Philosophers are used to the fact that they have major disagreements with each other. Even if you think zombie arguments fail, as I do, you’ll still perk up your ears when somebody as smart as Chalmers is taking the singularity seriously. I don’t accept his version of property dualism, but The Conscious Mind was not written by a dummy.
I didn’t mean to say that Chalmers isn’t a highly respected philosopher, but I also think it’s true that the impact is somewhat blunted relative to a counterfactual in which his philosophy of mind work was of equal fame and quality, but arguing a different position.
I disagree; the fact that Chalmers is critical of standard varieties of physicalism will make him more credible on the Singularity. In the former case, he rejects the nerd-core view. That makes him a little harder to write off.
Sure, we think he’s wrong, but does academia? That the Singularity is supported by more than one side is good news.
Dualism is a minority position:
http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?
Accept or lean toward: physicalism 526 / 931 (56.4%)
Accept or lean toward: non-physicalism 252 / 931 (27%)
Other 153 / 931 (16.4%)
Philosophers are used to the fact that they have major disagreements with each other. Even if you think zombie arguments fail, as I do, you’ll still perk up your ears when somebody as smart as Chalmers is taking the singularity seriously. I don’t accept his version of property dualism, but The Conscious Mind was not written by a dummy.
I didn’t mean to say that Chalmers isn’t a highly respected philosopher, but I also think it’s true that the impact is somewhat blunted relative to a counterfactual in which his philosophy of mind work was of equal fame and quality, but arguing a different position.
I disagree; the fact that Chalmers is critical of standard varieties of physicalism will make him more credible on the Singularity. In the former case, he rejects the nerd-core view. That makes him a little harder to write off.