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Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Oxford University Press (2012), Edition: 1st, 144 pages
Description
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.--Publisher description.… (more)
Media reviews
Here’s another problem. Nagel’s teleological biology is heavily human-centric or at least animal-centric. Organisms, it seems, are in the business of secreting sentience, reason, and values. Real biology looks little like this and, from the outset, must face the staggering facts of organismal
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diversity. There are millions of species of fungi and bacteria and nearly 300,000 species of flowering plants. None of these groups is sentient and each is spectacularly successful. Indeed mindless species outnumber we sentient ones by any sensible measure (biomass, number of individuals, or number of species; there are only about 5,500 species of mammals). More fundamentally, each of these species is every bit as much the end product of evolution as we are. The point is that, if nature has goals, it certainly seems to have many and consciousness would appear to be fairly far down on the list.
Similarly, Nagel’s teleological biology is run through with talk about the “higher forms of organization toward which nature tends” and progress toward “more complex systems.” Again, real biology looks little like this. The history of evolutionary lineages is replete with reversals, which often move from greater complexity to less. A lineage will evolve a complex feature (an eye, for example) that later gets dismantled, evolutionarily deconstructed after the species moves into a new environment (dark caves, say). Parasites often begin as “normal” complicated organisms and then lose evolutionarily many of their complex traits after taking up their new parasitic way of life. Such reversals are easily explained under Darwinism but less so under teleology. If nature is trying to get somewhere, why does it keep changing its mind about the destination? Show Less
Current science may suffer from fundamental flaws, but Nagel has not made a convincing case that this is so. And even if there are serious explanatory defects in our world picture, I don’t see how Nagel’s causally inexplicable teleology can be a plausible remedy. In saying this, I realize that
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Nagel is trying to point the way to a scientific revolution and that my reactions may be mired in presuppositions that Nagel is trying to transcend. If Nagel is right, our descendants will look back on him as a prophet—a prophet whom naysayers such as me were unable to recognize. Show Less
We conclude with a comment about truth in advertising. Nagel’s arguments against reductionism are quixotic, and his arguments against naturalism are unconvincing. He aspires to develop “rival alternative conceptions” to what he calls the materialist neo-Darwinian worldview, yet he never
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clearly articulates this rival conception, nor does he give us any reason to think that “the present right-thinking consensus will come to seem laughable in a generation or two.” Mind and Cosmos is certainly an apt title for Nagel’s philosophical meditations, but his subtitle—”Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False”—is highly misleading. Nagel, by his own admission, relies only on popular science writing and brings to bear idiosyncratic and often outdated views about a whole host of issues, from the objectivity of moral truth to the nature of explanation. No one could possibly think he has shown that a massively successful scientific research program like the one inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection “is almost certainly false.” The subtitle seems intended to market the book to evolution deniers, intelligent-design acolytes, religious fanatics and others who are not really interested in the substantive scientific and philosophical issues. Even a philosopher sympathetic to Nagel’s worries about the naturalistic worldview would not claim this volume comes close to living up to that subtitle. Its only effect will be to make the book an instrument of mischief. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member PedrBran
Modern science assumes the causal closure of physics or what is referred to as the completeness of physics. If the forces physics describes are the only forces in the world, then everything can be explained in terms of those forces without remainder. And so, when Neo-Darwinian informed science
The author, a philosophy professor at New York University since 1980 does not believe in the causal closure of physics. Why doesn’t he believe in the causal closure of physics? It’s because he doesn’t believe the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution can explain the origin of consciousness, meaning, value and morality. What are his reasons?
1) The probability of it happening by chance is too low.
2) There hasn’t been enough time for consciousness to evolve.
What evidence does he provide? It’s just a gut instinct based on his common sense intuitions. However, his common sense intuitions haven’t been honed by a scientific education. In a shocking admission in the beginning of the book, Mr. Nagel admits that his only scientific knowledge is from reading popular science books. When reading the book, it is clear that he is not even widely read in popular science. It is also clear that many of his ideas come from reading popular pseudo-scientific books written by creationist and intelligent design advocates.
