I don't say it in those terms, but you could put it that way. — Lionino

Ye, I twisted it in order to explain my problems with it. Sorry

Do you agree that you and I could both share the source of thought? A dreaming super consciousness?

I want to clarify my problem a bit: The meaning of the word "I" is broadened too much.

Scenario: Everything and everyone are all dreamt up by one dreamer. The dreamer is, in this case, "I". The dreamer is also the entirety of "existence". In this scenario you have broadened "I" so much that it equates the entirety of existence (I = existence). At that stage, there would be no point in the term "I" at all, as it is normally used to separate yourself from someone else.

Even though the logic is sound, the meaning of the word "I" is stretched too far in such a scenario.

One clue to the puzzle of Personal Experience may be that both Consciousness and Energy are special forms of non-specific Generic Information (the power to change form ; to transform ; energy?). And in human experience, Information is also Meaning, Significance, Relevance to Self. — Gnomon

The information is basic. Metaphorically. Because what is transformed is the physical into the mental, no? Or is it the physical into the physical? Energy, mind…what do they have in common? Nothing, and that’s the point – one must transform into the other by means of a unity that is the(i)re.. informational content. Information is meaning, but it is also wave functions. A graph of reality?

Transformation implies what? – that what is transformed becomes what it is not. If I am seeing red, and this is a transformation of an informational content (as I am calling it), then either I am not seeing red or red is not red. Phenomena, nouema, what’s the real red, what I see or what is there, a quantative signal -- A mathematical entity?

We interpret the Information. Whose interpretation? The brain’s I guess. Mine or yours? Too many questions. “Excuse me, am I interpreting this correctly?” “No, although your brain is.” “Okay, great.” Can meaning be physical? I would think it would have to in some sense if it is in this universe. “I’m a doctor, not a linguist Jim!”

There are two senses of a why question. There is the “why” in the sense of more of a where… where did this come from, “why” is it here. Then there is the purpose sense: “why” am I doing such and such, for the sake of what. “How” is a different question, but if you’ve got answers then I’m all ears, metaphorically speaking.

In conclusion, I’m not a fan of abiogenesis because I don’t see how something that lacks a kind of self-motion can acquire it. And I agree, panspermia has never been much of an answer.

The information is basic. Metaphorically. Because what is transformed is the physical into the mental, no? Or is it the physical into the physical? Energy, mind…what do they have in common? Nothing, and that’s the point – one must transform into the other by means of a unity that is the(i)re.. informational content. Information is meaning, but it is also wave functions. A graph of reality? — NotAristotle

Yes. My Enformationism thesis posits that Information/EnFormAction (EFA -- power to transform) is fundamental ; hence is the precursor of Energy, Matter, and Mind. The thesis is an expansion of physicist John A. Wheeler's visionary & controversial concept of "It from Bit" : material things evolve from elementary information. Since he made that connection, scientists have been finding evidence to expand on Einstein's equation of Energy & Mass to include a role for Information*1. My thesis is merely an amateur conjecture, intended only for the purpose of forum discussions about Physics & Metaphysics. I rely on professional scientists to vett the speculations.

We already accept that Energy can transform into Mass (E=MC^2), which is the mathematical measure of Matter. Scientists have also been stumped by the causal gap between initial & final forms of Physical Phase Transitions*2 (e.g. water to ice). So this thesis postulates that physical & biological Evolution is a series of transformations from the First Cause to EFA to Energy to Matter to Mind to Self-Consciousness. "What is transformed" in each instance is Potential into Actual. Hence, all physical & mental forms in the world can be traced back to a single unitary monistic First Cause (???). Some call that Prime Mover "G*D", but in view of the information function, I call it "The Programmer". Below, I have pasted my own Graphs of Reality*3*4. :smile:


*1. A proposed experimental test for the mass-energy-information equivalence principle
A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter. . . .
“The implications of this experimental confirmation are huge, as this would affect all branches of physics, expanding our understanding of the universe, without contradicting or violating any of the existing laws of physics,” said Vopson. ___American Institute of Physics
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/2022/9/091111/2849001/A-proposed-experimental-test-for-the-mass-energy

