That's the point of the debate. If there's no hard problem, then it's just a matter of the easier problems amenable to neuroscience and psychology. Easier as in they don't cause a metaphysical or epistemological issue. — Marchesk

But we don't need a justification to ignore the hard problem. We can just concentrate on the easier problems regardless. It's not like the hard problems presents any barrier to physical research.

In addition, it seems to me that all Illusionism does is shift the problem. Isn't the problem of creating illusins of qualia just as hard?

The obvious problem however, is that we don't have the slightest of clue how such a process results in the experience of qualia — StarsFromMemory

Bingo. It is actually a dualism. We are positing that some things (processing things like brains) have a dual aspect to them, which seems contrary to the monism of naturalism (everything is basically matter/energy in space/time).

But we don't need a justification to ignore the hard problem. We can just concentrate on the easier problems regardless. It's not like the hard problems presents any barrier to physical research. — Echarmion

You don't need a justification to ignore any philosophical problem. You can just do it. Same with math, history, unsolved crimes, etc. But some people will continue to be interested in those puzzles and want to solve them. Even some scientists. Why does it matter at all? Because the hard problem potentially alters what we think about the world and ourselves. But again, you can ignore that if you want.

In addition, it seems to me that all Illusionism does is shift the problem. Isn't the problem of creating illusins of qualia just as hard? — Echarmion

Nope, because an illusion of qualia does not present a fundamental conceptual problem That's what the illusionists think.

This isn't a really a subtlety though. The zombie argument presumes the zombie will always be identical to the other person having the phenomenal experience and, in the case of whatever Dennett thinks up, that includes the neurological substratum that is fooling the rest of the brain that it has qualia.
You can always prove you are conscious to yourself because you are the one experiencing the phenomena you just can't prove it to other people/ give it third person accessibility

Because it builds on "problem of other minds" Chalmers' argument is set up in a way that it can't be refuted. He even said as such to another neuroscientist.

Fwiw, don't bother with Dennett if you're interested in anything mind related. if you look at his earlier psychology work he denies dreams exist during sleep ignoring a lot of empirical evidence they do.

Because the hard problem potentially alters what we think about the world and ourselves. But again, you can ignore that if you want. — Marchesk

It's not that I want to ignore it. It just seems to me there should be implications of this line of reasoning that go beyond circumventing this specific problem.

Nope, because an illusion of qualia does not present a fundamental conceptual problem That's what the illusionists think. — Marchesk

Isn't the conceptual problem at the heart of the "hard problem" that no algorithm can translate wavelengths into the feeling of redness? In Illusionism, something still has to provide the qualia. They don't need to be generated by the specific input, but they do need to be generated somehow. But since we can't seem to come up with a physical process for generating qualia, they remain non-physical.

The argument that consciousness is an illusion... — Marchesk

What is an illusion? What is not an illusion?

I find illusionism very odd.

Ordinarily one says things like, "it looks as though there is an oasis, over there, but it is an illusion, there is just more sand." So to say x is an illusion is to say there is no x, or at least there is no x where there is purported be x.

So the illusionist seems to want to say " it looks as though it looks as though there is an oasis, but it is an illusion, it doesn't really look as though anything at all. However would one know such a thing, even if it made sense?

it is odd, but what the illusionist is saying is there are no ineffable, intrinsic, private and immediately apprehended sensations. There is no redness of red. Instead, there is an appearance of something which seems to have those qualities.

I'm not sure illusionism entirely avoids the problem, but I thought it worth summarizing my understanding of their argument, because most people just dismiss it of hand.

What is an illusion? What is not an illusion? — A Seagull

An appearance of something which isn't there. And it's not limited to the visual. It could be any sensation or object.

There is no redness of red. Instead, there is an appearance of something which seems to have those qualities. — Marchesk

Yes, but that's what I always thought the redness of red was - the appearance of something. Was I supposed to have thought it was something else? A thing in an inner world? If one had thought that, ie, had been an indirect realist, then the destruction of the inner world would be highly significant and shocking. I suppose? As it is I assume that crimson is the appearance of the settee I'm lounging in and scarlet is the colour of the fleece I'm wearing. Radical, but that's communism for you.

The point of the argument is that the appearance doesn't have the qualities which would cause a hard problem. It only seems like qualia, p-zombies, inverted spectrum and Mary the Color scientist are a thing.

I still don't know about the damned bat, though. But I think Ned Block's harder problem can be addressed if illusionism is the case. That's libertarianism for you.

It only seems like qualia, p-zombies, inverted spectrum and Mary the Color scientist are a thing. — Marchesk

I'm fine with that, if I can have it that red is the colour of my true love's hair in the morning, when we rise. My inner world is soggy meat, and I live in the outer world which I call 'the world'.

But zombies like soggy meat.

