Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 94 of 138
For consciousness, appearance is reality
But why couldn’t we show that consciousness was an illusion like sunsets and thus do an eliminative reduction? Eliminative reductions rest on the distinction between appearance and reality. But we cannot show that the very existence of consciousness is an illusion like sunsets, because where consciousness is concerned the appearance is the reality. The sun appears to set over Mt. Tamalpais though it does not really do so. But if it consciously seems to me that I am conscious, then I am conscious. I can make all sorts of mistakes about the contents of my conscious states, but not in that way about their very existence.