*2. PHASE TRANSITION MYSTERY


*3. GRAPH OF EVOLUTION AS POTENTIAL TO ACTUAL


*4. GRAPH OF INFORMATION EVOLUTION

Hence, all physical & mental forms in the world can be traced back to a single unitary monistic First Cause (???). Some call that Prime Mover "G*D", but in view of the information function, I call it "The Programmer". Below, I have pasted my own Graphs of Reality*3*4 — Gnomon

Right, an informational basis of the universe would seem to hint towards a mind of sorts.

Do you agree that you and I could both share the source of thought? A dreaming super consciousness? — mentos987

For me, subjective experience is undeniable — the intuition passed by "I am here" or "I exist" is a brute fact —; we have to start with that phenomenological fact, which is the "I think". But it could be "I feel", "I seethe", "I see". "I think" is used because it is from there that we can fall into a circular argument that cannot be denied 'I doubt that I doubt'. It is the analysis of that argument, put in words, metaphors of thought, that starts the issues of rationality, while the subjective experience itself is undeniable.
I don't think the brute fact intuition "has a source" because ascribing cause or consequence to it would be rationalising it.
The thing about something thinking me is under the idea of identifying "I" with the thought "I think" that shows up in "I think therefore I am". Like thoughts are attributes of a mind (substance), and attributes are how we perceive substances, it is not problematic to make that identity. If I am a thought however, something must have thought me. That thing is either the outside structure or another thought that caused this thought. The possibility of being thought by another being (or by another thought) would have to imply that thoughts can exist and continue by themselves as a substance outside of a mind — which is what the "there are thoughts" people defend unavoidably.

In this scenario you have broadened "I" so much that it equates the entirety of existence (I = existence) — mentos987

The "I" equates the entirety of existence because we are starting with solipsism, so "I" has not been broadened, "existence" has been constricted to "I".

At that stage, there would be no point in the term "I" at all, as it is normally used to separate yourself from someone else. — mentos987

The "I" is used exactly to name the thing that has a subject experience.

There is no space before a semi-colon or a comma.

Let me see what else I can conjure up.

Scenario 2: You and I are conversing. I say that I think and therefore am. The problem is that I am a figment of your imagination. I am only a small part of you. Would it not, in that case, work just as well to say, "I am, therefore you are". Since I am just a small part of you. If "you" and "I" can be mixed into the same being, does that not dilute the meaning of "I"?

Would such a scenario really mean that I exist, if I am just a lesser part of your mind? Would it not be better to say that, “my thinking must have a source”?
Something thinks, therefore thought must exist, therefore existence is proven?

The "I" is used exactly to name the thing that has a subject experience. — Lionino

With this in mind, it adds up. However, normally when a person would use the word "I" it entails a lot more than just "something that is subjectively experiencing thought".

Replacing "I" with "the thing" would work.

Right, an informational basis of the universe would seem to hint towards a mind of sorts. — NotAristotle

I agree. But, I am agnostic about any divine characteristics beyond the otherwise unexplained chain of causation in evolution, and the mysterious emergence of immaterial noumenal phemomena (Mind & Consciousness) in an otherwise physical universe. Without a direct introduction, the First Cause may forever remain a philosophical enigma. But without such mysteries, what would we have to chat argue about on this forum? :smile:

↪Gnomon
There is no space before a semi-colon or a comma. — Lionino

Sorry! Does that extra white space bother you? It's a personal quirk of mine ; to make the transitional conjunction mark stand-out. Another eccentricity is the use of smilies as a message-concluding bullet-period. The smile or frown is an implicit part of the message. Are you OK with that? :smile: :wink:

Scenario 2: You and I are conversing. I say that I think and therefore am. The problem is that I am a figment of your imagination. I am only a small part of you. Would it not, in that case, work just as well to say, "I am, therefore you are". Since I am just a small part of you. If "you" and "I" can be mixed into the same being, does that not dilute the meaning of "I"? — mentos987

In that case it is just words inside my head. Just because my head is hallucinating someone saying "tree" it does not mean I am experiencing the concept of a tree. If I am in fact conceptualising "I think thus you are", the sentence is meaningless if there is nothing to which "you" refers, and there isn't when we start with solipsism.