You can always prove you are conscious to yourself because you are the one experiencing the phenomena you just can't prove it to other people/ give it third person accessibility — Forgottenticket

Only if your introspection is telling you that reliably.

Because it builds on "problem of other minds" Chalmers' argument is set up in a way that it can't be refuted. He even said as such to another neuroscientist. — Forgottenticket

One might consider this a flaw with the argument

Fwiw, don't bother with Dennett if you're interested in anything mind related. if you look at his earlier psychology work he denies dreams exist during sleep ignoring a lot of empirical evidence they do. — Forgottenticket

Yeah, the coming-to-seem-to-remember. It was wrong, and illusionism needs to be able to handle dreaming.

Does the illusion of consciousness go right down to the level of bacteria and virus?

Only if they possess the cognitive mechanism that creates the illusion.

I've never seen an argument in favor of the claim that "consciousness is an illusion" that made any sense. If we're having any kind of illusion at all, we are having *some* experience, regardless of how it relates to physical reality. And the having of experiences is the definition of consciousness.

Illusions are always of something that they are not.

If we're having any kind of illusion at all, we are having *some* experience, regardless of how it relates to physical reality. And the having of experiences is the definition of consciousness. — Daz

Sure, but is that definition one that is incompatible with physical reality?

Illusions are misinterpretations of sensory data (mirages). I still don't get what exactly is being claimed the illusion is - the sensory data being interpreted as sensory data, consciousness being interpreted as an experience being had by a physical body (whatever that means), or what?

What is it that is being misinterpreted, and what is it being misinterpreted as, and what is the truth (how it should be interpreted to overcome the illusion)? You overcome the illusion of a mirage by understanding that you see bending light, not pools of water. If we see light and not objects, mirages and bent sticks in water is what you would expect one to experience.

It seems to me that if you claim that it is an illusion, then you know how to overcome the illusion and see things as they truly are. You're going to have to explain the underlying mechanisms (the behavior of light and it's interaction with a visual sensory information processor) that create the effect (the mirage) and why it gets misinterpreted, or why it appears to be something that it isn't (as a pool of water rather than bent light waves).

It seems to me that if you claim that it is an illusion, then you know how to overcome the illusion and see things as they truly are. — Harry Hindu

First step would be understanding how the illusion is generated. Neuroscience would have to supply that.

As for seeing things as they really are, eyes only give you limited information from a certain perspective. You need other instruments to form a proper physical description.

What is it that is being misinterpreted, and what is it being misinterpreted as, — Harry Hindu

Our subjective experiences are being misinterpreted as something which is hard to reconcile with any sort of objective explanation.

If we see light and not objects, mirages and bent sticks in water is what you would expect one to experience. — Harry Hindu

Sure, but that doesn't work for the experience of color, because physically color is a label for the wavelength of photons based on our having experiences of color. The photons themselves are not colored. It wouldn't matter if they were, because it's electrons which get sent to the visual cortex, not photons. The brain has to turn that stimulus into an experience of color.

As some people like to say in response to direct realism, the green grass doesn't get into our heads. It's not like the color green (or it's shape) hops onto photons from their reflective surface, rides the photons into our eyes, then hops on electrons to ride into the brain for us to see it. Rather, we generate an experience of green grass from the information provided by our senses.

First step would be understanding how the illusion is generated. Neuroscience would have to supply that.

As for seeing things as they really are, eyes only give you limited information from a certain perspective. You need other instruments to form a proper physical description. — Marchesk

We don't just have eyes. We have other instruments (senses). While each one provides a different experience (seeing you is different than hearing you), they share this quality of depth. They even overlap providing fault-tolerant and reaffirming information about an object's location relative to the body. You are where I see you, hear you and feel you. So it seems to me that a very important part of the description of some object is it's location relative to the body. It is even how the visual field is arranged - the world located relative to the eyes.

Our subjective experiences are being misinterpreted as something which is hard to reconcile with any sort of objective explanation. — Marchesk

Maybe the problem (illusion) is assuming some kind of dualism, like subjective/objective, physical/mental, direct/indirect, etc.,

Sure, but that doesn't work for the experience of color, because physically color is a label for the wavelength of photons based on our having experiences of color. The photons themselves are not colored. It wouldn't matter if they were, because it's electrons which get sent to the visual cortex, not photons. The brain has to turn that stimulus into an experience of color.

As some people like to say in response to direct realism, the green grass doesn't get into our heads. It's not like the color green (or it's shape) hops onto photons from their reflective surface, rides the photons into our eyes, then hops on electrons to ride into the brain for us to see it. Rather, we generate an experience of green grass from the information provided by our senses. — Marchesk

What is an "experience"? What does it mean for an object (a brain) to have, or generate, an "experience"? How is the brain different from the experience?

