in my opinion, further from the truth; they do not see themselves or others as-they-are-in-reality; that is, with understanding/patience/and in a word, love. — NotAristotle

Being likable does not make one right.

Look no further than science and the people that perform it. They are the ones who find out what is "illusion" and what is true. There is little correlation, for scientists, between being happy and being good at the job.

Although I agree that there is such a thing as "wallowing in misery" and that this is a delusion of sorts.

Leaving aside how negative or positive thinking affects our judgement, I would have to say your idea of an illusion seems too broad. Not everything that misleads us is an illusion, liars are not illusions for example.

An illusion in my opinion is a kind of appearance. To say that "consciousness is an illusion" is to say that "there appears to be consciousness, but there actually isn't".

A lie is an illusion is it not? Well, what misleads more, the lie or the liar?

Would you define the "consciousness" you say is not an illusion?

Maybe that is an unfair question because consciousness may be undefinable. I guess what I want to know is: why defend consciousness as not an illusion; what's at stake? Why is consciousness not being an illusion important to you? What does consciousness mean to you?

If we were to clone two human beings, they wouldn't feel like two different persons anymore because their thoughts wouldn't be unique anymore? — Skalidris

I disagree. Identical twins, very similar to clones, obviously feel like two different people. And research on animals shows that clones have different thoughts from each other, and would think of themselves as unique individuals.

Which "I" are you referring to? The notion we have when we are completely awake and conscious? The cloudy version of "I" we sometimes have in dreams? What about people with mental illness, their notion of "I" is completely different, imagine people with split personality, or people with schizophrenia who hear voices. Which "I" are they? I don't think you realize how complex this "I" is, we feel like ourselves when we can access our memory, our feelings, things that we normally access to when we're conscious and awake. I mentioned waking up from fainting in my thread, and the first images and sounds were really different from reality, yet I didn't experience any feelings of weirdness or fear. If I had the same notion of "I" as I do when I'm conscious, I would have felt disoriented and scared. — Skalidris

Didn't I say "the 'I' is the complete package"? That means complexities and all.

How do we know that the notion of "I" is related to consciousness?
...
It's the most intuitive one, for sure — Skalidris

Question answered, by yourself. My point was that coming up with a fictitious scenario, your so-called thought experiment, does nothing to deconstruct that intuition.

If we choose not to trust our intuitions, what rational arguments do we have to say that consciousness is always related to this "I" notion? — Skalidris

If you choose not to trust any intuitions, you cannot make any rational arguments. Rational arguments require premises, and judgement of the premises is based in intuition. If you dismiss all intuitions, then anything might be taken as true or false, and whatever argument you produce would be meaningless, lacking in soundness.

An illusion in my opinion is a kind of appearance. To say that "consciousness is an illusion" is to say that "there appears to be consciousness, but there actually isn't". — goremand

And the viewer of the illusion is the illusion itself. An illusion is fooled into thinking itself to be real. That's a heck of a magic trick! Reminds me of someone who said, "Look at him, pretending to be awake!"

A lie is an illusion is it not? Well, what misleads more, the lie or the liar? — NotAristotle

No, a lie is not an illusion. Not everything that misleads is an illusion, anything can be misleading in theory, even the truth.

Would you define the "consciousness" you say is not an illusion? (...) Maybe that is an unfair question because consciousness may be undefinable. — NotAristotle

I don't think it's undefinable, it's just a word that's used a bit inconsistently.

Consciousness has a functional component, this is pretty much undisputed, it is the functionality that a person loses when someone whacks them over the head with a mallet and they faint. Obviously this is not an illusion.

But it is also generally taken have a qualitative or phenomenological component. This is the "interesting" part as far as philosophy of mind is concerned, but I think one should keep in mind that it is not the only part.

why defend consciousness as not an illusion; what's at stake? Why is consciousness not being an illusion important to you? — NotAristotle

I think illusionism is false and an obstacle to solving major problems in philosophy of mind. It's not like I have a strong emotional stake in the issue though.

And the viewer of the illusion is the illusion itself. An illusion is fooled into thinking itself to be real. That's a heck of a magic trick! — Patterner

Like I've told you, I don't subscribe to illusionism, I'm not going to defend the position.

Like I've told you, I don't subscribe to illusionism, I'm not going to defend the position. — goremand

Yup. Just adding my voice. NotAristotle asked

Why is consciousness not being an illusion important to you? — NotAristotle

I would say a couple reasons. First is the same reason it's important to say 1 + 1 = 2, not 3. Second, because having the wrong idea of consciousness' nature will make it much more difficult to figure out how it comes about.

I would add that there are important ways in which consciousness is not an illusion. Emotional, experiential, rational, doxastic content, means something, points toward something true, is important.

I would add that there are important ways in which consciousness is not an illusion. Emotional, experiential, rational, doxastic content, means something, points toward something true, is important. — NotAristotle

While we may agree in denouncing illusionism, we clearly have different reasons for doing so. Like I said earlier, there are two tenets to illusionism:

A) Phenomenological consciousness appears to be real
B) Phenomenological consciousness is not real

I reject A while you reject B, that's the difference.