You are no longer safe, dear Illusion. We see you laughing within the idea of Truth—the same Truth you claim to conceal while simultaneously offering as a prize if only we would worship deception’s power. But there are no epistemological shackles to break off and no veil of ignorance to cast aside. Illusion is illusion in every sense of the word, for as soon as one predicates Illusion upon itself, it disappears in an instant of necessary contradiction. Analytically speaking—and other thinkers are far more able to proceed here than I—if Illusion is illusionary in a Platonic sense then Illusion is not itself, but what sort of concept trembles before the innocence of self-predication?
Illusion is a vampire—consider their similarities. Both concepts are embodiments of evil (Illusion as Descartes’ deceiving demon and Plato’s shackles), both are manifestations of selfcontradiction (Illusion is not itself, vampires are the living-dead), both require life-giving objects to feed upon (Illusion requires reality while Dracula needs human blood), both lack definite substance under self-reflection (vampires lack a mirror reflection, Illusion disappears under selfpredication), both are powerful and seductive (Illusion has directed millennia of thought, vampires control the mind directly), and both are burned by the light of knowledge. I believe a careful consideration of the above comparisons by the reader will be enlightening, if not humorous.
Despite my words, do not suppose that illusion is a useless concept. I do not believe this at all; I simply contend that Illusion is not what it has appeared to be. We are so tired of rigorous thinkers holding this illusion before us as if it meant something more than a personal change of theory. A list of the usual suspects: ‘time is an illusion’, ‘consciousness is an illusion’, ‘identity is an illusion’, and our favorite ‘reality is an illusion.’ Yes indeed, reality is an illusion where the very meaning of illusion depends upon God-like apprehension or knowledge of reality from the start. ‘Reality is an illusion’, when spoken by a learned scholar—even Einstein—means that a commonly accepted theory conflicts with a new and improved theory devised by this scholar. By appending ‘is an illusion’ to a philosophical situation, the writer attempts to portray an omnipotence that pierces beyond common assumption to a realm of Truth. Let us turn this tactic against its users. Anytime a writer honestly professes or even suggests that a particular philosophical object ‘is an illusion’, we should immediately question the worth of his subsequent arguments for they follow from a suspicious premise, and worse, from a mind that truly believes it can see reality.
Philosophers who wish to understand the mind ‘in a natural way’ commit endless crimes in the name of illusion, applying this label, in one way or another, to theoretical conflicts that are a priori beyond resolution. They venture beyond the already careless procedure of attributing objectivity to Illusion, positing illusionary situations that, unlike the Müller-Lyer effect, cannot be explained by further empirical-logical investigation.
Recall that the classical use of illusion arises from perceptual conflicts (a white room that appears yellow, a straight branch that appears bent), where a single object can be experienced in two or more possible ways, one of which is claimed to be the real perception. Now, how shall we react to the illusionary claim that, for instance, color is itself an illusion? This sort of conflict is not between one perception and another, but between one ontological theory and another. No further observation will clarify the situation; in fact, observation, if you believe that to mean something composed, in part, of the color experience, will only perpetuate the disagreement. Scientific investigation cannot explain the conflict because current science evolves out of the tension between experiential judgment and mathematically oriented theory. In calling any experience an illusion, one cannot mean that experience or color do not exist, at least not based upon observational findings, for observation is another name for the very thing the illusionist hopes to deny.
If consistent, a philosopher who believes in a physical world verified by observation should believe in the physicality of color well before stars, plants, atoms, or anything else observed with the aid of color. For example, given a printed photograph of a pie, would a scientist believe first in the physicality of the photograph itself, or in the matter presumed to constitute the pie which may or may not be a digitally contrived pattern having no definite physical counterpart? It seems quite backward to argue that the pie is physical but the photograph is not, but this is what many natural philosophers do quite readily when arguing about experience. We observe before us a visual field associated with angular extension and testable discrimination capacity, and like a photograph, we should believe in the existence of the experiential field more so than the patterns of color that can be categorized within that field. Perhaps both or neither exist, but this issue is not our concern. We are more interested with priority of rank over proof of either.
