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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Name names?

Søren Kierkegaard predates the things you're mentioned, while neither (say) David Chalmers nor Michael Polanyi would have any trouble with them.

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I won't blame Kieerkegaard for using the only knowledge available to him at that time. Let us take David Chalmers as an example. His degree is not in Physics or Computer Science and a quick google doesn't show me if he has any capability in thermodynamics. He could still have learned the subject and be capable of solving thermodynamics problems and placing thermodynamic arguments. If you are familiar with Chalmers, can you confirm or deny that?

Michael Polanyi seems a bonafide physicist, I'd be fine with his works on consciousness.

David Chalmers is Australian university educated, like myself, Dominic Hyde (metaphysics), Jerome Gauntlett (quantum field theory), and others all of the same generation - we all had the same undergraduate exposure to physics, pure applied mathematics, and can handle thermodynamics, information theory, Turing computability, and related undergraduate topics.

Chalmers specialised in pure mathematics, was broad enough to get a Rhodes Scholarship and jumped ship for being a global leader(?)(according to some) in philosophy of the mind.

Perhaps you're thinking of Dennett who was more of a biology nerd, although I see no reason to think he is incapable of grasping thermodynamics, information theory, and Turing computability given his broad autodidact tendencies.

Then he should be fine whether one agrees or disagrees with his arguments as long as he grounds them in physical science.

Biology nerd works too, broadly any natural sciences will do as a baseline to start with. All of these backgrounds sound excellent, yes.

It might be an issue with how you think of Philosophers then, you've just essentially given a seal of approval to Dennett and Chalmers who are regarded by some as the leading names in philosophy of the mind.

( Also, say, Stan Dahaene, David Rosenthal, Jesse Prinz, Guilio Tononi, and others also I guess )

Stuff like information theory and computability are part and parcel of educating about thinking, math, and physics for late 20th century universities.

Yes then thank god. Without thermodynamics/information theory/computability its easy to fall into nonsense. What I have read of Chalmers and Dennett I haven't found much issue with (Chalmers is a bit subtler but at least he doesn't seem to have any issue believing an ai could be conscious). I have planned to read more of their work.

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