They even overlap providing fault-tolerant and reaffirming information about an object's location relative to the body — Harry Hindu

Yes, and those senses still don't tell us most of what an object is without serious investigation by many people.

So it seems to me that a very important part of the description of some object is it's location relative to the body. — Harry Hindu

Yes, but that's a relation. What is an object when we're not around to sense it?

Maybe the problem (illusion) is assuming some kind of dualism, like subjective/objective, physical/mental, direct/indirect, etc., — Harry Hindu

Qualia certainly makes dualism a possibility. But there's no getting around some sort of dualism, even if it's only epistemic. There's a difference between how we experience, think and talk about the world and the world itself. Unless you're an anti-realist.

What is an "experience"? What does it mean for an object (a brain) to have, or generate, an "experience"? — Harry Hindu

i feel like this ground has been covered already.

How is the brain different from the experience? — Harry Hindu

Are you asking whether idealism is the case?

what the illusionist is saying is there are no ineffable, intrinsic, private and immediately apprehended sensations. There is no redness of red. Instead, there is an appearance of something which seems to have those qualities. — Marchesk

A picture in the head?

what the illusionist is saying is there are no ineffable, intrinsic, private and immediately apprehended sensations. There is no redness of red. Instead, there is an appearance of something which seems to have those qualities. — Marchesk

The illusion is that there is an appearance of something that is red that seems to have the quality of redness, but it doesn't? I don't get it. What is that something that appears to be red but isn't, and why does it appear red? What are we referring to when we say, "red"?

They even overlap providing fault-tolerant and reaffirming information about an object's location relative to the body
— Harry Hindu

Yes, and those senses still don't tell us most of what an object is without serious investigation by many people.

So it seems to me that a very important part of the description of some object is it's location relative to the body.
— Harry Hindu

Yes, but that's a relation. What is an object when we're not around to sense it? — Marchesk

Wait, I thought we needed many people to tell us what an object is, yet now you are asking what an object is without people. You're not being consistent.

Qualia certainly makes dualism a possibility. But there's no getting around some sort of dualism, even if it's only epistemic. There's a difference between how we experience, think and talk about the world and the world itself. Unless you're an anti-realist. — Marchesk

The only necessary dualism is cause and effect. Redness is a property of minds. Ripeness is a property of apples. When they are both causally related, the experience of a red apple occurs (the effect). Maybe the illusion is assuming apples are red as well as ripe instead of the correct answer which is that red represents ripe. One would be confusing one's mental properties with the properties of the apple. Just as saying the "apple is good", good is a property of minds that projects values onto objects in which values are not a property. It's not the apple that is good or red. The apple is simply ripe. Good and red refer to our gustatory and visual sensations of the apple's ripeness, and are not properties of the apple, but of our mind.

While multiple senses may provide fault-tolerance and reaffirmation, the downside is that they may also provide the appearance of multiple properties of an object where that object is actually simpler than that. One property can appear like five different properties to five different senses. Naive realist and idealist minds tend to confuse the properties of minds with the properties of the object that isn't another mind. Minds with multiple instruments may tend to make the world to appear to be more complicated than it is.

How we experience, think and talk about the world is part of the world itself. How we experience, think and talk about the world, is an effect of the world (natural selection) and has an effect on the world (culture and technology). I have been trying to point out that our minds have causal power and are in turn caused themselves. Our minds are just as real, and part of the world, as everything else is.

What is an "experience"? What does it mean for an object (a brain) to have, or generate, an "experience"?
— Harry Hindu

i feel like this ground has been covered already. — Marchesk

Really? Where?

How is the brain different from the experience?
— Harry Hindu

Are you asking whether idealism is the case? — Marchesk

No. I'm simply asking you what the difference between a brain and an experience is - ontologically. If the two are so distinct, then how does one generate (cause) the other? How does meat get fooled by illusions?

Wait, I thought we needed many people to tell us what an object is, yet now you are asking what an object is without people. You're not being consistent. — Harry Hindu

Difference between epistemology and ontology. Hard problem raises the possibility that the ontology of the world is dualistic, but it also raises an epistemological question of whether we can know what the nature of consciousness is.

This is one aspect of the modern version of the problem of perception.

A picture in the head? — bongo fury

A homunculi watching moving pictures in its head. In. color, with sound.

Difference between epistemology and ontology. Hard problem raises the possibility that the ontology of the world is dualistic, but it also raises an epistemological question of whether we can know what the nature of consciousness is. — Marchesk

You have it backwards. The hard problem is the product of the dualists own making by positing two different substances with no means for them to interact. How does meat generate meatless illusions? There is no hard problem for a monist.

There is no hard problem for a monist. — Harry Hindu

Provided you can give an adequate description for consciousness AND he world.

I agree that idealism doesn't have this problem.