I was confused by the issue regarding diet qualia. Does the argument reduce to answering this question: “Is it the case that explaining away all the individuals properties of conscious experience could ever add up to a completed explanation-away of consciousness”? (In my understanding, the weak illusionists say that it wouldn’t, the strong illusionists say that it would, and the not-illusionists say that this process can’t even get started.)
I’m not sure whether the thing you’re trying to say is compatible with what I’d say or not. The way I’d say it is this:
The ‘weak illusionist’ says that while many features of conscious experience can be ‘explained away’ as illusions, the ‘something it’s like’-ness of conscious experience is not (and perhaps cannot be) an illusion, and thus must be “explained” rather than “explained away.” In contrast, the “strong illusionist” says that even the ‘something it’s like’-ness of conscious experience is an illusion.
But what might it be for the ‘something it’s like’-ness to be an illusion? Basically, that it seems to us that there is more to conscious experience than ‘zero qualia’, but in fact there are only zero qualia. E.g. it seems to us that there are ‘diet qualia’ that are more than ‘zero qualia’, but in fact ‘diet qualia’ have no distinctive features beyond ‘zero qualia.’
Now in fact, I think there probably is more to ‘zero qualia’ than Frankish’s “properties of experiences that dispose us to judge that experiences have introspectable qualitative properties that are intrinsic, ineffable, and subjective,” but I don’t think those additional properties will be difficult for the strong illusionst to adopt, and I don’t think they’ll vindicate a position according to which there is a distinctive ‘diet qualia’ option. Speaking of diet qualia vs. zero qualia is very rough: the true form of the answer will be classes of cognitive algorithms (on my view).
I was confused by the issue regarding diet qualia. Does the argument reduce to answering this question: “Is it the case that explaining away all the individuals properties of conscious experience could ever add up to a completed explanation-away of consciousness”? (In my understanding, the weak illusionists say that it wouldn’t, the strong illusionists say that it would, and the not-illusionists say that this process can’t even get started.)
I’m not sure whether the thing you’re trying to say is compatible with what I’d say or not. The way I’d say it is this:
The ‘weak illusionist’ says that while many features of conscious experience can be ‘explained away’ as illusions, the ‘something it’s like’-ness of conscious experience is not (and perhaps cannot be) an illusion, and thus must be “explained” rather than “explained away.” In contrast, the “strong illusionist” says that even the ‘something it’s like’-ness of conscious experience is an illusion.
But what might it be for the ‘something it’s like’-ness to be an illusion? Basically, that it seems to us that there is more to conscious experience than ‘zero qualia’, but in fact there are only zero qualia. E.g. it seems to us that there are ‘diet qualia’ that are more than ‘zero qualia’, but in fact ‘diet qualia’ have no distinctive features beyond ‘zero qualia.’
Now in fact, I think there probably is more to ‘zero qualia’ than Frankish’s “properties of experiences that dispose us to judge that experiences have introspectable qualitative properties that are intrinsic, ineffable, and subjective,” but I don’t think those additional properties will be difficult for the strong illusionst to adopt, and I don’t think they’ll vindicate a position according to which there is a distinctive ‘diet qualia’ option. Speaking of diet qualia vs. zero qualia is very rough: the true form of the answer will be classes of cognitive algorithms (on my view).