Since he believes physics is not casually closed or complete, Mr. Nagel has to invent another force acting in the world to complete it. This force is mind. It is a position known as panpsychism:. All matter has a mental aspect, or, alternatively, all objects have a unified center of experience or point of view. How this mysterious something extra is supposed to explain consciousness or its evolution is never explained. It reminds me of Moliere. Why does opium make us sleepy? It makes us sleepy due to its dormative properties. This smacks of ad hocism.
His whole argument is the argument from incredulity: P is too incredible (or: I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore, P must be false. Since he can’t understand how science can explain consciousness, it is therefore unexplainable in terms of existing science. His limitations are the scientific community’s limitations. This is the height of narcissism and evinces contempt for the scientific communities ability to discover the nature of reality.
One of his unstated assumptions is that a justificationist perspective informs science, which if true, makes it vulnerable to Münchhausen’s trilemma. All attempts at justifying a position end in one of three states:
1) Circular reasoning,
2) Infinite regress
3) Axiomatic or fideism.
Mr. Nagel accuses naturalistic Neo-Darwinian science of falling prey to all three. Naturalist epistemology can’t justify itself without begging the question, reason couldn’t have evolved because it would involve an infinite regress, and thirdly, naturalism is an ideology. Accusing science of being an ideology is a rhetorical ploy used by creationists and ID proponents. Since they cannot refute evolutionary science, they claim it is an ideology. Once asserted to be an ideology, they employ the tu quoque argument and claim that everyone has to adopt foundational assumptions that cannot be proven.
However, since Popper, a falsificationist perspective informs science. Although this is at the cost of certainty, the benefit is explaining why science is a never-ending open-ended endeavor. Given science’s progress thus far, it is excessively premature to give up and seek other explanations for the evolution of consciousness, meaning, value and morality.
Mr. Nagel does not hold his beliefs subject to the implications of science, but instead, holds beliefs and then states that science is therefore wrong. For example, Nagel states, “Street holds that a Darwinian account is strongly supported by contemporary science, so she concludes that moral realism is false. I follow the same inference in the opposite direction: since moral realism is true, a Darwinian account of the motives underlying moral judgment must be false, in spite of the scientific consensus in its favor.”
Mr. Nagel never says why moral realism is true, he just states that it is. His beliefs are based on his innate sense of how things just have to be. He’s an atheist for the same reason. He says he just doesn’t have a sense that god exists, therefore he doesn’t.
Elsewhere he says. “However, in my case the scientific credentials of Darwinism, and these other examples, are not enough to dislodge the immediate conviction that objectivity is not an illusion with respect to basic judgments of value.”
Mr. Kant believed that the world was Euclidean and that this was a necessary truth of reason. It later turned out he was wrong. He is also believed Newtonian mechanics accurately described the world. We later found is doesn’t. Mr. Nagel believes that the law of the excluded middle is a truth of logic. However, if the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, this is not the case. Basing our beliefs on our intuitions is a poor way to proceed. All modern science is based on its rejection.
Because of his self-professed scientific illiteracy, he is completely unaware of how game theory can explain the logic of behavior or how biosemiotics is beginning to explain how meaning and value can arise in a completely mindless material universe..
The problem with Nagel’s book is that it is ultimately anthropocentric. All prior life forms were precursors to the ultimate expression of the universe: humans. He has no concept that we might be mere way stations along the road to some future that doesn’t include humans or consciousness. Whatever the future brings, it will certainly include a post-human humanity with entirely different needs, morals, and values.
Like all pre-Darwinian thinkers, he lives in a world of stasis. He believes in a platonic world that contains eternal truths. However, he provides no method for ascertaining what those truths are or when we’ve discerned them. According to Mr. Nagel, some mysterious teleological process has guided evolution that resulted in consciousness and value. He cannot accept that we are negentropic energy sinks that have effloresced out of a mindless material universe and will one day disappear without leaving a trace.
Claiming that the material world contains mind and is guided by a teleological process adds nothing to the scientific description of the world. There’s no way to test for it. The beauty of this, however, is that fideists can add all the non-testable, non-refutable beliefs they need to a theory to get back to their religion. But this is not science.
The subtitle of the book is: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Mr. Nagel comes no where close to doing this. Instead the book is a embarrassing collection of non sequiturs.
