An illusionist theory of consciousness claims that phenomenal consciousness does not actually exist—it is an illusion created by introspective distortion of brain processes. This article compares illusionism with identity theory, a form of physicalism from over fifty years ago that identifies mental states with physical states. Both theories are physicalist, deny special mental properties, and argue that belief in the mental arises from error. However, they differ: illusionism rejects a neutral notion of experience, redefines the mind-body problem, denies a real referent for phenomenal language, and offers more epistemologically influential arguments. The author concludes that while illusionism draws on identity theory, it is fundamentally novel and independent.
Combining panpsychism—the view that all entities have some form of phenomenal consciousness—with sentientism, which grants special moral status to conscious beings, creates a normative problem: it erases the moral asymmetry between living and nonliving things and could overturn established ethical beliefs. The article argues that both positions have strong support, so rejecting one is not a viable escape. Four potential strategies are examined: limiting morally relevant consciousness to valence (pleasant or unpleasant experiences), replacing panpsychism with panprotopsychism, separating phenomenal from normative aspects, or expanding ethics to include all entities. None fully resolves the problem, as each either leads to counterintuitive consequences or weakens the motivation for panpsychism. The normative challenge thus seriously undermines panpsychism's ability to achieve reflective equilibrium.
Perception is a fundamental ontological category in G.W. Leibniz's philosophy, and it connects to modern panpsychism. Modern panpsychism struggles to define protopsychic properties—the basic mental features that combine into higher-level consciousness. Drawing on Leibniz's monadology, the author proposes that protopsychic properties represent all reality vaguely, preventing high-level psychic properties from emerging, and that mental properties are states of partially blocked protopsychic properties rather than combinations of them. Three strategies are offered to adapt these ideas to naturalistic panpsychism: treating physics as structural phenomena derived from monads, positing a non-causal relationship between monads, or adopting naturalistic pantheism with God as a mediator.