However, normally when a person would use the word "I" it entails a lot more than just "something that is subjectively experiencing thought". — mentos987

Does it though? I would say that that is pretty much the definition of "I".

Honestly there are many things about that text's format that bother me, the semi-colon thing was the only one that I saw that would not be justified by stylistic choice.

However, normally when a person would use the word "I" it entails a lot more than just "something that is subjectively experiencing thought". — mentos987

Does it though? I would say that that is pretty much the definition of "I". — Lionino

I'd say a more common definition of "I" refers to the body, mind and potentially the soul of someone, not to the source of their thinking.

↪Gnomon
Honestly there are many things about that text's format that bother me, the semi-colon thing was the only one that I saw that would not be justified by stylistic choice. — Lionino

Again, I apologize for not following protocol. I have no formal training in Philosophy, so I'm making-up my formatting as seems best to present my informal science-based arguments. My website would jog your noggin. Please feel free to pass-over any of my posts that might "bother" your sensibilities. :smile:

The world has such depth, I doubt we will ever run out of things to argue about. :wink:

You can check out the thread on Physicalism as well, we all went deep into emergence of consciousness if you need more input on that angle. I firmly stand by physical emergentism in terms of defining consciousness, but I think the question in this thread focuses more on qualia than consciousness.

Leaving the formation of consciousness aside (I've written enough on the subject in the other thread), the question of qualia and our subjective experience as a consciousness is another discussion that fits this thread better.

Fromt the emergence perspective, consciousness is the resulting abstract system that forms out of a combination of systems. Each subsystem handles specific responsibilities, like the visual cortex and so on. Each system in itself does not form any understanding for the individual since there's no context that its "data" is set in relation to. Only when each part forms connections to the others do we form context and consciousness emerges. But these systems aren't bound to a specific location in the brain, recent research has shown it to be more of a bell curve response in a particular part of the brain, so each system stretches out far into a blend of the others, which might explain why people with brain damage in a region that should remove a certain conscious capacity sometimes only suffer minor changes and that the brain through neuroplasticity manage to salvage functions as there are enough neurons to rebuild connections, although at a lesser capacity due to loss of physical space in the cranium.

When all systems work together we form a contextual complexity and it blends together all sense data into a coherent experience. Add to that how our memories form and are always a relationary source of context for all actions and emotions we have. We always act with a memory context guiding us. That also applies to memory of emotions forming instinctual behaviors.

But the main part I'm looking into has to do with the moment to moment function of our consciousness. Why do we act, think and do what we do?

As I wrote in the other thread, consciousness needs to be viewed in relation to evolutionary need. Why did we evolve this trait? What were the evolutionary reason?

Here's a sort of line of events that might be a reason...

If we imagine a pre-homosapiens or rather pre-self-aware-conscious ape trying to survive as a group.

The most effective trait that an animal can develop through evolution is adaptability. The ability to regulate body heat, blend in, fool your pray and fool those who hunt you. If our ancestors developed the evolutionary trait of adaptability through predictions of their surroundings, they were able to predict being attacked, predict how to attack, predict if they were in danger, predict if they needed to move to another location and so on. Prediction seems to be one of the core features of our consciousness.

Prediction exists throughout nature in many forms. The most direct example is Pavlov's dog. We can program behavior through programming an animal's sense of predicting something. An octopus predicts danger and hides in its camouflage. A herd hears a disturbance and everyone moves in accordance. The more advanced an animal can predict their surroundings, the better they survive.

