Consciousness is the only thing in the universe that cannot be an illusion
Consciousness is the only thing in the universe that cannot be an illusion
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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If the universe is a simulation then conciousness could be considered an illusion to those outside the simulation. From an internal perspective it wouldnt be an illusion as it's the only thing that we experience.
However we have trouble even defining what counciousness is (an oversimplified quote from a philosopher doesn't cover it) so it seems pointless to make such speculative black and white statements about it.
Consciousness is entirely subjective experience so other people's perspective on it seems quite irrelevant.
What's oversimplified about the definition I laid out?
Yes my point was that if there was a hypothetical being outside our universe looking in they could correctly say that our consciousness is an illusion from their subjective experience.
It's an oversimplification because that is not the scientifically accepted definition of consciousness. It is currently undefined and seems to be an emergent property from the brain, the complex object known to us.
It feels like something to be. That's an undeniable fact. Even if there's a creator outside our universe that programmed us and our consciousness it still feels like something to be from my subjective point of view. That's why consciousness under this definition cannot be an illusion. You're free to disagree with the definition of it that I laid out but then you're talking about a different thing and thus not arguing against the point I made.
Ok, I agree it can't be an illusion the way you define it, I don't think that would be an unpopular opinion.
I also maintain that it cannot be defined the way you define it.
You're also not offering a definition you like better. This is quite widely accepted definition among the people thinking about this stuff. If I were to leave it undefined it would be impossible to argue against the point I'm making because there wouldn't be certainty that we're even talking about the same thing.
I couldn't claim to have a definition as the origins of consciousness are still unknown to science and not formally defined.
However your definition is definitely not the widely accepted one. It doesn't even offer a proper definition, all it does is push the unknowns to "what it is like to be that organism".
Who defines what it is to "be" something? What is the smallest unit of "being"? Are we saying that consciousness is an inherent property of organisms or could it be recreated on a computer?
Consciousness is the fact that it feels like something to be. It's the feels like part that's relevant here. Not the to be part. It's the subjective quality of experience. It describes a phenomenom in the real world, doesn't explain it. There is no evidence of consciousness in the world except for the fact that you can experience it yourself. It's entirely subjective.
But then you're just pushing the unknown/undefined part to "feels like".
We cannot define it properly so we can't discuss it formally or make assertions like it's the only thing in the universe that is not an illusion.
You could assert "Cogito, ergo sum." but that's kind of been done before.