ABSTRACT

THE APPEARANCE AND REALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS The purpose of metaphysical investigations is to resolve which kinds of things are real and exist in the world. Now, consciousness is a tricky subject for such inquiry, because by definition, what we have in conscious experience is often labeled as "mere appearance." This appearance is contrasted with what "really" exists in the world, beyond appearances, thus implying that conscious experience enjoys a mode of existence not quite deserving to be named "real." But how should we understand the claim that conscious experience is not real? What could it pOSSibly mean? If we take the claim at face value, it seems to flatly deny that conscious experiences exist at all. And this indeed is how some philosophers boldly respond to the metaphysical ponderings concerning the nature of consciousness. Nevertheless, a rejection of consciousness strikes at the roots of sanity, pulling the rug from under the world we seem to live in. If our life consists of a succession of lived experiences, it is hard to make sense of a claim to the effect that those experiences do not really exist. Does it mean that all our lives we have been under some sort of mass delusion, mistakenly believing that we enjoy experiences? Those who offer the elimination of consciousness as a solution often point to the history of science where progress was sometimes made by recognizing the false ontological commitments of old theories in the face of new, better theoretical frameworks. Unfortunately, no eliminativist of consciousness has offered a superior theoretical framework that explains our lived experience without

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