So what happens if an animal gains a highly advanced predictive function? The ability to not only act out of instincts that were programmed by trial and error through evolution in order to adapt to events, but also form basic understanding of causal events into the future and from the past. Instead of instincts, this animal were capable of conceptualize instincts, predict that if they turn that corner there will be a lion waiting, therefore stay put. So they survived.

Extending from that, they could also predict where to get food. Instead of just predicting danger, this trait helped predicting where herds gathered, like seeing a pond of water and predicting that the herd will gather and drink from it. So we wait for the food to come.

And so we developed rudimentary language because if you say the word for "stay here", both are able to predict what that leads to. One stays, the other push the herd towards the one who stays.

But the group also need to grow, sexuality is a driving force that is core to evolution. And emotions relating to that, the chemistry cannot be handled well. So the predictive skills becomes of use within the group as well. Can you lure the one who threaten your position in the group, into a place where you can kill them and be the alpha or the center of attention?

Language evolves to more complex systems, because it's not just your relation to nature that requires predictions, it's the group dynamic as well.

And so the history goes, step by step forming a system that's built on the function of predictions.

When looking at a modern human and its psychology. Is there any action, behavior or thought that isn't rooted in predictive behavior? We have our core emotions, our instincts and uncontrollable drives. But every reason to act seem to come from us trying to predict an outcome and adjust. Increasing the complexity of such a system extends to so much in culture, so much is about moment to moment predictions in relation to emotions, in relation to harm and wellbeing. Our mind produce predictive models for what will happen if we do something, all the time. It uses memories to find sources of context in order to predict an event better and so on.

And in order to predict others in the group, the individual need to have the function to predict another human being's behavior and that individual's own predictions. In order to do so the only source of data is themselves. So in order to predict others the individual self-reflect about their own nature, their own behavior. The mirror in which we see ourselves is used to form understanding of others, empathy is born and we can predict another's behavior.

This stream of perception data, filters through our highly advanced prediction calculations in order to form behaviors and actions in a way that navigates our surroundings in the best possible way for our survival. And the increasing complexity of culture that evolved due to this increasing system of predictions only feedbacked into growing more evolutionary needs for prediction skills. The ones who were able to predict reality the best, survived.

In essence, we believe that we have agency, but we act only in accordance to prediction of our future in order to survive. Which also means that we became aware of death. Not through pain as many other animals do, but conceptually we can predict nonexistence, which formed a feedback loop of emotions in which we predict our death, but that should be avoided, and yet it can't be avoided and the paradox spawned all sorts of strategies based on the prediction of death. How can we avoid it, if not what happens then? And the emotions surrounding death spawns its own complex and growing strategy to handle that paradox.

Wherever we look we can find reasons why prediction spawned behavior and internal thought. This illusion of our subjective experience may only be emotional responses to our surroundings based on our sensory data that produces predictive behaviors trying to handle survival.

Why do I sit here and write this? What drives me to do it? Not what I think is driving me, but what is actually pulling my strings doing this? My emotions surrounding the act of writing all of this. Is my emotions driving me to find survival in a group here? Predicting that if I write something good it will generate connection to the tribe, to the group and put me in a better place for survival? Is it an act against death? Is it about survival?

I think we conceptualize too much around our experience of consciousness, I think there's a very basic reason why our consciousness acts in the way it does and why we experience things as we do, but this basic reason has evolved into such a complex form that we've basically become lost in that complexity and produced this illusion that is our qualia, our inner experience of life.

We are highly advanced prediction machines, driven by emotions that guide our survival. Those are the strings we don't see and which gives us the illusion of complex experience.

I don't think we are as advanced as we think we are, in terms of how we function. The consequences of our consciousness onto the universe is very complex as a result, but we are not that complex in how we function. And our subjective experience may only be an illusion formed out of a basic system that had the ability to take many forms, and has done so and evolved into extreme complexity. But we attribute ourselves more complexity than I think is actually in our heads.

