Illusion of mind (2008) (opens in new tab)

Even if it isn't, I wish people would stop saying things like this:

"I have a theory of phenomenon X that shows it has a cause different from what was previously believed. Therefore X is JUST AN ILLUSION!!!!"

The word "illusion" is as tricky to deal with properly as the world "reality" because as Barbie might say: "Ontology is hard."

"Illusion" is used in two distinct senses:

1) when a phenomenon has a cause that is different from what is naively assumed, the naively assumed cause is said to be "an illusion". Thus, the "bend in the stick that passes through the water's surface" is said to be an illusion because while the bend is perfectly real, it is in the light, not the stick

2) "illusion" is also used to mean simply "not real" or "non-existent" in an absolute sense, as in, "The illusion of safety the TSA gives us."

We muddy our language (and therefore our thinking) when we conflate causes and phenomena. The mind is both a cause (we refer to "the mind" to explain things) and a phenomenon (we all experience our own minds and most of us who aren't psychopaths have reasonably effective predictive models of other people's minds.)

So when someone says "the mind is an illusion" what can they possibly mean? Obviously it's nonsense to say the phenomenology of the mind is not real: that would be like saying we see the stick in the water as straight, when we manifestly don't. So presumably they mean there is a cause that gives rise to the bend in our perceptions that is different from what we naively think it is. In that case, saying "An alternative causal account of the mind" would be vastly clearer.

"X is an illusion" is a formulation that is good for one thing only: identifying charlatans and nutjobs. For that, it is very effective.