An illusion is something different from the truth. But what is the truth? For some it is the set of well-established scientific theories, for others the value of life, freedom or power, for others it is the sacred word of God, for others only a very restricted set of logical and mathematical truths, for others still I can only know that I exist and nothing more, etc, etc.
My goal here is not to demarcate a specific set of beliefs as "true", while all the others are false or illusive. When I was younger I'd like to do that, and I did. But, the more I think about it, the more it seems we are nowhere near an absolute, fundamental truth. Even Descartes' famous: "I think therefore I am" leads to nothing and is such a vague proposition (what does the "I" or "am" mean?) that it seems to lift more doubts than those we might want it to answer.
So what we are left with is a sea, a vast and apparently endless sea, of ignorance. The little conjectures we have made, as a species, over millennia, a part of which is condensed in what we call hard science, are consistent with this lack of true knowledge. What we've learned points to a vision of the world in which we are just a small species on the crust of an insiginificant planet opening for the first time our eyes to the world around us. If this is indeed true than it would be expectable that only in the course of several millions of years of developing science and technology - with improved senses, brains and accumulation of knowledge - we would arrive at a solid representation of the world, something that we could trust a little.
I'm afraid I'm not well-read and, perhaps because of that, I don't know many people who share this view. By the contrary, it seems that everyone has found out the truth, scientists, skeptics, religious people, politicians and their followers, sports fans, etc. Everyone seems to have found the truth and they bang it up to everyone else. I find this deeply disturbing. To me every theory has a proper place, a reason to be. Even this one, that I am proposing now. It certainly would not be useful in a time of action, when we need to act and not ponder. Or when we want to simply pursue a game till the very end, without questioning the assumptions.
The main utility of this theory, in my view, is to give us a much more ample view of the world, although, as a side effect, it turns it into this mysterious place where almost everything seems yet beyond our reach. It also allows us to see points of contact between different perspectives on the world.
In fact, it seems such a rather basic work that it should be perhaps not be the occupation of an adult. Perhaps children, when they are learning how to read and write should be doing this, instead of an ex-researcher, part-time high-school teacher of philosophy. I'm almost embarressed to assume I'm doing such basic work. But the truth of the matter is, our social world lacks this kind of clarity. We have great scientists (like Carl Sagan) beating up on religion and spirituality, we have religious people in high positions of power promoting wars and creating thousands of deaths, incalculable misery and suffering, both now and in the long-run, because they took stories like Santa Claus and now are preparing everything for him to arrive with his reindeer. In other words, they read the book, and now are trying to make it real!
These people are in power because we put them there, millions of people voted in them. The fact that millions of people can believe in three impossible things before breakfast is a strong indication for me that, human species has we know it cannot go very far in evolution's story. Whatever will surpass us will not want to repeat this strange circus of stupidity disguised as "enlightenment", "science", "the chose people", etc.
This is also a good reason why I do not want to be known to the public. It seems quite dangerous to expose basic common sense in these times.