Our experience and ability to self-reflect is something that we evolved into, and so the answer to it lies in why we evolved into it.

...our consciousness acts in the way it does and why we experience things as we do, but this basic reason has evolved into such a complex form that we've basically become lost in that complexity and produced this illusion that is our qualia, our inner experience of life.

We are highly advanced prediction machines, driven by emotions that guide our survival. Those are the strings we don't see and which gives us the illusion of complex experience. — Christoffer

Are your notions here based on work by Daniel Dennett or Thomas Metzinger?

Why do I sit here and write this? What drives me to do it? Not what I think is driving me, but what is actually pulling my strings doing this? My emotions surrounding the act of writing all of this. Is my emotions driving me to find survival in a group here? Predicting that if I write something good it will generate connection to the tribe, to the group and put me in a better place for survival? Is it an act against death? Is it about survival? — Christoffer

:cool:

Are your notions here based on work by Daniel Dennett or Thomas Metzinger? — Tom Storm

Actually, no, they're ideas I've developed on my own out of trying to conceptualize the evolutionary reason for consciousness and how we ended up with self-awareness as it seems to be too evolutionary intentional to just be an accidental trait.

But it's not uncommon that people arrive at similar conclusion independent of one another. I will check out their concepts, thanks for the tip :up:

Wouldn't there be the possibility to know one's emotions and thereby know why one is acting? And, is it not the case that if we know how we are going to act, we have the ability to act in a manner contrary to what we are conscious of?

And, if consciousness really is an illusion, why the illusion? Wouldn't we be better equipped evolutionarily speaking to see the truth; reality as it really is.

Wouldn't there be the possibility to know one's emotions and thereby know why one is acting? And, is it not the case that if we know how we are going to act, we have the ability to act in a manner contrary to what we are conscious of?

And, if consciousness really is an illusion, why the illusion? Wouldn't we be better equipped evolutionarily speaking to see the truth; reality as it really is. — NotAristotle

Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, while failing to provide a persuasive argument against naturalism, can provide some insight into the fact that given evolution and naturalism we have good reason to question the reliability of our cognitive faculties.

Lucky for us, questioning the reliability of our cognitive faculties has the potential to greatly increase their reliability. Or as a Nobel Prize winning physicist put it, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

By "naturalism" Plantinga seems to mean non-belief in God in this context. It appears that someone who does believe in God can, according to Plantinga's proposals, maintain that our cognitive abilities are reliable. Although it's possible I have misunderstood Plantinga.

By "naturalism" Plantinga seems to mean non-belief in God in this context. It appears that someone who does believe in God can, according to Plantinga's proposals, maintain that our cognitive abilities are reliable. Although it's possible I have misunderstood Plantinga. — NotAristotle

Plantinga does believe that we can believe that our cognitive faculties are reliable, because God created them to be so. However it would be a recipe for self-delusion to accept the circular argument that one is justified in believing in God, because otherwise one would have to accept that one's cognitive faculties are unreliable to some degree. The EAAN is a poor rationalization for believing in God, rather than a good argument against naturalism.

:up:

And, if consciousness really is an illusion, why the illusion? Wouldn't we be better equipped evolutionarily speaking to see the truth; reality as it really is. — NotAristotle

But how would that "truthful image" even be distinguishable from one that involves the so-called illusion?

I'd say a more common definition of "I" refers to the body, mind and potentially the soul of someone, not to the source of their thinking. — mentos987

Here, the body is discarded, as we do not know whether our perception of our body reflects reality or not. Mind and soul are considered to be synonymous with the source of thinking.

I think you misunderstood, my opinion is that the notion of subject isn't tied to the notion of consciousness. — Skalidris

I think that this is a false proposition. The subject has operative control over the entire space which constitutes the body, and the consciousness assumes responsibility for the actions of that body. If one consciousness assumed many different bodies as a single unity, it would have to assume responsibility for the activities within the entire space between these bodies, as if this was all part of one body.

