User Illusion: Fundamentals and Applications

By Fouad Sabry

What Is User Illusion

The user illusion is a metaphor for a proposed description of consciousness that is used in the field of philosophy of mind. This description contends that conscious experience does not expose objective reality, but rather provides a simplified version of reality that enables humans to make decisions and act in their environment, analogous to the desktop of a computer. In other words, it argues that conscious experience does not reveal reality. According to this representation, our view of the world is not instantaneous since the processing of each sensation takes some amount of time. Therefore, our conscious experience is less of a perfect reflection of what is taking place and more of a simulation that is being constructed unintentionally by the brain. As a result, it is possible that there are phenomena that exist beyond our peripheries, beyond what consciousness could construct in order to isolate or diminish them.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: User Illusion

Chapter 2: Consciousness

Chapter 3: Chinese Room

Chapter 4: Free Will

Chapter 5: Hard Problem of Consciousness

Chapter 6: Philosophical Zombie

Chapter 7: Multiple Drafts Model

Chapter 8: Bicameral Mentality

Chapter 9: Philosophy of Mind

Chapter 10: Neuroscience of Free Will

(II) Answering the public top questions about user illusion.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of user illusion in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of user illusion' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of user illusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jul 3, 2023

Book preview

Chapter 1: User illusion

The user illusion is a metaphor for a proposed description of consciousness that is used in the field of philosophy of mind. This description contends that conscious experience does not expose objective reality, but rather provides a simplified version of reality that enables humans to make decisions and act in their environment, analogous to the desktop of a computer. In other words, it argues that conscious experience does not reveal reality. According to this representation, our view of the world is not instantaneous since the processing of each feeling takes some amount of time. Therefore, our conscious experience is less of a perfect representation of what is taking place and more of a simulation that is being constructed unintentionally by the brain. Therefore, it is possible that there are phenomena that exist outside our boundaries, beyond what awareness might produce in order to isolate or minimize them.

Alan Kay was the one who first came up with the phrase user illusion., a computer scientist working at Xerox PARC on the development of graphical user interfaces, use this expression to talk about the illusion that a desktop computer's user interface creates.

Tor Nørretranders explored as a metaphor for conscious experience in his book The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size, Alan Kay, a computer scientist who was working on graphical user interfaces at Xerox PARC at the time, is credited with being the first person to use the phrase user illusion. For instance, computer programmers build windows and folders, which are items that are only seen in the user interface but provide the user the ability to interact with the more complicated programming that is there below.

The notion that consciousness is a form of user illusion is explored by Tor Nørretranders in his 1991 book The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size.

Thus, When athletes describe having too much time to ponder about their abilities and making mistakes as a result, Norretranders makes the following hypothesis:, It's possible that the thinking process slowed down to the point where the conscious mind was able to intrude and start taking control of the situation.

Benjamin Libet carried out an experiment that lends credence to the theory that consciousness is an optical illusion created by the user. This research looked at the connection that exists between our conscious and unconscious states of thinking. Participants were prompted to wiggle a finger while they were linked up with measuring electrodes. An electrical signal is registered in the brain a half-second before the decision to contract the muscle is made. Astonishingly, it seems as if the choice is formed by neurons in the brain's unconscious regions before the self becomes conscious of its intention to act. According to the findings of this research, awareness is the driver of change. However, before we are consciously aware of it, our subconscious brains are already processing information and deciding what to bring to the attention of our conscious minds.

Daniel Dennett says that even if a human being may not be able to comprehend all that is occurring in the cellular phone system, it is still possible for them to do so, We are still able to use our phones easily with the use of basic touches and nudges. Therefore, The user illusion makes life easier, making it possible for us to interact with the interface in a manner that requires just a few streamlined steps, without having an understanding of the fundamental operating principles.

Thus, he claims that humans experience reality as a user-illusion, in which our conscious experience is a simplification of reality and allows us to seamlessly act in our world.

Dennett asserts that we are better off as a result of this phenomenon, since It's the brain's 'user illusion' of itself… The brain doesn't have to understand how the brain works.

Meanwhile, People are equipped with a model of themselves as well.

In the same manner that A would approach B, by having A question oneself or herself and waiting for A to provide answers to his or her own queries, A is able to get access to himself or herself, allowing us to investigate our own brains and force ourselves to think and not think certain things in accordance with our desires.

By use of user deception, We are exercising control over our own cognitive processes.

Donald Hoffman provides an explanation as to how the user illusion may have developed as a result of the selecting forces of Darwinism.

Hoffman contends that the traditional idea that the ability to accurately perceive one's surroundings was directly connected with one's ability to evolve successfully is flawed, The fitness function is not required to have any correlation at all with the objective truth.

As both Hoffman and his colleague Chetan Prakash have said,, "According to evolution by natural selection, An organism that perceives the world as it really is would never have a greater capacity for physical activity than an organism of comparable complexity that is only focused on physical fitness.

Never."

Critics of user illusion argue that humans are able to access the content of their brain’s representations by introspection and analysis of inner speech.

These opponents point out that most of the time, people understand what is intended, notwithstanding the possibility that they are incorrect about what they stated or how they presented what they said.

Furthermore, Inner speech events, detractors of the practice contend, provide access to the contents of certain of our mental states, which as a result enables us to know, via introspection, what each of our brain states represents.

This argument refutes the concept that consciousness is nothing more than a streamlined picture of the universe, in which we are unable to access the whole data of reality since what you introspect is what really exists.

The user illusion puts out the hypothesis that consciousness is an evolutionary instrument that was developed to improve social conduct and cooperation.

The fact that social insects engage in social cooperation and intricate groupthink presents a counterargument to this claim.

Some people contend that the fact that social activity may occur in animals with very underdeveloped brains disproves the idea that awareness is necessary for social conduct, Despite the fact that insects have brains that are too little for them to be aware, they nonetheless exhibit behaviors that, for all intents and purposes, resemble those of sophisticated social cooperation and manipulation (including hierarchies where each individual has its place among paper wasps and Jack Jumper ants and honey bees sneaking when they lay eggs).

These opponents further contend that since social behavior in insects and other creatures with relatively tiny brains has developed several times independently, there is no need to attribute human social behavior to a single origin, There is no issue in terms of evolution in imposing selection pressure for the more nutrient-consuming route of awareness for sociality when it comes to basic response sociality.

These opponents are correct in pointing out that there may be different evolutionary routes leading to awareness, such as critical assessment, which improves adaptability by challenging erroneous beliefs and assumptions, while pointing out that such a critical consciousness would be quite different from the justificatory type proposed by Nørretranders, Differences include the fact that those with a critical awareness would be more capable of altering their opinions rather than defending and convincing others of their viewpoints.

The philosophical concept of free will refers to an individual's capacity to choose the path that their actions will take without being constrained in any way by external influences. If there is no such thing as consciousness, then it is possible to argue that people have very little control over the choices they make and that biology is the primary motivating factor in human decision making. Daniel Dennett makes the hypothesis that the human biological systems that create a user representation are responsible for the experiences of humans with conscious free choice. However, a substantial number of philosophers are of the opinion that, despite the fact that free will and awareness are two distinct concepts, the concept of free will may derive from that of consciousness. If awareness is only the facts in the human mind generating an illusion for the user, then this lends credence to the argument that free will could not be a real phenomenon.

{End Chapter 1}

Chapter 2: Consciousness

At its most fundamental level, consciousness may be defined as the knowledge of one's own internal and outward existence.

One's feeling of self-awareness or soul, as discovered via seeing inside, is one example of the variety of descriptions, definitions, or explanations. Other examples include basic wakefulness. being a stream of contents in a figurative sense, or referring to a mental state, mental occurrence, or mental activity occurring in the brain.

Since the time of Descartes and Locke, Western philosophers have tried to understand the nature of consciousness and how it fits into a wider picture of the universe. Specifically, this has been a source of contention. These concerns continue to be at the forefront of phenomenology and the philosophy of mind discussions in both continental and analytic approaches to philosophy.

The study of consciousness has also emerged as an important area for investigation within the subject of cognitive science, which incorporates a wide range of disciplines, including psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience. The major goal is on understanding what it means for information to be present in consciousness from both a biological and psychological perspective. Another way to put this is to say that the primary focus is on finding the neurological and psychological correlates of consciousness.

In the field of medicine, determining whether or not a patient is conscious involves observing the patient's level of arousal and responsiveness. Consciousness can be seen as a continuum of states that range from full alertness and comprehension all the way down to disorientation, delirium, the inability to meaningfully communicate, and finally the inability to move in response to painful stimuli. Standardized measures for the observation and scoring of behavior, such as the Glasgow coma scale, are used to evaluate a patient's level of consciousness.

Towards the end of the 20th century, philosophers such as Hamlyn are examples, Rorty, Wilkes and I have been in disagreement with Kahn, Hardie and Modrak question whether or not Aristotle had any idea of awareness at all.

Aristotle did not identify the phenomena using any specific phrase or language in any of his writings; It is not used until a great deal later, to a great extent by John Locke.

Caston argues that in the case of Aristotle, In some ways, perceptual awareness and what contemporary thinkers refer to as consciousness were interchangeable.

Consciousness (French: conscience) is also defined in the 1753 volume of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, as the judgment or inner sensation that we ourselves experience as a result of what we do,.

The definition provided by Locke in 1690 demonstrates that there has been a steady movement in meaning through time.

The concept of conscientia, which largely refers to one's moral conscience, is connected to this term. The term conscientia refers to knowledge that is held by several individuals, or information that is held in common. The term makes its first appearance in Latin legal documents written by authors such as Cicero.

There are around forty different interpretations that may be recognized and grouped based on the functions and experiences associated with the word consciousness. It is unlikely that we will ever arrive at a unified, consensus-based definition of consciousness that is independent of theoretical frameworks.

The definitions of the word consciousness in the dictionary span several centuries and reflect a variety of seemingly related meanings. However, there are some distinctions between these meanings that have been the subject of debate. For example, the difference between 'inward awareness' and 'perception' of the physical world, or the difference between 'conscious' and 'unconscious,' or the concept of a'mental entity' or'mental activity' that is not physical.

According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1966 version, Volume 1, page 482), the following are some definitions of consciousness that are often used::

awareness or experience of an inside psychological or spiritual reality; instinctively recognized understanding of something existing within one's own inner self.

awareness on the inside of something that is out there, such as an item, situation, or truth

concerned awareness; interest and concern—often used in conjunction with an attributive term (such as class consciousness)

mind in the widest conceivable meaning; that in nature that is differentiated from the physical

the whole of an individual's or group's experiences, perceptions, thoughts, attitudes, and sentiments that they are aware of at any one moment or during a certain time span— compare THE CURRENT STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

waking life (as that to which one returns after sleep, trance, or fever), in which all of one's mental abilities have returned.. waking life (as that to which one returns after sleep, trance, or fever).

the portion of a patient's mental life or psychic material that is instantly accessible to the patient's ego in psychoanalysis – compare PRECONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS

One definition of awareness offered by the Cambridge Dictionary is the condition of comprehending and recognizing something. The condition of being aware and receptive to one's environment, or a person's awareness or perception of something, are how the Oxford Living Dictionary defines consciousness. as well as The reality that the mind is aware of both itself and the outside environment.

Using their own unique vocabulary, philosophers have made several attempts to better explain various technical differences. The following is how the 1998 edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines consciousness::

The word consciousness has been used by philosophers to four primary areas of inquiry: knowledge in general, intentionality, introspection (and the knowledge it particularly creates), and phenomenal experience... If a person introspects himself, then whatever it is that they are thinking about becomes introspectively aware (or is poised to do so). Many people believe that the best way to get fundamental understanding about one's mental life is via introspection. An experience or other mental entity is said to be phenomenally aware if there is something it is like for a person to have that experience or other mental entity. The most elucidating examples include: perceptual experience, such as tastings and seeings; bodily-sensational experiences, such as those of pains, tickles, and itches; imaginative experiences, such as those of one's own actions or perceptions; and streams of thought, such as the experience of thinking in words or in images. Introspection and perceptual experience seem to be separate from one another, or dissociable, however this assertion is debatable.

It has been a source of frustration for a great number of philosophers and scientists because it is so difficult to provide a definition that does not contain circular reasoning or fuzziness. Stuart Sutherland, writing in the 1989 edition of The Macmillan Dictionary of Psychology, expressed more of a dubious attitude than he did a definition of the term:

Being aware of one's own views, thoughts, and emotions is synonymous with being conscious. The concept cannot be defined in any way other than in terms that are incomprehensible to someone who does not have an understanding of what it is to be aware. Many people make the mistake of confusing awareness with self-consciousness, believing that in order to be conscious, one need only be aware of what is going on in the outside world. It is hard to provide a definitive answer to the questions of what consciousness is, what it does, or why it has developed through time, making it an intriguing yet illusive phenomena. On it, there is nothing worth reading that has been written.

A politically motivated definition, like Sutherland's, may have a significant impact on the assumptions