Exactly, it doesn't make much sense. And whenever I've seen Dennett talk about this stuff, he tends to ramble on about various, rather mundane optical illusions, in the traditional sense, as if that has some implication for claiming that consciousness itself is an illusion, but he never actually explains how consciousness is supposed to be an illusion.

Here's an example re a short bit of a TED talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness/transcript?language=en#t-240977

No one is claiming anything even remotely similar to "there are no optical (or other similar sensory) illusions." I don't know why Dennett is so fascinated with them, or why he thinks that rambling on about them, while doing nothing at all to say what the broader philosophical implications are supposed to be, while doing nothing at all to tie the examples together into any sort of philosophical theory or argument at all, is interesting. Dennett, to me, tends to come across as someone who kind of regrets his career choice, where he'd prefer to be doing research into perception, and specifically the various ways that the brain fills in information when it comes to perception, the various ways that we can get things wrong when it comes to perception, etc.

A more charitable interpretation would be that Dennett's not actually claiming that consciousness/experience/etc. itself is an illusion, but he does seem to be saying that, and apparently even the name of this talk was that. (Or, another possible charitable interpretation is that he's simply denying a view of what consciousness is, while saying that consciousness is really something else instead, but it's not clear just what the view he's denying is, just who would hold the view in question/just how universal that view would be, and both Dennett and well-known commentators on him, such as Nagel, Searle, etc. often do seem to be saying that Dennett is effectively asserting that there is no consciousness or that it's an illusion period.)

And it seems like people go, "Dennett says consciousness is an illusion. He showed us some optical illusions. So he must be right." It makes no sense.

And it seems like people go, Dennett says consciousness is an illusion. He showed us some optical illusions. So he must be right." It makes no sense. — Terrapin Station

Dennett, like Chalmers, Searle, etc. thinks that consciousness can't be fit into a physicalist explanation of the world. But unlike them, he takes the position that this means consciousness must be an illusion, because why would consciousness be the one thing that's an exception in the universe?

I've read and heard enough of Dennett to be convinced that he thinks there is no consciousness and we are philosophical zombies. Except that he likes to keep using the word with a different definition. Which would be consciousness in the functional or behavioral sense only, because those can be fit into a materialist explanation.

Dennett, like Chalmers, Searle, etc. thinks that consciousness can't be fit into a physicalist explanation of the world. — Marchesk

If they'd just realize that this is a mistake . . .

If they'd just realize that this is a mistake . . . — Terrapin Station

If it is a mistake, nobody has succeeded in showing how you can explain the subjective in terms of the objective, which is what the hard problem is about. See Nagel.

I believe Dennett is making a statement about the ontology of Qualia, akin to Quine. The intuition pump about the coffee tasters in Quining Qualia pretty much sums that up.
https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/quinqual.htm
All the perception stuff Dennett shows in his videos is to show people can't be sure about their qualia and if they can't be sure about that then how can they commit to it being real.
Is that an issue for epistemology? Sure but there are other paths one can take like pragmatic realism

If it is a mistake, nobody has succeeded in showing how you can explain the subjective in terms of the objective, which is what the hard problem is about. See Nagel. — Marchesk

The first thing we need to tackle is that we don't have a very good analysis of what explanations are/just what makes something count or not count as an explanation.

No one really seems to care about that. They just plow ahead making comments about whether we have explanations anyway.

All the perception stuff Dennett shows in his videos is to show people can't be sure about their qualia and if they can't be sure about that then how can they commit to it being real. — Forgottenticket

This issue crops up with perception in general. The ancient skeptics loved to rub people's noses in all the ways perception can be mistaken. But Dennett and Frankish only want to endorse radical skepticism for introspection and subjectivity, not the external world. Dennett is a pragmatic realist when it comes to objectivity. But I think the sword cuts both ways, as a good skeptic would be sure to point out.

But Dennett and Frankish only want to endorse radical skepticism for introspection and subjectivity, not the external world. Dennett is a pragmatic realist when it comes to objectivity. But I think the sword cuts both ways, as a good skeptic would be sure to point out. — Marchesk

Yes, since all they have, as empiricists, is experience to work with, any knowledge of the external world or even the conclusion that there must be one is fruit of the poisoned tree.

But if color and taste are illusions, what reason would we have for supposing that shape and weight are not? After-all, we know about apples by experiencing them via our sensations of color, taste, etc. — Marchesk

Isn't just obvious that Dennett is flogging a dead horse? The only thing his books plausibly do is illustrate, again and again, in exhaustive detail, just how utterly implausible his 'philosophy' is. And that does us all a service, because his is the most rigorous and intellectually honest explication of what materialism means when applied to philosophy of mind.

Isn't just obvious that Dennett is flogging a dead horse? — Wayfarer

Dennett isn't alone, though. I linked to Keith Frankish's article on Illusionism.

