illusionism
In plain wordsThe view that the inner glow of experience that seems so hard to explain is a kind of trick the brain plays on itself: we are conscious, but not in the mysterious way it seems.
The position that phenomenal consciousnessphenomenal consciousness, n.: The felt, experiential side of the mind — what it is like to taste coffee or to feel sad — as opposed to simply processing or reporting information., understood as a realm of private, ineffable qualitative properties, does not exist, and that the task of a theory of consciousness is to explain why it seems to exist: why brains represent their own states as having such properties, and why we find the hard problemhard problem of consciousness, n.: The puzzle of why physical processes in a brain — or a computer — should feel like anything from the inside, rather than simply running without any inner experience. compelling. Illusionists do not deny that people have experiences in a functional sense or that pain matters; they deny that experience has the extra properties that would make it inexplicable. Proponents include Keith Frankish, Daniel Dennett and Nicholas Humphrey, and attention schema theoryattention schema theory, n.: A theory that the brain keeps a simplified sketch of its own attention, and that our feeling of having an inner awareness is simply how that sketch portrays attention. is often classed with them. For AI, illusionism implies that a machine representing its own processing in the right introspective way would be conscious in the only sense there is, turning machine consciousnessmachine consciousness, n.: Whether a machine such as an AI system could have genuine experiences of its own — and the research field that tries to find out, or to build such a machine. into an engineering question.
Origin
Keith Frankish's 'Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness' (Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2016), the target paper of a special issue, established the label, continuing Daniel Dennett's earlier attacks on qualiaqualia, n.: The individual felt qualities of experience — the particular redness of red, the taste of mint, the sting of a burn — that seem impossible to capture fully in words. in 'Quining Qualia' (1988) and Consciousness Explained (1991).
Usage note
Not the claim that consciousness as a whole is an illusion, which illusionists usually reject as self-undermining: the illusion concerns the apparent character of experience, not its existence. Closely related to eliminative materialism.
Related
- hard problem of consciousnesshard problem of consciousness, n.: The puzzle of why physical processes in a brain — or a computer — should feel like anything from the inside, rather than simply running without any inner experience.
- qualiaqualia, n.: The individual felt qualities of experience — the particular redness of red, the taste of mint, the sting of a burn — that seem impossible to capture fully in words.
- attention schema theoryattention schema theory, n.: A theory that the brain keeps a simplified sketch of its own attention, and that our feeling of having an inner awareness is simply how that sketch portrays attention.
- phenomenal consciousnessphenomenal consciousness, n.: The felt, experiential side of the mind — what it is like to taste coffee or to feel sad — as opposed to simply processing or reporting information.
- introspectionintrospection, n.: Looking inward to observe your own thoughts and feelings. For AI, the question is whether a model can accurately report what is actually happening inside it, rather than guessing or making it up.
- functionalismfunctionalism, n.: The view that minds are defined by how they work, not what they are made of: pain, for example, is whatever inner state plays pain's part, linking injury, other thoughts and behavior.
- panpsychismpanpsychism, n.: The idea that some simple form of experience is a basic feature of all matter, so that minds like ours are built out of tiny glimmers of mind found everywhere.
Sources
- Frankish, K. (2016). Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 23(11–12), 11–39.
Mentioned in
Daniel DennettDaniel Dennett, prop. n.: An American philosopher who argued that minds are what brains do, that consciousness can in principle be explained scientifically, and that we understand machines by treating them as if they had beliefs and goals., hard problem of consciousnesshard problem of consciousness, n.: The puzzle of why physical processes in a brain — or a computer — should feel like anything from the inside, rather than simply running without any inner experience., phenomenal consciousnessphenomenal consciousness, n.: The felt, experiential side of the mind — what it is like to taste coffee or to feel sad — as opposed to simply processing or reporting information., philosophical zombiephilosophical zombie, n.: An imagined being that behaves exactly like a person — talking, laughing, even saying it feels pain — but has no inner experience at all. Philosophers use it to ask whether behavior proves a mind., qualiaqualia, n.: The individual felt qualities of experience — the particular redness of red, the taste of mint, the sting of a burn — that seem impossible to capture fully in words., attention schema theoryattention schema theory, n.: A theory that the brain keeps a simplified sketch of its own attention, and that our feeling of having an inner awareness is simply how that sketch portrays attention., panpsychismpanpsychism, n.: The idea that some simple form of experience is a basic feature of all matter, so that minds like ours are built out of tiny glimmers of mind found everywhere.