House of Mirrors

Overview & Synopsis

This book provides a defense and an exploration of illusionism regarding phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness supposedly encompasses mental states such as seeing a red spot, feeling pain in your back, or imagining the sound of a harp. All these states seem to feel like something, in a distinctive sense of “feel.” Phenomenal consciousness seems mysterious. It apparently resists scientific explanation and seems irreducible to brain processes. Our phenomenally conscious experiences seem to be presented to us most directly when we have them, while remaining closed to others. The book defends illusionism about phenomenal consciousness: the view that phenomenal consciousness is not real, but only seems real because we are under an introspective illusion generated by our brains. This illusion is unique: it is stronger and much harder to apprehend as such than other illusions, like perceptual illusions. The book does not only argue for illusionism; it also proposes a novel conception, called Meta-Cartesianism, which explains why the illusion of phenomenal consciousness is unique and almost inextricable. Finally, the book maps the implications of the illusionist view in various domains. If phenomenal consciousness is illusory, what should happen to the cognitive science of consciousness? What happens to ethics, given that phenomenal experiences seem crucial to well-being and moral status? What happens to epistemology, given that they seem key to justification?