Dennett, like Chalmers, Searle, etc. thinks that consciousness can't be fit into a physicalist explanation of the world. But unlike them, he takes the position that this means consciousness must be an illusion, because why would consciousness be the one thing that's an exception in the universe? — Marchesk

So, they think that consciousness is actually physical and the illusion is that it is not? What does it mean to be physical vs non-physical? Once you go down this road you acquire not just another hard problem, but a "serious problem" with having to explain how the physical and non-physical interact. Dualism is the problem and monism is the answer. Also discarding these incoherent terms of "physical" and "non-physical" would also be useful. Everything is information which is why there is an aboutness to your mind - of being about the world. Your mind is an effect (as well as a cause hence the need for explanation about how the mind and world interact) and effects are about their causes. This is why we can get informed about the ripeness of the apple and about your visual system and about the light in the environment just by the color on the apple that you see.

I've read and heard enough of Dennett to be convinced that he thinks there is no consciousness and we are philosophical zombies. Except that he likes to keep using the word with a different definition. Which would be consciousness in the functional or behavioral sense only, because those can be fit into a materialist explanation. — Marchesk

After reading and hearing enough Dennett, I can't say that he even knows what he's talking about.

In this article Dennett replies to a question about whether or not he was angry with "greedy reductionism"...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/mar/22/daniel-dennett-theory-of-mind-interview

I haven't been angered but I have been frustrated by some neuroscientists who say we do not have free will and in some cases this position has implications in law and morality. They argue your mind is your brain, the brain is programmed, so there's no free will. I think science needs to be more circumspect and more creative. An economist might say, dollars don't exist, it's just a collective illusion, I think this is very bad advice and I also think it is bad, greedy reductionist advice to say free will is an illusion. — D. Dennett

If consciousness is an illusion, then how is free will not?


Another question and answer:

CJ How important is self-reflection to consciousness?

DD Very. — The Guardian.com

What is self-reflection to Dennett if consciousness is an illusion?

If it is a mistake, nobody has succeeded in showing how you can explain the subjective in terms of the objective, which is what the hard problem is about. See Nagel. — Marchesk

That isn't a problem at all. We speak objectively all the time - about the world, about our minds, about our preferences. Subjective language is just category errors where we project mental phenomenon onto non-mental phenomenon - like as if the apple were really red. The apple is ripe or rotten, not red or black. Ripeness is a property of fruit, not minds. Redness is a property of minds, not light or apples. Red and black are mental properties, or effects, that are about the ripeness of the apple, the light in the environment and the state of your visual system thanks to causation. Effects carry information about their causes. Illusions (or subjectivity) crop up when our minds don't interpret the causes correctly.

Only for those who thought epistemology was easy.

But I think the sword cuts both ways, as a good skeptic would be sure to point out. — Marchesk

He knows that minds are shaped haphazardly (sort of) by evolution so he has faith in the scientific method before all else because it removes much of the bias.
He is skeptical on AI too for some of the same reasons.

All the perception stuff Dennett shows in his videos is to show people can't be sure about their qualia and if they can't be sure about that then how can they commit to it being real. — Forgottenticket

All it shows is that consciousness doesn't accurately report the external world 100% of the time, but no one ever claimed it did. It wouldn't suggest any problem for qualia as qualia--that is, mental phenomena qua mental phenomena.

Red and black are mental properties, or effects, that are about the ripeness of the apple, the light in the environment and the state of your visual system thanks to causation. Effects carry information about their causes. Illusions (or subjectivity) crop up when our minds don't interpret the causes correctly. — Harry Hindu

And how does this work with imagination, dreams, inner dialog? Subjective experience isn't exclusive to perception.

An illusion is of something that is not...

Much ado about nothing.

Where there is no consciousness there can be no illusion thereof. If all consciousness is an illusion, what is it an illusion of?

In the Frankish paper, he says, "For example, quasi-phenomenal redness is the physical property that typically triggers introspective representations of phenomenal redness. There is nothing phenomenal about such properties--nothing 'feely' or qualitative."

What the heck is he talking about? How could you have a non-phenomenal, non-qualitative introspective representation of phenomenal redness??

Also from the Frankish paper, he says that Dennett makes an analogy of consciousness to computer graphical user interface "illusions," where he says that Dennett says it's a "metaphorical representation of real neural events." If Dennett doesn't think that the metaphorical representation is a real neural event, what the heck does he think it is?

All it shows is that consciousness doesn't accurately report the external world 100% of the time — Terrapin Station

I think the idea is that the person doesn't know if their qualia has changed or how it has. We can agree that "color" is a quale right? I recall one change blindness experiment changed a sign in a photo from yellow to grey (or something like that) and no one noticed. The point is that the conscious states are really teleofunctional-states and not made up of bundles of qualia.

I recall one change blindness experiment changed a sign in a photo from yellow to grey (or something like that) and no one noticed. — Forgottenticket

What does not noticing that have to do with qualia?

And how does this work with imagination, dreams, inner dialog? Subjective experience isn't exclusive to perception. — Marchesk

I dont see how such things can be labeled as subjective. How are your imaginings, dreams and inner dialog subjective if I can refer to them with language and use them as explanations for your behavior that I percieve? How is that any different than talking about atoms as an explanation for the behavior of matter that I perceive? Your imaginings, dreams and inner dialog have as much causal power as a boulder rolling down a hill towards your car an can be talked about like we can talk about any natural process.

