Out of curiosity, on what basis do you consider him a great philosopher, especially if you describe him as insane (and tend to disagree with his conclusions, and then necessarily, his reasoning)?
I ask because I’m trying to figure out the same thing about myself, i.e. intuitively I do think of him as a great philosopher, even though I disagree with so much of what he’s said. Is it just a matter of how well-known or influential he is, or maybe even of how controversial he is?
If you can execute 9 out of 10 steps in reasoning correctly, then you may still be insane on the 10th step, but you are a much more interesting person to read than people who go wrong on step 2.
THE David Chalmers of P-zombies?
Yes… THE David Chalmers.
Will there be free garlic?
Actually, to kill a p-vampire you need to immerse it in running XYZ.
Oh, come on. David Chalmers is probably one of the greatest philosophers of our time, even if he is insane.
Out of curiosity, on what basis do you consider him a great philosopher, especially if you describe him as insane (and tend to disagree with his conclusions, and then necessarily, his reasoning)?
I ask because I’m trying to figure out the same thing about myself, i.e. intuitively I do think of him as a great philosopher, even though I disagree with so much of what he’s said. Is it just a matter of how well-known or influential he is, or maybe even of how controversial he is?
If you can execute 9 out of 10 steps in reasoning correctly, then you may still be insane on the 10th step, but you are a much more interesting person to read than people who go wrong on step 2.
This exchange seems to me to deserve some form of promotion—does LW have anything similar to the bestof subreddit?
Uh oh.
Sad truth about so-called “mad scientists”
“I don’t think [he] is a madman. He’s not even a mad scientist. He’s merely a very upset engineer.”
Nah, garlic is for protecting against vampires. It’ll be no use if this turns out to be the zombie-universe.
I’ll sell you some epiphenomenal garlic for $10.
Sold, but I’m only carrying epiphenomenal cash on me. What exchange rate will you accept?
Hold on, let me check the financial bridging laws to find out how much epiphenomenal cash is required to add up to ten real dollars.
(Actually, it occurs to me that most modern money is epiphenomenal anyway—you can identify the belief in money, but not the money itself.)
Money is information, a point I can’t but bring up often.
For those who don’t already know, the analogy to money is in fact used by Dennett (starting around 45 min).
I didn’t. Nice.
So you haven’t read his Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness?