I’m not sure I fully understand your view, but I’ll take it to mean this: we perceive that we are having conscious experiences, and we also directly perceive the world itself which is causing those experiences. E.g I can see a red ball and I also know that I am having a conscious experience of seeing a red ball.

If this is what you meant, then yes, there are plenty of philosophers who take this view, Most philosophers in this field, who are not Consciousness Denialists, adopt this view.. David Chalmers is one who gives a more comprehensive account, but there are many, many others. They often say that we perceive the world around us with  our senses, and we perceive our conscious experiences by introspection. (Chalmers says we perceive them by “direct acquaintance” which I think is much better.)

The objection I have to this is that I doesn’t match up with my own perceptions and reflections. When I perceive a red ball my perception consists of the conscious experience. There is no “double perception”, I don’t perceive the ball and have a separate conscious experience of perceiving the ball. I just have a conscious experience of seeking a ball;  my conscious experience *is* the perception. If one accepts that point, then it follows that we don’t perceive the world as it exists independently of conscious experience. We just have a bunch of experiences, and we infer from these that there is an external world, but we cannot know what this external world is like in itself.

I have come to believe that we have (1) conscious experience and (2) experience of the thing that causes conscious experience. This can happen simultaneously.

Is there anyone who believes that? What are they called?

Nice to hear from you, hope life is going well where you are.

As I know from other conversations you are a type of dualist yourself, so I read this as a sort of claim of victory rather than an accusation of poor philosophy

As some philosophers take umbrage with being called dualists, I must defend them a little. Consciousness Denialists wouldn’t be dualists as they don’t subscribe the idea that conscious experience exists at all, so there isn’t really anything for them to be dualist about. The Consciousness-as-Property category also includes a sub-group who declare that consciousness is a physical property, like solidity or fragility, so they would also reject dualism. I don’t think much of that idea, but nonetheless they say it.

The other Consciousness-as-Property people say that consciousness is a non-physical property and are sometimes called property dualists. And generally speaking they’re ok with that.

As for own views I tend to call them idealist rather than dualist. Dualism usually refers to views which divide the world into the physical and the mental, which I do not.

I do divide the world into conscious experience and the-unknown-something-which-causes-conscious-experience, so I can see how that is a type of duality, sure. On the other hand it could be said to be referring to different aspects of reality, like space and time. Or “light” and “that which is not light”.

So it’s not necessarily a duality as such, it’s just identifying different aspects of reality over all. 

But the main reason I tend not to talk about my views as a duality is that they are closer to idealism (especially Kant’s Transcendental Idealism) so I think it’s a better label. 

Of course I know of Leibniz but I did not realise how much of an idealist he was, that’s very interesting. I’ve always thought Whitehead was slightly batty though, so I haven’t read much about him, I’m afraid. By way of excuse, although the history of idealism was relevant to my thesis, it wasn’t the focus, which was contemporary theories of consciousness. 

I’d be very interested to discuss your views, though I do this in my spare time between holding down a job, a house, a marriage and a toddler so I can take a while to respond sometimes. (I don’t actually hold my toddler down as such … actually sometimes I do.)

Anyway, if you’d like to discuss further, drop me a line at unmaterialism[insert-relevant-symbol-here]gmail.com and I’ll reply from there. Cheers.

I too am unsure where HH stands on consciousness, if indeed it takes much of a stand anywhere.

One might think that Genuine People Personalities (of which Marvin is one, albeit a prototype) rule out dualism (and one could mention Colin the Happy Robot, too); and I do suspect that Adams’s sympathies were physicalist (and thus towards Consciousness-as-Property). However, there is (as well as reincarnation. .) Gargravarr, the Custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex. Gargravarr is ‘undergoing a period of legal trial separation’ from his body. Still, that whole latter shtick is probably just a joke, and might even contain hints that the scenario is impossible. But there’s also (as pointed out in Andrew Aberdein’s chapter in my book) the argument – note: argument – between Arthur and the mice about whether he’d be the same if he had a robotic brain.

As to virtual creatures/people: well, there are (1) the (or most of the) characters in the artificial universe that is created for Zaphod. Also there are (2) the computer-generated guardians of the Guide’s accounts system – but these latter may be *mere* programs. Barry Dainton’s chapter in my book – ‘From Deep Thought to Digital Metaphysics’ – is relevant too to the virtuality issue, and some of that chapter might fit with what you call ‘Idealism-or-similar’.

Further research seems needed!