Mind and Cosmos

Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False

By: Thomas Nagel

Narrated by: Brian Troxell

Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

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.

©2012 Oxford University Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Intellectual honesty at its finest

As an evolutionary biochemist with a PhD from Harvard, I have worked over the past 17 years to dispel the myth among my colleagues and collaborators that the materialist Neo-Darwinian paradigm has the power to explain life, reason, value, etc, debating them until I'm blue in the face. I don't seem to get very far, even though they seem to be able to recognize that the sheer vastness of protein sequence space does present an insurmountable problem for the unguided self-organization of functional biosynthetic systems, not to mention the genetic code. But more often than not, they fall back to naturalism because in their minds, that's the only thing that is "science", and everything outside of this is "religion", specifically Christianity with all its right wing hypocrisy etc. Being open about my faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the propitiation of my sin, my colleagues often grant themselves an automatic trap door to escape the reality of my critiques of materialism and Darwinism: "you are motivated, at least in part, by your faith to think this way." I cannot deny that my worldview colors everything I see. I just don't think it's fair for them to think their position isn't influenced by an atheistic or other worldview that has the very same function. Nevertheless, reason and intellectual honesty are available to us all, no matter what your starting points in the discussion. Which is why I love this book. I will be recommending it to everyone I know who makes the brute assumption that only Theists should take the position that reductive materialist Neo-Darwinism has failed. I may not agree with Nagel's conclusions, but as a scientist, I would think it a victory for the community of evolutionary biologists simply to free themselves to openly discuss (not just over beers after work) and to search for a theory that actually explains the most self-evident and necessary parts of life: the mind and all that it produces.

IS DARWIN'S THEORY WRONG?

Thomas Nagel believes Darwin’s theory of natural selection is wrong. Nagel suggests natural selection fails to encompass the concept of mind. Even though Nagel acknowledges biology and physics have made great strides in understanding the nature of life, he suggests the mind should be a starting point for a theory of everything. Nagel infers that science research is bogged down by a mechanistic and materialistic view of nature. Nagel suggests science must discover the origin of consciousness to find the Holy Grail; i.e. an all-encompassing theory of nature.

Without agreeing or disagreeing with Nagel’s idea, it seems propitious for the United States to fund and begin their decade-long effort to examine the human brain. Though nearer term objectives are to understand Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, the longer term result may be to discover the origin of consciousness. Contrary to Nagel’s contention that natural selection cannot explain consciousness, brain research may reveal consciousness rises from the same source of mysterious elemental and repetitive combinations of an immortal gene that Darwin dimly understood. Brain research offers an avenue for extension or refutation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

"Mind and Cosmos" is a tribute to Nagel’s “outside the box” philosophical’ thought. Like some who say string theory is a blind alley for a theory of everything, natural selection may be a mistaken road to the origin of life.

Awful

Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, by Thomas Nagel is just awful. Doubly awful. The premise provided by the author, is intriguing; the search for our consciousness. What is awareness and from whence does it come. The book attempts to characterize reductive materialism or physicalism and provide a better understanding of sentience, in effect the study of the inner workings of the mind. The author though is too full of himself. Providing developed and artful words in his analysis and premises – but never bothers to define the terms. He then uses $20 dollar words profusely, and can pack seven or eight in one sentence. Worst of all, he never provides a framework by which to conceptualize his theories. Just a machine gun listing of his concepts and conclusions. He himself uses the word phenomenology but never describes his own study results by providing the developed recognitions upon which it is based. Nagel’s use of $20 words for the object of using big words provides only ambiguity and an unlistenable diatribe.

What makes it all worse is that Brian Troxell was probably ordered to get this seven hour book read in three hours and forty five minutes. He did it but it took speed reading to get it done. What an ultimately perplexing but absorbing subject and it is a topic I would like to learn about but this is not the edition to employ for learning.

Okay, so I didn’t like Nagel’s literary process and thought the book was poorly read. I think studying what is and from where comes awareness is a necessary concept to research and study, but this work of Nagel’s is just not worth the effort. Another reviewer provided this following: How Nagel replaces reductive materialism is interesting, but his reasons for replacing it are misinformed and illogical. That was right on.

In fact, if you want a better synopsis of physicalism, read Amen-Ra's (an Audible commentator) review of the book. It's better than reading Mind and Cosmos.

Interesting ideas, poor reasoning

How Nagel replaces reductive materialism is interesting, but his reasons for replacing it are misinformed and illogical. Maybe worth listening, but definitely supplement with something that deals with the multiverse theory and the weak anthropic principle, as so much of Nagel's arguments boil down to questions of likelihood. I suggest Tegemark's Mathematical Universe, as an antidote to Nagel's weakest points.

