Frankish's starting point: Maybe the hard problem seems unsolvable because it is. That weird-looking thing? Just an illusion! (No wonder you were confused!)

We trade the hard problem for the illusion problem: the problem of explaining why we say things like "consciousness seems weird and out-of-place!"

• Note: an instance of an easy problem (from Chalmers)

Illusionism: Basic Characterization

When we confront a seemingly-anomolous feature of the world, there are three basic philosophical strategies:

• Radical realism: Accept the anomolous feature at full strength. Accept any/all consequences that may follow...
• Conservative realism: Accept a watered-down version that more easily fits into existing conception of the world.
• Illusionism: Accept there's an appearance that needs to be explained, but only ever appeal to already-accepted features of the world.

Some Analogies: Dennett's 'user illusion' (consciousness as the ultimate 'immersive experience'), impossible objects (Escher drawings), the projection of 'secondary qualities' onto a colorless world.

Two potential sources for the illusion: 1) sensory awareness of the external world, and 2) self-monitoring of our own internal states.

Motivating Illusionism

Frankish argues that illusionism about consciousness is more attractive than the main alternatives...

Argument via elimination...

Against radical realism: We should inherit from science a preference for conservative (rather than radical) theoretical moves.

• "The principle of conservatism should apply with special force, I suggest, when the pressure for radical innovation comes from a parochial, anthropocentric source, such as introspection." (p. 10)
• Plus, a modest/conservative approach to consciousness can better explain how conscious states have a causal impact.

Against conservative realism: It's unstable. Either it makes room for something weird and extra-physical (collapsing into radical realism) or it makes do with the same austere metaphysics that full-blown illusionists make do with.

• "...if phenomenal concepts refer to feels, then the challenge to conservative realists remains. They must either explain how these feels can be physical or accept that phenomenal concepts misrepresent experience, as illusionists claim." (p. 11)

...assisted by two 'advantages' for illusionism

1. Our claims and beliefs about consciousness must, themselves, be the result of a physical process (if they're to affect the words I type out as I write...)
2. "In general, apparent anomalousness is evidence for illusion." (p. 13)

Objections to Illusionism

Objection 1 (Denying the Data): We each have direct, immediate access to our own consciousness experiences. Experience our epistemic 'core'--they form the foundation upon which the rest of our beliefs can be built.

• Frankish reply: direct, infallible 'acquaintance' can't be physically realized in a cognitive system like ours, which has to send signals back and forth across a 'noisy' world.

Objection 2/3 (No appearance-reality gap/Who is the audience?): Talk of an "illusory appearance" presupposes a ) the existence of the appearance, and b) an audience who is under the spell of the illusion.

• Frankish reply: We can still make sense of misleading sensory information, and having such information being 'overridden' without invoking anything spooky and non-physical.

Objection 4 (representing phenomenality): If there ain't no phenomenal consciousness, where did the concept "phenomenal consciousness" come from?

• Frankish reply: Not all theories of meaning require the referent of a concept exist. Illusionists should treat "pheneomenal consciousness" the same way we'd treat bad theoretical posits (e.g. "phlogiston") or inherited confusions (e.g. "ghosts" or "spirits").