And yes, it's obsessive, consumes my free time but... going to a pub and make me drunk all day is better? or smoking like a furnal? or watching p0rn all day? are these last three obsessive? Which is the good obsession to have? Is anyone here not having obsessions of all sorts?
Everyone has their choice on how they want to spend their free time, and in some cases, make time for what they want to do. We do what we choose because it entertains, replenishes, relaxes or enriches us.
I have yet to hear of a life story of someone who has ruined or destroyed one's life due to "too much" chess as we have always heard of drug addiction. (Of course, when chess is an avenue for gambling, then it becomes a different symptom.)
Which brings me back to the original post of chess CONs for the average casual player: Are the original points still valid as points under CONs?
A good start for reading would be Jaegwon Kim's introductionary "Philosophy of Mind"
The fact that a 'cow' differs ontologically from 'the mental' (I agree cow's are easier to draw) does not mean the sophist tactic I described wouldn't work. I'm not saying you would have used it, but I would not have been surprised if it was a friendly set up. Usually trying to define something requires no guts, but against a sophist it could equate with verbal suicide.
When it comes to 'Supervene' I am referring to the Mind-Body Supervenience theses (it is treated in the book I suggested).
It basically means mental events have a basis in physical events. Since most contemporary philosophers accept ontological physicalism (there is nothing but bits and pieces of matter in spacetime), the idea doesn't strike me as odd. If there is something like the mental, then it should have a basis in the physical, because where else are we going to be looking. (I am no fan of dualism).
With regard to my time machine analogy lacking, I disagree. I did not use it to imply 'mentality' and 'time machines' are the same. I used it to say that you don't have to fully understand something (mentality or time, for that matter
) to speculate about the growth of our understanding / technical prowess related to it.
Then last but not least your question: "Physical properties changing into...what?"
I would be surprised if you didn't like the early Witgenstein. If you are not familiar with it, you should check the wikipage for his tractato logico philosophico. I also agree that a lot of 'philosophy' may be nonsense as long as it is not connected to concrete facts in reality.
But with that being said, and acknowledging that properly defining mentality is not easy and to some extent theory related, I do not think it is unsurmountable to the degree that any statement regarding it must be nonsensical from the word go.
We may at some point be able to create a physical system with mentality. The technology to create something like that, I suppose, is very far out of reach. There are also many more difficulties in framing what we are trying to create, and perhaps greater ones still in testing if we succeeded. (read up on the fun zombie problem)
The basic point, though, is that many philosophers would be surprised if a machine that is functionally identical to a brain would not have a similar mental capacity. And that is what Elroch is getting at.
The whole idea that it should be possible in general to create physical objects with mental capacity isn't terribly controversial. The fact that the last word hasn't been said about what mentality is exactly and the fact that the technology is way insufficient doesn't make it philosophically irrelevant.
I like Larry Niven and Peter F. Hamilton best. I wouldn't be surprised if you liked them too.