We're talking about people like Marvin Minsky or Hilary Putnam, who have made very significant contributions to the discourse. And if Max Tegmark thinks your claims are a bit too far out, you've got your work cut out.
It also assumes materialisam is true.
This article is also pretty interesting: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.9555...
As it should until we have a better theory we can test.
At least neuroscientists are actually looking at the only physical medium we know of that can hold consciousness. Everyone else is just basically philosophizing, at least until anyone can show some other medium capable of holding consciousness.
By and large, the current scientific assumption is that everything required for consciousness exists within the physics of neurons, rather than, say, epithilial cells on your feet, or magic brainions that haven't been detected yet. Of course this is greatly simplified- a disembodied brain with no body probably can't sustain consciousness, but As far as we can tell, consciousness is an emergent property of brains which is wholly explicable using scientific methods.
Oh come on. Computer scientists and physicists are the pinnacles of humanity, who can speak with authority on absolutely everything, and have status that trumps every other kind of expert.
Secondly, if a misapplication of Godel's Theorem is used as evidence for the legitimacy of a hypothesis about consciousness, then it is perfectly valid for a philosopher to point out that misapplication.
There is no rational reason to even raise the question of why we have free will or consciousness in the first place. We do so because it appeals to our innate human desires that we evolved to follow, such as the desire to feel in control or have purpose.
These instincts are so strong and have such an ability to create biases in our mental reasoning that they cause otherwise very intelligent researchers to speak nonsense.
The more interesting question IMO is how and why exactly, from a neuroscience point of view, people consistently fail in their application of logic when it comes to questions about the meaning of life like this.
I care about Minksy's opinions in a wide range of science since he demonstrated himself as a capable general intelligence.