Submitted by Gmroo t3_zdfsu4 in philosophy
Reply to comment by Gmroo in The hard problem of metaphysics: figuring out if other phenomena exist in our universe that like consciousness require we bear a specific metaphysical relation to them - i.e. you can't know of consciousness without being conscious. by Gmroo
I guess soo, in respect to how Chalmers defines the hard problem I’m an illusionist.
Okay. I find illusionism a useless position with zero explanatory value. It tries to claim phenomenal consciousness is an illusion and leaves us with the same stuff to explain, only now they're called illusions.
There is just the easy problem to solve. Now the easy problem is going to be really hard to solve, but is solvable.
Try thinking of illusion not as a True/False binary but as a multidimensional spectrum.
This simple approach (consciously overriding subconscious heuristics) has great utility with many ideas.
I do. What makes you think I don't? I was talking about the philosophical position illusionism. I have no issues with the idea that some of the thinks we believe introspectively are mistaken. But we don't need an -ism for that.
Maybe I don't understand the problem then, because to me if one fully and "properly" accepts that illusionism is in effect (which includes representing heuristics predictions as truths), I'd think a workflow could be worked out such that people would be better able to realize that the core proposition is simply unknown at this point in time, which perhaps could get more people on the same page for a change.
> But we don't need an -ism for that.
Memes can be an effective popular way to get knowledge into otherwise resistant minds, just look at how well "We have no free will!" has worked, despite the truth of the matter being unknown.
Illusionism as held by Dennett, Graziano, Frankish.. has akl the issues Chalmers lists in his meta-problem. It's barely coherent, doesn't provide explanatory value.. and if beliefs about consciousness can be debunked, that without experience we can't theorize about it (you need "access") then maybebthere is more to it.
You lost me a bit with the first paragraph. Illusionism wants to negate phenomenal consciousness. Don't think many people can get on that page.
> and if beliefs about consciousness can be debunked, that without experience we can't theorize about it (you need "access") then maybebthere is more to it.
This sounds like its right in the wheelhouse of what I'm interested in, but I can't tell what you're getting at exactly.
> You lost me a bit with the first paragraph. Illusionism wants to negate phenomenal consciousness. Don't think many people can get on that page.
I'm getting at how on specific topics, it seems as if the human mind is unable to distinguish between reality and perception, fact and opinion. Whether we have free will is simply not known, not is it known whether the entirety of the universe is deterministic. If it was otherwise someone could point to a proof (or something approaching it), but all anyone has is stories, most of which have obvious flaws in them. On this topic it's perhaps not such a big deal, but I find the phenomenon annoying and it seems rather dangerous.
I have worked on free will quite a bit and we have it, only in degrees. Kevin Mitchell is working on a great (goingnby his tweets andnpeevious work) book on it right now. Check also George Ellis out wrt top-down causation.
Only in degrees, sure, but degrees go from zero to infinity, where it is within that range that we sit is the tricky part!
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