They would only be subjective if you interpreted your imaginings, dreams and inner dialog as being the world, or being in the world rather than in your mind. In other words these things as hallucinations and delusions would be subjective, but could still be talked about as hallucinations and delusions by those that see them for what they are.

I dont see how such things can be labeled as subjective. How are your imaginings, dreams and inner dialog subjective if I can refer to them with language and use them as explanations for your behavior that I percieve? — Harry Hindu

Because you can't experience my imagination, dreams, inner dialog and have to settle for language and behavior to know about them. And if I don't tell you, there will be experiences I have you won't ever know about, nor will you have any means of finding out, because they can't always be inferred from behavior.

It's not like we can hook someone's brain up to a machine and have it read out their thoughts or display their dreams on a tv.

This why Nagel asked what it's like to be a bat and used that as an example of how there is a gap between objective explanation and subjective experience.

Dennett, like Chalmers, Searle, etc. thinks that consciousness can't be fit into a physicalist explanation of the world. But unlike them, he takes the position that this means consciousness must be an illusion, because why would consciousness be the one thing that's an exception in the universe?

I've read and heard enough of Dennett to be convinced that he thinks there is no consciousness and we are philosophical zombies. Except that he likes to keep using the word with a different definition. Which would be consciousness in the functional or behavioral sense only, because those can be fit into a materialist explanation. — Marchesk

If consciousness is a physical phenomenon (assuming that what counts as being physical is understood and defined well enough) then what could the illusion of consciousness be? We can't be p-zombies because p-zombies are defined as lacking any self-reflective awareness or ability to introspect. So, the illusion cannot be an illusion that we are not p-zombies.

Perhaps the illusion is that consciousness is somehow immaterial, non-physical; that it is something separate from, more than, and 'over and above' "mere" neural activity. Maybe we are just constitutionally incapable of being able to imagine or conceptualize how consciousness really is a physical phenomenon. If so, then it should not be surprising that consciousness cannot be "fit into a physicalist explanation of the world".

I linked to Keith Frankish's article on Illusionism. — Marchesk

Which starts, unpromisingly, with a quotation from The Amazing Randi.

I started reading it, but as I see it, any appeal to 'illusionism' has to fail, because an illusion is always associated with 'a subject'. There can't be an illusion without a subject, as an illusion is by definition a mistaken, misunderstood, or misinterpreted perception. And then the question becomes, what is the agency that misunderstands? So, how to account for 'the subject'.

Because you can't experience my imagination, dreams, inner dialog and have to settle for language and behavior to know about them. And if I don't tell you, there will be experiences I have you won't ever know about, nor will you have any means of finding out, because they can't always be inferred from behavior. — Marchesk

Like I said, we don't experience atoms and we use them as explanations for what we do see. We can't see anything smaller than a wavelength of EM energy. So there are things that we don't experience in the world that aren't just imaginings and dreams. Would those things that we don't experience thanks to the limitations of our sensory organs be considered subjective, too? In other words, are you saying that the information that is missing from our experience of the world is subjective and everything else is objective?

It's not like we can hook someone's brain up to a machine and have it read out their thoughts or display their dreams on a tv. — Marchesk

Not yet. But we can hook someone's brain to a computer and have it interpret their intentions and move a mouse cursor on the screen and click on letters to type words. Google "Brain-Computer interfaces".

This why Nagel asked what it's like to be a bat and used that as an example of how there is a gap between objective explanation and subjective experience. — Marchesk

I don't understand Nagel's question. Is he asking what it is to be the whole bat, or just it's brain, or what?

I don't understand Nagel's question. Is he asking what it is to be the whole bat, or just it's brain, or what? — Harry Hindu

He's asking what the subjective experience of a bat is like; which obviously cannot be answered since we are not bats. But really the question is "is it like anything to be a bat?". Of course, we know what the question means, but I never liked the "what's it like" part, because being a bat cannot be like anything but being a bat, if it is like anything at all. Perhaps the question should be simpler, perhaps "is there any subjective 'feel' to being a bat?". Of course the answer is that we don't and cannot know; we can only guess.

He's asking what the subjective experience of a bat is like; which obviously cannot be answered since we are not bats. But really the question is "is it like anything to be a bat?". Of course, we know what the question means, but I never liked the "what's it like" part, because being a bat cannot be like anything but being a bat, if it is like anything at all. Perhaps the question should be simpler, perhaps "is there any subjective 'feel' to being a bat?". Of course the answer is that we don't and cannot know; we can only guess. — Janus

What makes us think that there is a what it is like for a bat, but not ask the same question of a computer robot with sensory systems?

Of course the answer is that we don't and cannot know; we can only guess. — Janus

It's the same as asking what it's like to be a toaster.

Probably because we know that bats have brains and central nervous systems which are not too dissimilar to our own; whereas computers have nothing analogous.

Probably because we know that bats have brains and central nervous systems which are not too dissimilar to our own; whereas computers have nothing analogous. — Janus

One thing I know for sure, is that bats produce an immense amount of shit, so we should keep that in mind when attempting to enter the mind of the bat. :grin: