Phenomenal consciousness is alien to us: SETI and the fermi paradox seen through the prism of illusionism and attention schema theory

Abstract

Illusionism is an eliminativist position about qualia stating that phenomenal consciousness is nothing more than an introspective illusion. The attention schema theory (AST) relates this philosophical stance to a large body of experimental data and states that phenomenal consciousness arises from an internal model of attention control. In this paper, I intend to show that AST and illusionism have significant implications both in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and in the explanation of Fermi paradox.

Firstly, on the basis of findings concerning the evolutionary history of phenomenal consciousness on Earth, I argue that extraterrestrial biological life is likely to experience phenomenality. In the second part, I set AST in the context of a post-biological universe, where artificial intelligence (AI) is the dominant form of intelligence. I argue that phenomenal consciousness is probably present in these entities, and that they could even be super-conscious. Finally, I show that because phenomenality grounds value, illusionism has profound revisionary consequences in the field of ethics. This reconsideration of the justifiability of our values paves the way to AI misalignment and may be the source of neocatastrophic scenarios that explain to Fermi paradox.