Show More
explains the evolution of humankind and our behavior, it assumes the causal closure of physics. This is referred to as naturalism or the naturalistic stance.The author, a philosophy professor at New York University since 1980 does not believe in the causal closure of physics. Why doesn’t he believe in the causal closure of physics? It’s because he doesn’t believe the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution can explain the origin of consciousness, meaning, value and morality. What are his reasons?
1) The probability of it happening by chance is too low.
2) There hasn’t been enough time for consciousness to evolve.
What evidence does he provide? It’s just a gut instinct based on his common sense intuitions. However, his common sense intuitions haven’t been honed by a scientific education. In a shocking admission in the beginning of the book, Mr. Nagel admits that his only scientific knowledge is from reading popular science books. When reading the book, it is clear that he is not even widely read in popular science. It is also clear that many of his ideas come from reading popular pseudo-scientific books written by creationist and intelligent design advocates.
Since he believes physics is not casually closed or complete, Mr. Nagel has to invent another force acting in the world to complete it. This force is mind. It is a position known as panpsychism:. All matter has a mental aspect, or, alternatively, all objects have a unified center of experience or point of view. How this mysterious something extra is supposed to explain consciousness or its evolution is never explained. It reminds me of Moliere. Why does opium make us sleepy? It makes us sleepy due to its dormative properties. This smacks of ad hocism.
His whole argument is the argument from incredulity: P is too incredible (or: I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore, P must be false. Since he can’t understand how science can explain consciousness, it is therefore unexplainable in terms of existing science. His limitations are the scientific community’s limitations. This is the height of narcissism and evinces contempt for the scientific communities ability to discover the nature of reality.
One of his unstated assumptions is that a justificationist perspective informs science, which if true, makes it vulnerable to Münchhausen’s trilemma. All attempts at justifying a position end in one of three states:
1) Circular reasoning,
2) Infinite regress
3) Axiomatic or fideism.
Mr. Nagel accuses naturalistic Neo-Darwinian science of falling prey to all three. Naturalist epistemology can’t justify itself without begging the question, reason couldn’t have evolved because it would involve an infinite regress, and thirdly, naturalism is an ideology. Accusing science of being an ideology is a rhetorical ploy used by creationists and ID proponents. Since they cannot refute evolutionary science, they claim it is an ideology. Once asserted to be an ideology, they employ the tu quoque argument and claim that everyone has to adopt foundational assumptions that cannot be proven.
However, since Popper, a falsificationist perspective informs science. Although this is at the cost of certainty, the benefit is explaining why science is a never-ending open-ended endeavor. Given science’s progress thus far, it is excessively premature to give up and seek other explanations for the evolution of consciousness, meaning, value and morality.
Mr. Nagel does not hold his beliefs subject to the implications of science, but instead, holds beliefs and then states that science is therefore wrong. For example, Nagel states, “Street holds that a Darwinian account is strongly supported by contemporary science, so she concludes that moral realism is false. I follow the same inference in the opposite direction: since moral realism is true, a Darwinian account of the motives underlying moral judgment must be false, in spite of the scientific consensus in its favor.”
Mr. Nagel never says why moral realism is true, he just states that it is. His beliefs are based on his innate sense of how things just have to be. He’s an atheist for the same reason. He says he just doesn’t have a sense that god exists, therefore he doesn’t.
Elsewhere he says. “However, in my case the scientific credentials of Darwinism, and these other examples, are not enough to dislodge the immediate conviction that objectivity is not an illusion with respect to basic judgments of value.”
Mr. Kant believed that the world was Euclidean and that this was a necessary truth of reason. It later turned out he was wrong. He is also believed Newtonian mechanics accurately described the world. We later found is doesn’t. Mr. Nagel believes that the law of the excluded middle is a truth of logic. However, if the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, this is not the case. Basing our beliefs on our intuitions is a poor way to proceed. All modern science is based on its rejection.
Because of his self-professed scientific illiteracy, he is completely unaware of how game theory can explain the logic of behavior or how biosemiotics is beginning to explain how meaning and value can arise in a completely mindless material universe..
