In lieu of recapitulating the full argument, I’ll give an intuition pump: ‘reality doesn’t exist’ should get a much higher subjective probability than ‘leprechauns exist’ or ‘perpetual motion machines exist’, paradoxical though that sounds. The reason being that we have a pretty clear idea of what ‘leprechauns’ and ‘perpetual motion machines’ are, so we can be clearer about what it means for them not to exist; we’re less likely to be confused on that front, it’s more likely to be a well-specified question with a simple factual answer.
Whereas ‘reality’ is a very abstract and somewhat confusing term, and it seems at least somewhat likelier (even if it’s still extremely unlikely!) that we’ll realize it was a non-denoting term someday, though it’s hard to imagine (and in fact it sounds like nonsense!) from our present perspective.
In this analogy, ‘epiphenomenalism is true’ is like ‘leprechauns exist’, while ‘illusionism is true’ is like ‘reality doesn’t exist’.
From my perspective, the first seems to be saying something pretty precise and obviously false. The latter is a strange enough claim, and concerns a confusing enough concept (‘phenomenal consciousness’), that it’s harder to reasonably say with extreme confidence that it’s false. Even if our inside view says that we couldn’t possibly be wrong about this, we should cautiously hedge (at least a little) in our view outside the argument.
And then we get to the actual arguments for and against illusionism, which I think (collectively) show that illusionism is very likely true. But I’m also claiming that even before investigating illusionism (but after seeing why epiphenomenalism doesn’t make sense), it should be possible to see that illusionism is not like ‘leprechauns exist’.
I do think that a reasonable person can start off with a much higher prior probability on epiphenomenalism than on illusionism (and indeed, many intellectuals have done so), because the problems with epiphenomenalism are less immediately obvious (to many people) than the problems with illusionism. But by the time you’ve finished reading the Sequences, I don’t think you can reasonably hold that position anymore.
“Robin, you are suffering from overconfidence bias in assuming that the universe exists. Surely there is some chance that the universe is of size zero.”
“James, if the universe doesn’t exist, it would still be nice to know whether it’s an infinite or a finite universe that doesn’t exist.”
Ha! You think pulling that old “universe doesn’t exist” trick will stop me? It won’t even slow me down!
It’s not that I’m ruling out the possibility that the universe doesn’t exist. It’s just that, even if nothing exists, I still want to understand the nothing as best I can. My curiosity doesn’t suddenly go away just because there’s no reality, you know!
The nature of “reality” is something about which I’m still confused, which leaves open the possibility that there isn’t any such thing. But Egan’s Law still applies: “It all adds up to normality.” Apples didn’t stop falling when Einstein disproved Newton’s theory of gravity.
Sure, when the dust settles, it could turn out that apples don’t exist, Earth doesn’t exist, reality doesn’t exist. But the nonexistent apples will still fall toward the nonexistent ground at a meaningless rate of 9.8 m/s2.
You say the universe doesn’t exist? Fine, suppose I believe that—though it’s not clear what I’m supposed to believe, aside from repeating the words.
By “positive solution” I mean a claim about what is the correct theory, not a claim about what is the wrong theory. I am well aware that he argues against epiphenomenalism.
Of course, it is far from the case that the heuristics you mentioned have led most or many people to illusionism.
Neither is epiphenomenalism. Philosophy only deals with broad, poorly specified claims. The parallels with typical “internet sceptic” topics like “leprechauns exist” are misleading.
No, though I’m willing to say that illusionism is incredibly weird and paradoxical-seeming and it makes sense to start with a strong prior against it.
Why should “my consciousness doesn’t exist” be less crazy than “my consciousness exists but has no causal powers”?
In lieu of recapitulating the full argument, I’ll give an intuition pump: ‘reality doesn’t exist’ should get a much higher subjective probability than ‘leprechauns exist’ or ‘perpetual motion machines exist’, paradoxical though that sounds. The reason being that we have a pretty clear idea of what ‘leprechauns’ and ‘perpetual motion machines’ are, so we can be clearer about what it means for them not to exist; we’re less likely to be confused on that front, it’s more likely to be a well-specified question with a simple factual answer.
Whereas ‘reality’ is a very abstract and somewhat confusing term, and it seems at least somewhat likelier (even if it’s still extremely unlikely!) that we’ll realize it was a non-denoting term someday, though it’s hard to imagine (and in fact it sounds like nonsense!) from our present perspective.
In this analogy, ‘epiphenomenalism is true’ is like ‘leprechauns exist’, while ‘illusionism is true’ is like ‘reality doesn’t exist’.
From my perspective, the first seems to be saying something pretty precise and obviously false. The latter is a strange enough claim, and concerns a confusing enough concept (‘phenomenal consciousness’), that it’s harder to reasonably say with extreme confidence that it’s false. Even if our inside view says that we couldn’t possibly be wrong about this, we should cautiously hedge (at least a little) in our view outside the argument.
And then we get to the actual arguments for and against illusionism, which I think (collectively) show that illusionism is very likely true. But I’m also claiming that even before investigating illusionism (but after seeing why epiphenomenalism doesn’t make sense), it should be possible to see that illusionism is not like ‘leprechauns exist’.
Philip K Dick gave a pretty good informal definition of reality: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
I do think that a reasonable person can start off with a much higher prior probability on epiphenomenalism than on illusionism (and indeed, many intellectuals have done so), because the problems with epiphenomenalism are less immediately obvious (to many people) than the problems with illusionism. But by the time you’ve finished reading the Sequences, I don’t think you can reasonably hold that position anymore.
I’ve read the sequences, and they don’t argue for illusionism, and they don’t argue for any other positive solution to the HP.
They argue against epiphenomenalism, and introduce a bunch of other relevant ideas and heuristics.
Including the aforementioned:
By “positive solution” I mean a claim about what is the correct theory, not a claim about what is the wrong theory. I am well aware that he argues against epiphenomenalism.
Of course, it is far from the case that the heuristics you mentioned have led most or many people to illusionism.
Edited:
Neither is epiphenomenalism. Philosophy only deals with broad, poorly specified claims. The parallels with typical “internet sceptic” topics like “leprechauns exist” are misleading.