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llusionism as a Theory of Consciousness

#1
C C Offline
This minority stance still seems incoherent out of the starting gate. Even an illusion / magic trick or hallucination requires manifestation. The alternative of "not even nothing" does not offer empirical and intellectual evidence of anything to accept or reject. (Even one's decision-making thoughts about such require presence as introspectively audible verbal narratives, visual images, or some "showing or feeling" to verify they are even occurring.)

llusionism as a Theory of Consciousness
http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/k0711...eprint.pdf

EXCERPT: Theories of consciousness typically address the hard problem. They accept that phenomenal consciousness is real and aim to explain how it comes to exist. There is, however, another approach, which holds that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion and aims to explain why it seems to exist. We might call this eliminativism about phenomenal consciousness. The term is not ideal, however, suggesting as it does that belief in phenomenal consciousness is simply a theoretical error, that rejection of phenomenal realism is part of a wider rejection of folk psychology, and that there is no role at all for talk of phenomenal properties — claims that are not essential to the approach. Another label is ‘irrealism’, but that too has unwanted connotations; illusions themselves are real and may have considerable power. I propose ‘illusionism’ as a more accurate and inclusive name, and I shall refer to the problem of explaining why experiences seem to have phenomenal properties as the illusion problem. Although it has powerful defenders — pre-eminently Daniel Dennett — illusionism remains a minority position, and it is often dismissed out of hand as failing to ‘take consciousness seriously’ (Chalmers, 1996). The aim of this article is to present the case for illusionism. It will not propose a detailed illusionist theory, but will seek to persuade the reader that the illusionist research programme is worth pursuing and that illusionists do take consciousness seriously — in some ways, more seriously than realists do.

MORE: http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/k0711...eprint.pdf
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#2
Ostronomos Offline
Explaining phenomenal consciousness in purely functional terms vis a vis the illusionist stance is like explaining Quantum Mechanics without an account for consciousness. It doesn't add up. Suppose consciousness can be reprogrammed by the interception of a foreign mind, as would be the case with possession, then they would be left with an absence of explanation requiring advancement of a new kind. This anti-realism excludes other possibilities by accepting that all you see is all you get. How unfortunate.
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#3
Ostronomos Offline
Come to think of it, Quantum Consciousness would mean a realism position on consciousness is the correct one. Reality is consciousness. This illusionism is a complete misunderstanding.

I think the problem can be identified by the ever elusive 'I'. The source of suffering is the 'I', a fictional entity, and suffering controls, restrains and ultimately deceives us to continue assuming or manifesting the 'I'. We have no control over our spontaneous mental concepts and beliefs. Therefore we fall victim to what is beyond our control. When the 'I' goes Nirvana and bhavacakra are realized. But the 'I' is only a small part of our whole consciousness. Our individual consciousness is a microcosm of the limitless consciousness.
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