What is important here is the unity of the body which is the subject, and the fact that the consciousness can only exercise control over, and responsibility for, the activities within the space occupied by the body because of the strength of this unity. The "balls of energy" thought experiment of the op fails fundamentally, from the outset, because it suffers from the relativity of simultaneity which makes distinct subjects into distinct frames of reference, thereby lacking the unity required for consciousness to pervade. In other words, anytime a "ball of energy", supposedly a consciousness, passed from one subject to another, it would find itself completely disoriented, being in a completely different frame of reference, sort of like if you went to sleep in Tokyo and woke up in London, except much more extreme. The discontinuity would be much more severe because there would be nothing apparent to the senses to connect the two, and no one able to provide the story. Even the intellect itself would be completely lost, having applied no transformation formula to change from one frame of reference to another to recognize the new frame of reference. And if such a formula was applied, then this would indicate that the one individual consciousness is changing location, not encompassing the whole space.

Furthermore, all the space in between the distinct bodily subjects would still be apprehended as external to the subjects, being perceive through the senses. However, the consciousness, as one consciousness for many subjects, would have to apprehend this space as internal space. This would produce all sorts of irreconcilable confusion for the consciousness because it would not be able to distinguish forces of change coming from the inside, from forces coming from the outside, leaving it incapable of intentional activity.

Fair, but that still seems to me like you bend the word "I" to fit. The source of our thinking could be wildly different from what most of us think is ourselves ("I"). The thought could be as fabricated as anything else about our reality could. We only know that thought must originate from something. Claiming that this "something" is "I" seems like a stretch, and maybe wishful thinking.

I do not think that the "I" is proven to exist; only that existence itself is proven true.

And I do not think that the general population defines "I" like you do, thus leaving room for misunderstanding.

I agree with the logic, but I think the communication is poor. When you share a thought, you want to form words in such a manner as to elicit the same thought in someone else’s mind. I do not think this is happening correctly with "I think, therefore I am".

Wouldn't there be the possibility to know one's emotions and thereby know why one is acting? And, is it not the case that if we know how we are going to act, we have the ability to act in a manner contrary to what we are conscious of? — NotAristotle

Which is in line with a highly complex web of prediction actions. What happens when a prediction system starts to predict possible outcomes of actions that are themselves formed by a prediction "algorithm", in this case our emotions? It start to form a value-system in which it balances these predictions towards the best outcome. When culture and civilisation evolved it was advantageous for our survival to adapt to its structure and so we felt emotions that were there to predict outcomes, but those outcomes often led to negative consequences that in nature worked, but in culture and civilisation didn't. And so our new layer of predictions analyzed our own emotional behavior and started to mitigate them when needed. We all act according to what we predict will happen. We all act with very basic needs and how we navigate towards getting those needs is through a range of actions based on highly complex web of predictions that form a plan of action and strategy. But because all of this becomes so extremely complex with maybe thousands of predictions that occur all the time, we don't experience it as such, but instead we experience some emergent phenomena of "being", an illusion that forms out of these basic adaptive functions.

Through this, it looks like we are simple and we are, but the emergent effect out of this simplicity forms a complexity that is highly unique in nature.

And, if consciousness really is an illusion, why the illusion? Wouldn't we be better equipped evolutionarily speaking to see the truth; reality as it really is. — NotAristotle

But that does not have an evolutionary function. Evolution acts on previous abilities and their limitations. We have no reason to "see reality as it is", and in this sense I think you mean to be free from the emotional driving forces and be able to always act without biases to any needs. But wherein lies the reason to evolve like that? We evolved in nature in relation to the environment and our survival, the reason to have the consciousness we have functions out from that existence and not what we could argue would be a detached and more effective overview on reality, far away from any natural animal instincts and forces limiting us.