The problem with Nagel’s book is that it is ultimately anthropocentric. All prior life forms were precursors to the ultimate expression of the universe: humans. He has no concept that we might be mere way stations along the road to some future that doesn’t include humans or consciousness. Whatever the future brings, it will certainly include a post-human humanity with entirely different needs, morals, and values.
Like all pre-Darwinian thinkers, he lives in a world of stasis. He believes in a platonic world that contains eternal truths. However, he provides no method for ascertaining what those truths are or when we’ve discerned them. According to Mr. Nagel, some mysterious teleological process has guided evolution that resulted in consciousness and value. He cannot accept that we are negentropic energy sinks that have effloresced out of a mindless material universe and will one day disappear without leaving a trace.
Claiming that the material world contains mind and is guided by a teleological process adds nothing to the scientific description of the world. There’s no way to test for it. The beauty of this, however, is that fideists can add all the non-testable, non-refutable beliefs they need to a theory to get back to their religion. But this is not science.
The subtitle of the book is: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Mr. Nagel comes no where close to doing this. Instead the book is a embarrassing collection of non sequiturs.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
This is a very small book about some big issues; namely the "relation between mind, brain, and behavior in living animal organisms" and its relation to the cosmos. Thomas Nagel has written a provocative book aimed at both serious readers and other philosophers. Whether he succeeds in his goal of
The book starts sort of in midstream discussing modern materialist theories; with a focus on the "failure of psychophysical reductionism." This is the position in the philosophy of mind that proposes that the physical sciences will be ultimately capable of providing a theory of everything. It is known as as reductionism. In addition to attacking this he proposes that the development of mind raises questions that the evolutionary theory of the development of life forms can explain the complexity that is evident today. He also criticizes the idea that consciousness is merely a side-effect. In this he is successful at least from this reader's perspective. It seems evident that life is more than just an accident that keeps happening.
After a discussion of anti-reductionism and the natural order the book follows with chapters on consciousness, cognition, and values. In his discussion of cognition he proposes a teleological, or goal-oriented, development of "biological possibilities". This is presented as an alternative to the alternatives: chance, creationism, or directionless physical law. He does not recognize that evolutionary theory suggests that certain developments might be inevitable, or at least predictable. His proposals are made as reasonable alternatives to theories that he suggests have reached a dead end. In presenting them he does not argue from proof, but rather suggests his alternatives provide what may be considered a new paradigm that will allow progress in areas like the relationship of consciousness and the brain and evolutionary development.
He concludes that the best alternative is a naturalistic, though non-materialist, alternative. Thus Mind is not an inexplicable accident or a divine and anomalous gift but a basic aspect of nature that we will not understand until we transcend the built-in limits of contemporary scientific orthodoxy. Some questions that were raised in our discussion of this book included whether there is life or consciousness elsewhere in the universe, if the ability to create life in the laboratory would have any bearing, and if we could create consciousness in computers would this make a difference? Unfortunately the author does not explore these and many other issues in this short book. While Nagel is an atheist, he adds that even some theists might find his proposed views acceptable; since they could maintain that God is ultimately responsible for such an expanded natural order, as they believe he is for the laws of physics.
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explaining the implausibility of materialist theories is in doubt, but there is no doubt that he provides some challenging ideas about the way we can philosophize about the nature of mind.The book starts sort of in midstream discussing modern materialist theories; with a focus on the "failure of psychophysical reductionism." This is the position in the philosophy of mind that proposes that the physical sciences will be ultimately capable of providing a theory of everything. It is known as as reductionism. In addition to attacking this he proposes that the development of mind raises questions that the evolutionary theory of the development of life forms can explain the complexity that is evident today. He also criticizes the idea that consciousness is merely a side-effect. In this he is successful at least from this reader's perspective. It seems evident that life is more than just an accident that keeps happening.
After a discussion of anti-reductionism and the natural order the book follows with chapters on consciousness, cognition, and values. In his discussion of cognition he proposes a teleological, or goal-oriented, development of "biological possibilities". This is presented as an alternative to the alternatives: chance, creationism, or directionless physical law. He does not recognize that evolutionary theory suggests that certain developments might be inevitable, or at least predictable. His proposals are made as reasonable alternatives to theories that he suggests have reached a dead end. In presenting them he does not argue from proof, but rather suggests his alternatives provide what may be considered a new paradigm that will allow progress in areas like the relationship of consciousness and the brain and evolutionary development.
