Susan Blackmore - Illusionism and the psychedelic experience

Psychedelic-induced states challenge the traditional understanding of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness is re-framed as an illusion or a meta-problem, where the brain creates models of the world that we mistakenly perceive as internal representations of reality. This view acknowledges the subjective nature of these states while emphasizing that they are experiences within the brain's processing, not direct insights into an external truth. Various theories of consciousness, such as Global Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, and Attention Schema Theory, are scrutinized to evaluate how they address the phenomenon of selfhood. These theories often inadvertently introduce dualistic assumptions. The presentation argues that experiences are not things that leave the body, but rather constructions that serve to orient us within our environment.