I think representationalism helps much more than the illusionist stance for loading the right intuitions. If you get close to a screen you see that really it’s a bunch of rgb pixels. Is it helpful to call the projected image you see from father away an illusion? Better to say we have multiple representations at different levels of abstraction and seen to get different sorts of computational advantages out of crunching on these different representations.
Semi-relatedly, I’m getting frustrated with the term “illusionist”. People seem to use it in different ways. Within the last few weeks I listened to the 80k podcast with David Chalmers and the Rationally Speaking podcast with “illusionist” Keith Frankish.
Chalmers seemed to use the term to mean that consciousness was an illusion, such that it means we don’t really have consciousness. Which seems very dubious.
Frankish seemed to use the term to mean that many of the properties that other philosophers think our consciousness has are illusory, but that of course we are conscious.
From listening to the latter interview, it’s not clear to me that Frankish (who, according to Wikipedia, is “known for his ‘illusionist’ stance in the theory of consciousness”) believes anything different from the view described in this post (which I assume you’re classing as “representationalism”).
Maybe I’m just confused. But it seems like leading philosophers of today still haven’t absorbed the lesson of Wittgenstein and are still talking past each other with confusing words.
I guess my request of philosophers (and the rest of us) is this: when you are using an every day term like “free will” or “consciousness”, please don’t define it to mean one very specific thing that bakes in a bunch of philosophical assumptions. Because then anyone who questions some of those assumptions ends up arguing whether the thing exists. Rather than just saying it’s a little different than we thought before.
It’d be like if we couldn’t talk about “space” or “time” anymore after Einstein. Or if half of us started calling ourselves “illusionists” w.r.t. space or time. They’re not illusions! They exist! They’re just a little different than we thought before.
(See also this comment, and remember that all abstractions are leaky!)
“Illusionist” is in principle a one place predicate like “realist” and “sceptic”. You can be a realist about X and a sceptic about Y. In practice, it tends to mean illusionism about qualia.
I think representationalism helps much more than the illusionist stance for loading the right intuitions. If you get close to a screen you see that really it’s a bunch of rgb pixels. Is it helpful to call the projected image you see from father away an illusion? Better to say we have multiple representations at different levels of abstraction and seen to get different sorts of computational advantages out of crunching on these different representations.
Semi-relatedly, I’m getting frustrated with the term “illusionist”. People seem to use it in different ways. Within the last few weeks I listened to the 80k podcast with David Chalmers and the Rationally Speaking podcast with “illusionist” Keith Frankish.
Chalmers seemed to use the term to mean that consciousness was an illusion, such that it means we don’t really have consciousness. Which seems very dubious.
Frankish seemed to use the term to mean that many of the properties that other philosophers think our consciousness has are illusory, but that of course we are conscious.
From listening to the latter interview, it’s not clear to me that Frankish (who, according to Wikipedia, is “known for his ‘illusionist’ stance in the theory of consciousness”) believes anything different from the view described in this post (which I assume you’re classing as “representationalism”).
Maybe I’m just confused. But it seems like leading philosophers of today still haven’t absorbed the lesson of Wittgenstein and are still talking past each other with confusing words.
I guess my request of philosophers (and the rest of us) is this: when you are using an every day term like “free will” or “consciousness”, please don’t define it to mean one very specific thing that bakes in a bunch of philosophical assumptions. Because then anyone who questions some of those assumptions ends up arguing whether the thing exists. Rather than just saying it’s a little different than we thought before.
It’d be like if we couldn’t talk about “space” or “time” anymore after Einstein. Or if half of us started calling ourselves “illusionists” w.r.t. space or time. They’re not illusions! They exist! They’re just a little different than we thought before.
(See also this comment, and remember that all abstractions are leaky!)
“Illusionist” is in principle a one place predicate like “realist” and “sceptic”. You can be a realist about X and a sceptic about Y. In practice, it tends to mean illusionism about qualia.
Can you suggest a reference which you found helpful for “loading the right intuitions” about consciousness?
Unfortunately I don’t know of a good overview. Chalmers might have one. Lukeprogs post on consciousness has some pointers.
Thanks! I just read Luke’s report Appendix F on illusionism and it’s definitely pointing me in fruitful directions.