Rethinking of the concept of qualia in "illusion" theories of consciousness: ontological and axiological aspects

"Qualia" is a fixed term of the vocabulary of philosophy of mind. And “the difficult problem of consciousness” formulated by D. Chalmers is directly related to the clarification of a number of issues on Qualia. The ontological status was considered to be the core of Qualia problems for a long time: how realistic is the qualitative experience? In addition, the philosophers discussed the viability of Qualia studies from the standpoint of their heuristic significance, since the fundamental objection was the inability to transmit qualia to a third party. However, the development of theories of virtual consciousness allows researchers to rethink the concept of Qualia, due to the fact that the very notion of reality is changing in their discourses. At the same time, Qualia by getting value meaning attach particular importance of the world for the subject. The article focuses on the consistency of the logic of reasoning the thesis “consciousness as a value system”, and emphasizes that such a conclusion is possible only in recognition of the illusory nature of reality. Along with this, we formulate the counterarguments to N. Humphrey's position: a remark on the argument of “blindsight”, a reference to the reversion to behavioristic view of the assessment of consciousness through behavior and separation of the concepts of “qualia” and “information about sensation”.