Unpopular Opinion

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Consciousness is the only thing in the universe that cannot be an illusion (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'll start by acknowledging that this isn’t my idea, credit to Sam Harris. I also don’t know if this is even controversial, but I figured this would be a better place to post than in Showerthoughts.

By consciousness, I mean the subjective experience of what it feels like to be. As philosopher Thomas Nagel put it:

'An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.'

It’s at least conceivable that things like free will, the self, or even the entire universe could be an illusion. For all we know, we could be living in a simulation and nothing might be real. Even if you don’t believe that, there’s still a greater-than-zero chance you could be wrong. However, this doesn't apply to consciousness itself. Even if everything is just a hallucination, it remains an undeniable fact that it feels like something to hallucinate. To claim that consciousness could be an illusion is a self-contradictory statement as consciousness is where illusions appear.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If I am asleep then I am unconscious by definition, yet I still experience dreaming.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You're now ignoring the definition of consciousness stated in my open post. Dreams are happening in consciousness. An unconsciouss being by definition cannot have experiences. Not real or imagined (like dreams or drug induced ones) An example of true unconsciousness would be general anesthesia. You don't even experience time passing. You hear the doctor counting backwards and then you're all of a sudden waking up in a different room hours later. You don't have any experience of the time in between.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I wasn’t sure of this issue with your argument but you’ve clarified it for me.

You’ve defined your way to a tautology. You’ve defined consciousness as ontologically prior to illusions and claimed the latter is necessarily dependent on the former. Thus it should not be a surprise to anyone that consciousness cannot be an illusion due to the definitional relationship you’ve created.

Unfortunately, this says nothing about the universe out there. It’s as controversial a statement as saying “all bachelors are unmarried.”

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I'm not just saying that consciousness cannot be an illusion. I'm saying it's the only thing that cannot be an illusion.