They begin with strawmen, such as "scientists and even fellow philosophers are telling me that I'm a machine or a beast." No, they argue that humans are animals, not beasts. The terms mean different things: "frogs are animals" is true and "frogs are beasts" is false. Further, the claim that humans are animals is true by definition. The technical definition is complex, but it should suffice for anyone versed in biology to know that humans are living organisms with nervous systems and that all such organisms belong to the kingdom Animalia, which means that humans are animals.
Then they follow the strawmen with pomposity, such as "it would take more time and space than I have here to refute these views." How would the author know how much time and space it would take to refute them? He presumes that such a refutation not only exists, but that he knows it. This presumption is preposterous because there cannot be a refutation of them. You cannot refute linguistic arguments without proving that there is a One True Definition for a given word or phrase, which would require proving that some form of Linguistic (non-mathematical) Platonism is true, and that has yet to pass the threshold of being a coherent concept.
Then they rewrite to shroud their pomposity with an excuse, such as "while [insert previous quote], I'd like to suggest..."
Note: I disagree entirely with the OP, or at least with his reasoning. This essay basically reads like, "I think computers can never think/experience like humans because humans are special, somehow"
They begin with strawmen, such as "scientists and even fellow philosophers are telling me that I'm a machine or a beast." No, they argue that humans are animals, not beasts. The terms mean different things: "frogs are animals" is true and "frogs are beasts" is false. Further, the claim that humans are animals is true by definition. The technical definition is complex, but it should suffice for anyone versed in biology to know that humans are living organisms with nervous systems and that all such organisms belong to the kingdom Animalia, which means that humans are animals.
Then they follow the strawmen with pomposity, such as "it would take more time and space than I have here to refute these views." How would the author know how much time and space it would take to refute them? He presumes that such a refutation not only exists, but that he knows it. This presumption is preposterous because there cannot be a refutation of them. You cannot refute linguistic arguments without proving that there is a One True Definition for a given word or phrase, which would require proving that some form of Linguistic (non-mathematical) Platonism is true, and that has yet to pass the threshold of being a coherent concept.
Then they rewrite to shroud their pomposity with an excuse, such as "while [insert previous quote], I'd like to suggest..."
Ugh.