I think we often forget where we came from, attributing a lot of fantasy onto ourselves because we believe ourselves to be "more than nature". But we aren't. We are just part of any evolutionary tree as any other species and our evolutionary trait of self-reflecting consciousness is a function just as birds ability to fly along the magnetospheric lines of the earth is a remarkable evolutionary trait; or the electric eels able to generate up to 600 volts without hurting themselves. We look at these traits as fascinating and wonder how they developed, but then we look at consciousness and start to produce magical fantasies that promote our own sense of ego.

Since we are animals who act for survival just like everything else in nature, it is understandable that we inflate our own ego in face of nature. To attribute our own consciousness with a magical aura and position it as something greater than nature, we effectively form a survival mentality in which we've taken control over nature by reasoning ourselves into masters of it.

It may be the reason why people who barely survived in nature, astronauts who gazed upon earth from the moon and people who faced death due to their own stupidity; all start to reevaluate their position in nature's hierarchy. Yes, maybe we are at the top, but we are not magically special, we are still part of it all, we come from it, evolved from it and are bound to the reasons why we became who we are.

in this sense I think you mean to be free from the emotional driving forces and be able to always act without biases to any needs. — Christoffer

That is not necessarily what I mean when I speak of "seeing reality as it is." As I am presently using it, I mean seeing reality in contradistinction to the way reality is seen through the lens of an apparent illusion of consciousness.

Still, it seems to me that any sort of illusion of reality would be weeded out by evolution in favor of a more honest interface, seems to me like that would have an evolutionary advantage.



I'm not sure I understand the question; I guess I take it as given that an illusion is necessarily differentiable from non-illusion .

That is not necessarily what I mean when I speak of "seeing reality as it is." As I am presently using it, I mean seeing reality in contradistinction to the way reality is seen through the lens of an apparent illusion of consciousness. — NotAristotle

The illusion is what I described here:

But because all of this becomes so extremely complex with maybe thousands of predictions that occur all the time, we don't experience it as such, but instead we experience some emergent phenomena of "being", an illusion that forms out of these basic adaptive functions. — Christoffer

The illusion is our experience of ourselves to be more advanced than what we really are. We don't see the strings that pulls our behavior, wants, needs, thoughts and actions, we only experience the sum of those strings and it makes us feel like we are in control and have agency. Individuality formed out of this complex web through the formation of self-reflection out of the need to predict other individuals within a tribe, group or against another rival group.

Still, it seems to me that any sort of illusion of reality would be weeded out by evolution in favor of a more honest interface, seems to me like that would have an evolutionary advantage. — NotAristotle

Seen as much of the mental disorders in our modern life comes from the fact that our psychology still functions similar to that of the psychology of hunter-gatherer groups over 50 000 years ago, we haven't evolved much further. Evolution takes timea lot of time. If we think that the past 100 000 years changed us much, the fact is that it didn't. It may be that the only evolutionary progress we've made is the one I mentioned with better self-control over our emotions as civilisation grew larger, but most modern civilisations didn't begin before 12 000 years ago and that's not really enough time for major evolutionary changes.

It may be that our modern life, like this, using technology, will eventually evolve us into other forms of consciousness, but that will take so long that the risk might be greater that we destroy ourselves before then. Evolution requires a very long time over many generations and under specific conditions in order to form and it's not step by step, but gradually. We might have changes in our consciousness today compared to 5000-10 000 years ago, but those would be miniscule.

But in terms of the weeding out the "illusion", there isn't a replacement for it in evolutionary terms since it's an emergent result out of the underlying functions and it's the functions themselves that are our actual mechanics of consciousness, it's them that would need to change in order to transform the illusion into something else, but so far, where's the need to do so? We don't have a form of living that impose a need for anything other than our predictive and adaptive function and so there's nothing pushing on evolution to change us.

You need to view this from the perspective of evolution and how it progress, not from the perspective of what would seem a logical "better" step towards a superior system of consciousness, that's not how evolution works.

I'm not sure I understand the question; I guess I take it as given that an illusion is necessarily differentiable from non-illusion . — NotAristotle

I agree, but how would you differentiate them in this case? What specifically did evolution do to trick you into believing you are conscious?