These simple arguments prove nothing, but are forwarded to suggest that conflicts originated under the disguise of illusion ought to be courageously ignored. Any great philosophical problem or solution that even slightly resembles in form ‘x is an illusion’ rests on nothing other than the power of illusion to move our minds into analytic action. If you accept the premise that ‘x might be an illusion’ and attempt to argue that it is not, then you have already lost the battle. Illusion has won again; your act of defense only cements illusion’s power to control you. Illusion forces one into a dogmatic position—‘x is not an illusion’, ‘x is an illusion’, ‘x might be an illusion’…all of these assert that illusion is a legitimate, objective concept from where we can begin to find knowledge. As careful scholars argue back and forth about what is and what is not illusionary, Illusion sits idly by, watching the squander of energy at its bidding. Illusion does not care which side of the argument wins. ‘X is not an illusion’ affirms illusion and ‘x’ simultaneously; what is negated is the relation between them.
Any philosophical theory of error that partakes of the illusory relation does nothing but repeat the illusion of illusion with unnecessary words. With such theories, we believe we have journeyed deeper into truth when we have only snuggled up more closely to Illusion. And you see how difficult it is to talk about these things without becoming trapped oneself? As soon as one contrasts a presumed false belief with a corresponding ‘actuality’, the lie has already occurred. These things should barely be said, but they must not remain hidden, and yet I cannot call out illusion without becoming its slave.
Illusion is an illusion. Do I commit the same sin I accuse others of in appending ‘is an illusion’ to a philosophical concept? Yes, I am guilty. Do I believe that I see more than those who continue to believe in objective illusion? Yes, but they see more in other realms, and neither of us possess reality. ‘Illusion is an illusion’ is an illusion. Of course, concepts like these revel in infinite regress.
35The materialist and the postmodernist share at least one thing in common—both are driven by mystical tendencies. Materialists run from appearances, unconsciously transforming their fear of specters into our alleged deception. Postmodernists, as the dual to this fear, embrace appearances in the temples of Illusion.
DISBELIEF OF DECEPTIONWhat does it mean to disbelieve a perception? It means, pragmatically, I should not use this perception as a starting point for thought, judgment, or future action; except in the case of scientific enquiry when one wants to understand the nature of deception. Why should I not use it as a starting point? Because subsequent cognitive and behavioral movements, based upon illusionary perceptions, will be ineffective in achieving many goals, assuming I move for some purpose. If I see an apple and wish to grab it, but the visual perception is a hologram, then my grabbing will not succeed in obtaining the apple. I will have been misled by the perception.
Perceptions, people, beliefs, theories, signposts, and most other markers of direction can lead us poorly. We have goals, and we look for help in finding those goals. If we follow a particular experiential marker whose meaning purports to lead to a goal, but when followed does not, we have become accustomed to labeling the marker a fundamental distortion of reality. It led us poorly, to be sure, in the sense that we did not achieve our goal, but it is only upon a subsequent failure of destination that allows us to label the signpost in error. If our goal of grabbing and eating the apple was satisfied, we will say that the perception of the apple was veridical; if we instead reach for the apple and grasp empty air, we will call the perception non-veridical—it misled us, our hunger was not satiated. Deception arises from the relation between one’s expectation and the subsequent denial of the fruits promised by that expectation. To be misled is to follow the wrong path, but the wrong path, rather than being objectively deceptive, is the path that leads us to where we do not want to go.
Suppose you experience the visual perception of an apple. It is surely an apple by visual assessment alone, and as you look around the apple from different angles, then under bright and dark light, nothing about the scene evokes suspicion. But rather than reach for the apple, you decide to leave it be and never to disturb it. The apple, for all you know, may be a volumetric display (I’ll use the word hologram as well) or a visual experience implanted upon your brain by alien technology. Since you did not challenge the perception further, you cannot claim that the perception was an illusion, nor can you claim that it was real either. And this example, which appears at first to be a contrived thought experiment, illustrates a significant but forgotten aspect of our lived experience. Billions of perceptions are never challenged, and the few that are; well, those that do not live up to our a priori expectations are called illusions.
