I am strongly disinclined to believe (as I think David Chalmers has suggested) that there’s a notion of p-zombies, in which an unconscious system could have exactly the same thoughts and behaviors as a conscious one, even including writing books about the philosophy of consciousness, for reasons described here and elsewhere.
Again: Chalmers doesn’t think p-zombies are actually possible.
If I believe (1), it seems to follow that I should endorse the claim “if we have a complete explanation of the meta-problem of consciousness, then there is nothing left to explain regarding the hard problem of consciousness”.
That doesn’t follow from (1). It would follow from the claim that everyone is a zombie, because then there would be nothing to consciousness except false claims to be conscious. However, if you take the view that reports of consciousness are caused by consciousness per se, then consciousness per se exists and needs to be explained separately from reports and behaviour.
Hmm. I do take the view that reports of consciousness are (at least in part) caused by consciousness (whatever that is!). (Does anyone disagree with that?) I think a complete explanation of reports of consciousness necessarily include any upstream cause of those reports. By analogy, I report that I am wearing a watch. If you want a “complete and correct explanation” of that report, you need to bring up the fact that I am in fact wearing a watch, and to describe what a watch is. Any explanation omitting the existence of my actual watch would not match the data. Thus, if reports of consciousness are partly caused by consciousness, then it will not be possible to correctly explain those reports unless, somewhere buried within the explanation of the report of consciousness, there is an explanation of consciousness itself. Do you see where I’m coming from?
If explaining reports of consciousness involves solving the hard problem, then no one has explained reports of consciousness, since no one has has solved the HP.
Of course, some people (eg. Dennett) think that reports of consciousness can be explained … and don’t accept that there is an HP.
And the HP isn’t about consciousness in general, it is about qualia or phenomenal consciousnessm the very thing that illusionism denies.
Edit: the basic problem with what you are saying is that there are disagreements about what explanation is, and about what needs to be explained. The Dennet side was that once you have explained all the objective phenomena objectively, you have explained everything. The Chalmers side thinks that leaves out the most important stuff.
Again: Chalmers doesn’t think p-zombies are actually possible.
That doesn’t follow from (1). It would follow from the claim that everyone is a zombie, because then there would be nothing to consciousness except false claims to be conscious. However, if you take the view that reports of consciousness are caused by consciousness per se, then consciousness per se exists and needs to be explained separately from reports and behaviour.
Hmm. I do take the view that reports of consciousness are (at least in part) caused by consciousness (whatever that is!). (Does anyone disagree with that?) I think a complete explanation of reports of consciousness necessarily include any upstream cause of those reports. By analogy, I report that I am wearing a watch. If you want a “complete and correct explanation” of that report, you need to bring up the fact that I am in fact wearing a watch, and to describe what a watch is. Any explanation omitting the existence of my actual watch would not match the data. Thus, if reports of consciousness are partly caused by consciousness, then it will not be possible to correctly explain those reports unless, somewhere buried within the explanation of the report of consciousness, there is an explanation of consciousness itself. Do you see where I’m coming from?
If explaining reports of consciousness involves solving the hard problem, then no one has explained reports of consciousness, since no one has has solved the HP.
Of course, some people (eg. Dennett) think that reports of consciousness can be explained … and don’t accept that there is an HP.
And the HP isn’t about consciousness in general, it is about qualia or phenomenal consciousnessm the very thing that illusionism denies.
Edit: the basic problem with what you are saying is that there are disagreements about what explanation is, and about what needs to be explained. The Dennet side was that once you have explained all the objective phenomena objectively, you have explained everything. The Chalmers side thinks that leaves out the most important stuff.