He concludes that the best alternative is a naturalistic, though non-materialist, alternative. Thus Mind is not an inexplicable accident or a divine and anomalous gift but a basic aspect of nature that we will not understand until we transcend the built-in limits of contemporary scientific orthodoxy. Some questions that were raised in our discussion of this book included whether there is life or consciousness elsewhere in the universe, if the ability to create life in the laboratory would have any bearing, and if we could create consciousness in computers would this make a difference? Unfortunately the author does not explore these and many other issues in this short book. While Nagel is an atheist, he adds that even some theists might find his proposed views acceptable; since they could maintain that God is ultimately responsible for such an expanded natural order, as they believe he is for the laws of physics.
Show Less
LibraryThing member FrankHubeny
Materialistic neo-Darwinism is a view that there have been enough viable chance mutations to allow natural selection to account for the present diversity of life. Critiques of this position have constructed models using the rate of mutations and the age of life on earth to show that chance could
Those critiques, although repeatedly made, have simply entered the culture war between atheists and theists, but they have not been adequately answered and so neo-Darwinism, from a purely rational perspective, has been falsified. This is what Nagel refers to in his subtitle when he claims that neo-Darwinism is "almost certainly false".
Nagel's main concern, however, is to explain, using ideas from the philosophy of mind, why one should expect the program of neo-Darwinism would be falsified. He approaches the problem reminiscent of his earlier work, Mortal Questions, where he introduces panpsychism which is a way to construct a monism of mind and matter upon which reductive science can continue.
The main reason to read this book is to follow his argument since it is central to current questions in the philosophy of mind and could be considered one way to salvage an atheistic approach to nature as its failure to make materialism work becomes ever more evident.
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not have been the cause. Those critiques, although repeatedly made, have simply entered the culture war between atheists and theists, but they have not been adequately answered and so neo-Darwinism, from a purely rational perspective, has been falsified. This is what Nagel refers to in his subtitle when he claims that neo-Darwinism is "almost certainly false".
Nagel's main concern, however, is to explain, using ideas from the philosophy of mind, why one should expect the program of neo-Darwinism would be falsified. He approaches the problem reminiscent of his earlier work, Mortal Questions, where he introduces panpsychism which is a way to construct a monism of mind and matter upon which reductive science can continue.
The main reason to read this book is to follow his argument since it is central to current questions in the philosophy of mind and could be considered one way to salvage an atheistic approach to nature as its failure to make materialism work becomes ever more evident.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Pauntley
Nagel argues.that a Darwinian/reductive account of evolution cannot provide an acceptable explanation of consciousness, reason or moral value. He proposes an alternative which can be quickly characterised, or caricatured, as 'intelligent design without a Designer'. As Nagel sees it, the evolution
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of consciousness, reason and value, can only be understood in a teleological framework. This is not an implicit plea for a new theism, though it is quite likely that there will be theists who will seek to conscript Nagel to their cause. The argument is least convincing, as Nagel concedes, on the evolution of moral values. But perhaps the argument is not the thing that matters in the end. What Nagel is really on about, I believe, is that thinkers who are not theists still have to engage with the deepest issues, at the margins of the thInkable. Atheism can be a comfortable refuge, if one allows it to be so. This is a short book, but not a quick or easy read. Nagel worries and worries away at his central deep questions and there is much room here for disagreement with his tentative conclusions. It is, however, a welcome antidote to premature certainties. Show Less
LibraryThing member jefware
The greatest mystery of the universe is that it is understandable by human cognition. Combine that with the origin of life and the origin of consciousness and the problem of values and you've got the gist of his argument. Not convincing but indirectly thought provoking.
LibraryThing member jakebornheimer
5/10
[I will type up my page by page notes as a review for this later. For now it is enough to say that I don't agree with Nagel on just about anything here, except that the task of explaining consciousness is extremely arduous.]
[I will type up my page by page notes as a review for this later. For now it is enough to say that I don't agree with Nagel on just about anything here, except that the task of explaining consciousness is extremely arduous.]
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2012
Physical description
144 p.; 8.4 x 5.6 inches
ISBN
9780199919758