Deceptions are temporally constructed—perception, expectation, and denial of expectation upon challenge. Language allows one to atemporally label a particular perception such as the Müller-Lyer effect an illusion, but the perception itself has nothing to do with deception; the expectation of a ruler to measure the lines differently and then to fail is the illusion—which is why one must first harbor an assumption and then go through the process of measurement to appreciate the illusion.
Whenever we use the words illusion or hallucination, we simultaneously imply a past or possible relation, a ‘deceptive’ relation that is associated with a particular perception. Although the so-called illusionary perception participates in the deceptive relation, the perception by itself never deceives. We have become accustomed to calling particular perceptions themselves illusionary, for instance, the apple described above, but the visually experienced apple that possesses no palpable counterpart is merely that—an apple color-pattern alone that happens to be unaccompanied by a touchable surface. Why is this entity an illusion? The holographic apple or partially implanted alien perception may lack specific perceptual parts, but it is not clear that sensory absence warrants the title of illusion, nor, if it were touchable, tasteable, and smellable, that we should call it real. An experiential subject either lives up to one’s expectations or it does not. If not, we record this discordance ‘in memory’ to avoid experiencing frustration again, and then perhaps evolve a new theory of the sensory perception that is more consistent with future experiences.
Philosophers present ‘objective’ examples of deception that pretend to have nothing to do with an individual’s expectations and past experience, for instance, hearing human voices when in fact no one is speaking1. Are we to believe that this situation, without additional clarification, is an adequate example of true deception? Who cares if one hears voices when in fact no one is speaking, that is, unless experiencing voices and the absence of a speaker are already related in existing assumption? There must be an assumed relation between the two, unmentioned in this example and most others, that supports our intuition of deception, something like: one cannot hear voices when no one is speaking. But then our example contradicts itself. A softer, subtler, and less definite relation is required.
To avoid an untidy discussion of this relation, upon forwarding an example of deception the typical philosopher strips the situation out of context and presents the entire dilemma before us without considering the sequence of events that take place in the world they are describing, our history of expectation, or the characteristics of the individual who is experiencing the voices in the example. Most people who hear voices expect to see a speaker nearby or a device that generates sound. The experience of voices activates, automatically and unconsciously, the predicative expectation of a speaker because we have learned to associate the experience of human voices with the visual perception of a person or audio device. If this historical, learned or innate expectation goes unfulfilled, then the experience of voices garners suspicion—we may frantically search for a hidden audio device, conjure up a fantastic explanation of alien transmitters and demons, assume we are dreaming, or label the experience a hallucination. However, if the person hearing voices did not expect to identify an origin of the voices; if the person, oppositely, expected not to identify a visual originator of the voice, then that person would have no reason to label the experience of voices a hallucination. You imagine that this expectation is ridiculous, but the schizophrenic who commonly experiences voices in the absence of people nearby learns, quite rationally, to expect such an association.
1 I am quite suspicious of using the words ‘in fact’ to establish a particular reality in a philosophical thought experiment. How are we to translate this example into our lived experience? When one claims that in fact no one is speaking, this implies, at best, in lived experience that I perhaps searched my immediate vicinity and did not perceive any speaker or audio device nearby, but my searching does not establish a fact of reality, it establishes, if anything, a fact of my limited experience—a brief period of looking about the room—which may always be put into question. Rigorously, the example should read: the experience of hearing voices while simultaneously not perceiving a speaker or known audio device nearby. The reader is now less likely to be drawn into an impossible conflict.
A philosopher’s impoverished example of deception such as ‘hearing voices when in fact no one is speaking’ rests upon an expectation that forms out of the learned, non-necessary, perceptual association between the experience of voices and the experience of perceiving an originator of those voices nearby. Without an expectation of repeated association, deception does not exist. We know that one who expects nothing is never deceived—of course you may believe he is deceived, but only because your expectations differ.
