen

[Consul]

A lot of Materialists like to say Consciousness is an Illusion.

As far as I can see, illusionism (as a form of eliminativism) about phenomenal consciousness is a minority view among materialists.