> "The physicalist empirical study of consciousness"

I think this is a kind of stolen valor. There is nothing about the empirical study of consciousness that is inherently "physicalist". The science is (very obviously) unchanged if you adopt an epiphenomenalist dualist metaphysics, for example. Those are *empirically indistinguishable* philosophical theories. So it just seems like a category error to suggest that empirical science either presupposes or counts in favor of the one philosophical interpretation over the other. Disputes in the metaphysics of mind are philosophical, not scientific, and there's really no substitute for simply engaging in detail with the specific arguments for and against physicalism (and its competitors).

> "To claim that views like dualism, physicalism, and panpsychism should be considered as equally worthwhile alternatives, despite incredible progress in the sciences of the mind, betrays a depressing view of philosophy and its ability to make progress."

It may be illuminating to consider analogies to ethics. Psychological science may study ethical behavior, reasoning, and other empirical correlates of what moral philosophers are interested in. But they can't directly grasp the thing itself. And while some may be inclined to reject moral realism (in favor of either error theory or some form of non-cognitivism) on the grounds of a prior ideological commitment to metaphysical naturalism, it's not like the dogmatic assertion of metaphysical naturalism *itself* constitutes any kind of philosophical "progress". Philosophical progress consists in clarifying the comparative costs and benefits of the rival views on offer. The past century of work in metaethics and metaphysics of mind alike have made significant strides on that front; far more than one would get from treating metaphysical naturalism as a dogma all this time.