There are scientific ways to describe the relation between hearing voices and the absence of a speaker, but these too need not have anything to do with epistemological deception. Here is one sort of relation: most people do not hear voices when no one is speaking, but some people do. We have identified two groups, very well, now what shall we do? A scientist, having partitioned a set of people into two groups according to some observable characteristic—in this case the verbal report of experiencing disembodied voices—will try to explain the variability between the two groups by identifying environmental-neurobiological differences that correlate with the differences in perception between the groups. If you are a philosopher, then you may try to formulate a theory that differentiates the two groups. Deception, however, has nothing to do with it. Both the scientist and the philosopher are attempting to explain why two groups of people have different types of theories and experiences, one group that reports the experience of disembodied voices and another group that does not. The charge of deception, given the above relation, is an interpretational layer that adds nothing to the explained differences.
What philosophers do, what I am trying to do, is to collect all examples of illusion and hallucination together and to offer a theory that unites them. In everyday life, as opposed to the examples in philosophical thought, an episode of deception begins with an experiential judgment that is accompanied by a collection of conscious and unconscious theoretical expectations given that judgment. Until subsequent experiences are compared to expected experiences, we have no ground for claiming that we were deceived. That is, deception takes on substantial form after and only after a denial of experiential expectation. I am sure that expectation and experience traverse both ways, influencing each other; even denial of an expectation may precede that expectation, regardless, deception is a personal problem.
36We cannot find a compelling distinction between hallucination and illusion. Both are derivative of conflicts between expectation and experiential judgment whose difference arises from speculative claims about internal versus external origins. In the case of visual hallucination, we expect to perceive nothing—meaning, more accurately, the air and things in front of us—but instead perceive a pink rat that ‘blocks’ the perception of what one expects to perceive. In illusion, we expect to see a straight branch, but instead perceive a bent branch. How do you know that the bent branch is not an entirely distinct perception arising internally from your head that ‘covers up’ the straight branch like a hallucination? How do you know that the pink rat is not an external 3-dimensional volumetric illusion?
37Suppose, to you, there is a color pattern that you classify as a material apple. However, later on in the day, you examine the apple with touch and find that it has no palpable surface and decide it is an illusion. Surely, then, you were deceived at first but then found the truth? But I do not see deception here. Your original theory, based upon the color pattern alone, did not live up to your expectations about material apple theory, which was abandoned after further examination—not idealistically falsified or found to be untrue, but physically discarded like any other object that no longer serves a purpose.
38Suppose, to you, there is a color pattern that you classify as a holographic apple. However, later on in the day, you examine the apple with touch and smell and find that it has a touchable surface and a fruity smell. You eat the apple. Surely, then, you were wrong at first but then found the truth? But I do not see wrongness here. Your original theory, based upon the color pattern alone, did not live up to your expectations about holographic apple theory, which was later abandoned upon further examination.
39Suppose, to you, there is a color pattern that you classify as a holographic apple, but someone else feels that the same image of discussion is a material apple. After further examination, you both agree that the apple is holographic. Surely, before exploration, you were correct and the other person was wrong. But I do not see correctness here. The expected sensations associated with your original theory are more consistent with the sensations felt upon further exploration. When did a relatively greater degree of correlation become equivalent to absolute truth?
40Philosophers will attempt to fashion gedanken purporting true, objective illusion. They will do so by saying or implying something like this: suppose there is a real apple or an actual apple or that in fact there is an apple. They will use counterfactuals and futurefactuals to get us to commit to the possibility of an objective object, displacing realness just beyond reach so that we do not question it too closely. Perhaps they may say, plainly, ‘there is an apple’ hoping that we will not see the millennia of metaphysical bolts and glue that hold their meaning together. When will theoreticians learn that one cannot create reality and subsequently true-illusions simply by stating their existence in a written example?