Head to head
Frankish’s Illusionism vs Sam Harris
Frankish’s Illusionism and S. Harris’s Mystery of Consciousness, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Frankish’s Illusionism belongs to the Materialism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness, Sam Harris to Challenge.
- They give the same kind of answer on life after death and meaning and purpose.
- On AI consciousness, Frankish’s Illusionism says “Possible” and Sam Harris says “No”.
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The claim
In brief
Frankish’s IllusionismKeith Frankish holds that conscious experiences are real but not what they seem: the irreducibly subjective ‘phenomenal properties’ or qualia we ascribe to them are an introspective illusion. Introspection builds a simplified, schematic model of the brain’s complex reactions to stimulation, and we mistake that model for direct awareness of inner qualities, so the hard problem gives way to an ‘illusion problem’.
Sam HarrisThis perspective, offered as a challenge rather than a prescriptive theory, frames consciousness as an unbridgeable mystery that cannot be solved by purely physical means. Harris argues that physical descriptions are 'mute' regarding subjective experience; the only thing attesting to sentience is consciousness itself, creating a fundamental explanatory gap. He remains pessimistic that science can dispel this mystery.
What consciousness is
Frankish’s IllusionismConscious states are complex functional states of the brain that sustain rich sensory engagement with the world and flexible control of behavior. Their distinctive features are functional, which Frankish calls quasi-phenomenal properties.
Sam HarrisConsciousness is identified as subjectivity or sentience, which is fundamentally mysterious and unexplainable by purely physical processes.
Big questions
Can AI be conscious?Differ
Frankish’s IllusionismPossibleSince consciousness is a complex functional state, a system with the right reactive and sensory organization could have it, though Frankish does not address machines directly.
Sam HarrisNoIf consciousness is irreducible subjectivity missing from physical descriptions, then advanced computation (AI, which is purely physical complexity) will fail to generate genuine sentience.
Does consciousness survive death?Both agree
Frankish’s IllusionismNoSince conscious states are functional states of a living brain, they end when the brain stops functioning.
Sam HarrisNoAs a naturalist, Harris implicitly aligns with the view that consciousness is tied to the physical organism, meaning its termination results in permanent non-existence, despite the mystery of its nature while alive.
Frankish’s IllusionismNo position
Sam HarrisNoIf consciousness cannot be explained by purely physical processes, then duplication or uploading of the physical substrate will fail to capture or recreate the essential subjective self.
Does it give life meaning?Both agree
Frankish’s IllusionismHumanistic onlyFrankish grounds value in what creatures are motivated to seek or avoid and argues that illusionism widens ethical concern to other animals across a graded ‘consciousness space’.
Sam HarrisHumanistic onlyThe mystery does not imply cosmic purpose, but Harris advocates finding personal truths through introspection, aligning with self-discovered (naturalized) spirituality and meaning.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Frankish’s IllusionismPhysicalism (strong illusionism)
Sam HarrisSkeptical/Mysterianism (Justified: The view asserts the philosophical intractability and unbridgeable nature of the mind-body problem, aligning with core tenets of mysterianism, though without adopting a specific alternative ontology.)
Mind and body
Frankish’s IllusionismConscious experiences are physically realized functional states. Phenomenal properties are intentional objects, represented but never instantiated, like the impossible objects Nicholas Humphrey compares them to.
Sam HarrisUnbridgeable Gap / Non-reductive Correlation (Justified: Harris asserts that while physical processes correlate with consciousness, no analysis of these processes can logically yield a picture of consciousness, leaving an unbridgeable gap.)
Fundamental or emergent
Frankish’s IllusionismEmergent
Sam HarrisMystery (Justified: Harris declines to fully endorse emergence, stating that while consciousness may be the lawful product of unconscious processing, he does not find that sentence meaningful in explaining sentience.)
Qualia
Frankish’s IllusionismQualia do not exist. Introspection misrepresents brain states, as perception misrepresents some features of the world, and introspective information bound to perception makes external things seem to carry vivid sensory qualities, such as an apple’s redness, that reflect their significance for us.
Sam HarrisQualia (what it is 'like something' to be) are the phenomenon that physical events are 'mute' about, thus creating the unbridgeable mystery.
How it works
Mechanism
Frankish’s IllusionismThe reactivity schema: introspective systems track the overall psychological impact of stimulation without representing its detail, and this simplified model is mistaken for direct acquaintance with qualities. Frankish borrows Daniel Dennett’s image of a computer’s user illusion, whose icons have no literal counterparts in the machine.
Sam HarrisNone (Justified: The core premise is the failure of all current and foreseeable physical/mechanistic principles to explain subjectivity.)
Where it is
Frankish’s IllusionismDistributed across the brain. The subject of the illusion is the whole organism, and the work of registering and reacting to it is shared among many unconscious subsystems, with no Cartesian theater.
Sam HarrisUnknown/Mysterious (Justified: While consciousness correlates with the brain, the theory explicitly rejects confining the explanation of consciousness to physical location or distribution because the physical world yields no evidence of consciousness.)
What it does
Frankish’s IllusionismConscious states guide flexible, intelligent behavior. The illusion itself is made of physical representations and so has causal effects, which may be adaptive, as Nicholas Humphrey argues; this avoids the threat of epiphenomenalism.
Sam HarrisUnknown/Irreducible (Justified: Causal power is not explained by unconscious complexity. The presence of sentience is an ultimate mystery rather than a functional adaptation that can be described reductively.)
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Frankish’s IllusionismConceptually testable
Sam HarrisConceptually Untestable (Justified: If the gap is unbridgeable, as Harris claims, the mystery cannot be dispelled by empirical science as currently practiced.)
Tests so far
Frankish’s IllusionismFrankish holds that the reactive changes constituting experience are in principle experimentally detectable, which opens the experiences of other creatures to study.
Sam HarrisNone (Justified: The framework is a diagnosis of science's failure to address the hard problem and does not propose empirical tests for the mystery itself.)
Criticisms
Frankish’s IllusionismThe central objection, a version of Descartes’ cogito, holds that our own phenomenal states are indubitable data. Galen Strawson argues that illusionism denies the main source of ethical value. Others object that an illusion needs an audience.
Sam HarrisIt functions primarily as a critique against reductionism and scientific optimism regarding consciousness, classifying the issue as an ultimate mystery, which reductionists reject as pessimism (mysterianism).
Sources
Key sources
Frankish’s Illusionism
- Frankish’s Illusionism (Landscape of Consciousness), Keith Frankish (2021)
Sam Harris
- The mystery of consciousness (Part I & II), Sam Harris (2011)
- Explorations in Consciousness: Death Psychedelics and Mystical Experience (2023)