Illusionism

Illusionism or Eliminativism is the name for the cluster of positions that deny the existence of consciousness as conceived by consciousness realists. These positions can be phrased either as a claim of non-existence or by defining consciousness as a non-fundamental entity, usually the empirically observable process in the brain. Sometimes, the difference between both terms is understood to reflect this distinction, with "eliminativism" seeking to eliminate consciousness and "illusionism" seeking to define it as an illusion. Throughout this wiki, the term illusionism is used to refer to either position.

A question related to the realism vs. illusionism debate is whether one considers the Hard Problem of Consciousness to be real. Illusionism almost always implies a negative answer since it denies the premise on which the hard problem is based, but the reverse is not necessarily true. The 2020 PhilPapers survey among philosophers has found 29.8% support for a denial of the hard problem, compared to 4.5% explicit support for illusionism. This gap might be due to philosophers that deny the hard problem despite accepting realism, though it's also possible that respondents used a more narrow definition of illusionism than the one given here.

Regardless of its support among philosophers, illusionism remains an influential position within neuroscience, though one that is rarely made explicitly. E.g., the most popular theory of consciousness within academia is Global Workspace Theory (GWT), which is fully compatible with illusionism.

QRI rejects illusionism, which is why GWT, despite its academic significance, is rarely discussed in the QRI memeplex. Conversely, Integrated Information Theory (which is a distant second after GWT in terms of academic discussion) is an explicitly realist proposal and part of QRI's research lineages.

Philosophical Arguments

People who endorse consciousness realism usually consider their position to be self-evident. For example, David Chalmers, who is most famous for introducing the hard problem, wrote the following in the introduction to his influential book "The Conscious Mind":

Some say that consciousness is an "illusion," but I have little idea what this could even mean. It seems to me that we are surer of the existence of conscious experience than we are of anything else in the world. I have tried hard at times to convince myself that there is really nothing there, that conscious experience is empty, an illusion. There is something seductive about this notion, which philosophers throughout the ages have exploited, but in the end it is utterly unsatisfying. I find myself absorbed in an orange sensation, and something is going on. There is something that needs explaining, even after we have explained the processes of discrimination and action: there is the experience.

True, I cannot prove that there is a further problem, precisely because I cannot prove that consciousness exists. We know about consciousness more directly than we know about anything else, so "proof is inappropriate. [...]

This reliance on direct observation makes it notoriously difficult for realists to convince illusionists. Conversely, a common argument in favor of illusionism is that the apparent existence of consciousness relies on a model output of our brain and hence can be wrong. This argument can be considered an elaboration on the term "illusionism" since consciousness is explained away as an illusion. However, the argument is generally considered insufficient by realists because the property of being an illusion usually indicates that a percept leads to false conclusions about the external world, not that the percept doesn't exist. In other words, since consciousness is defined as an appearance, it remains real whether or not it is illusory.