Illusionism about Phenomenal Consciousness: Explaining the Illusion

Illusionism holds that phenomenal consciousness—the subjective, qualitative feel of experience—is an introspective illusion. This paper proposes a theory to explain why we are strongly disposed to mistakenly judge that we are phenomenally conscious. The explanation rests on three hypotheses: introspective opacity (we have limited access to our own mental processes), the infallibility intuition (we assume our introspective judgments are correct), and the justification constraint (we seek reasons for our judgments). These lead us to draw erroneous unconscious inferences about our sensory states, creating the illusion of phenomenal consciousness. The theory also accounts for common intuitions about consciousness—that it involves ineffable, private, non-physical qualities—and addresses why illusionism itself seems counterintuitive.

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Abstract

According to illusionism, phenomenal consciousness is an introspective illusion. The illusion problem (Frankish 2016) is to explain the cause of the illusion, or why we are powerfully disposed to judge—erroneously—that we are phenomenally conscious. I propose a theory to solve the illusion problem. I argue that on the basis of three hypotheses about the mind—which I call introspective opacity, the infallibility intuition, and the justification constraint—we can explain our disposition, on introspection, to draw erroneous unconscious inferences about our sensory states. Being subject to the illusion of phenomenal consciousness consists in having this disposition. I explain our ‘problem intuitions’ about consciousness (Chalmers 2018)—that our sensory states bear phenomenal properties that are qualitatively like something with which we are directly acquainted that is ineffable, atomic, intrinsic (non-relational), private, and non-physical. I also address the illusion meta-problem (Kammerer 2019a), which is to explain why illusionism seems especially counterintuitive.