What it's like to be a bat-sh1t crazy philosopher

Pure unmitigated nonsense. The ravings of a philosopher who thinks that what he wants to be true is a valid guide to understanding the world.

NAGEL’S NESCIENCE OF NUN’S GNOSIS

It is satisfying to see a serious Philosopher of Mind acknowledge the notion that science has hitherto failed to solve the central problem conceptually confronting cogitant Mankind: namely, how inert matter gives rise to consciousness. Nagel correctly contends that consciousness is the most complex, most astounding accompaniment of life extant in our corner of the Cosmos. He understandably argues that the nature of scientific investigation necessarily impairs its ability to offer an adequate explanation of the emergence of awareness from insensate matter and, further, that the invocation of Evolution does not diminish this deficiency. Impressively, irrespective of his acknowledged atheism, he encourages intellectuals to take certain arguments advanced by advocates of Intelligent Design seriously (however sentimental and self-serving such simple-minded statements seem). In essence, what Darwinian theorists unduly dismiss is the difficulty, indeed apparent impossibility, of naive Natural Selection sufficiently accounting for the creation of consciousness prior to the origination of organized life. While Natural Selection can clearly explain the efflorescence of intelligence (owing to its inherent adaptability) after the emergence of self-replicating structures, it cannot conceivably account for the factors that would have made this property productive prior to the appearance of Life.

If the Author is inclined to agree with Dr. Nagel’s aforementioned analysis, wherein does the distinguished Philosopher err? To elucidate the intellectual indictment of his heuristic enterprise we must mention the main metaphysical muddle—the Mind/Matter Mystery. Simply stated, matter is marked by properties such as ponderosity (weightiness), extensibility (space occupation), and ostensible insentience (absence of awareness). Obversely, the mind is immaterial—it occupies no space and possesses no mass. Further, it feels. To employ Nagel’s apt ideational imagery, there is “something it is like to be” aware, sentient, conscious. Despite their undeniable dissimilarity, the immaterial mind is dependent upon the physical brain. Though the best thinkers in the Western tradition have systematically studied this thorny issue since Descartes, it is arguable that the Ancients of the East and elsewhere also appreciated the problem and sought to effect a synthesis of soul and soma, spirit and substance. And yet, even in our advanced age of scientific sophistication, we seem no closer to an edifying understanding of this most fundamental philosophical problem. Persons privy to the pronouncements of “Mind, Matter, Mathematics, & Mortality (M4)” may not be so pessimistic in their assessment of our understanding however.

M4 maintains that modern science has established the infinitesimal (hence immaterial) essence of matter on its minutest level (i.e. that of leptons and quarks). This eradicates the alleged incommensurability of matter and mind in the materialistic sense—for fundamentally, there is no such thing as “matter”. M4 maintains that modern science has established that elementary particles exhibit irreducible awareness (as indicated, for instance, in the modified Double Slit Experiment). This eradicates the alleged incommensurability of matter and mind in the subjectivist sense. Admittedly, I am biased, possessed of pride and prejudice alike. What else could I be? M4 is my “Baby”, my Magnum Opus, and is arguably the most elegant exposition of Metaphysics since Plotinus’ “Enneads”, perhaps Plato’s “Timaeus”, mayhaps even the monumental “Memphite Theology” of the ancient Egyptians secured Shabaka, that Sudanic Sovereign of Nubian nativity. [Aristotle’s Metaphysics is anything but elegant, but this is purely the opinion of a professed Platonist.] It would be easy for an objector to eschew my self-appraisal as excessive intellectual egotism. However, a real refutation of my work would require a repudiation (or reinterpretation) of the sound science and substantive empirical evidence upon which it is based, not an unreasoned, reflexive rejection of my grandiloquent claims. Regrettably, my relative academic obscurity makes the task of kindred colleagues somewhat difficult, especially given my disciplinary dalliance in diverse areas of investigation. However, my manifest (and ambivalently desired) obscurity has not prevented prominent scientists and intellectuals from appropriating my ideas without proper attribution or acknowledgement. It is incumbent upon intellectuals (especially if they endeavor to ensconce their musings in a manuscript) to know what is known and already articulated, if indeed intellectual novelty is among their ideals—as it ought to be. In short, Dr. Nagel should know the nature of my work and adjust his arguments accordingly, even if he ultimately opposes them. Like Dr. Colin McGinn, with whom he shares a modicum of Mysterianism, he would be disinclined to dismiss the principle of Proto-Mentalism (or what I call ‘Immaterial Monism’) if he understood the implications of the inherent awareness (or ‘Proto-Percipience’) of elementary matter. But his inattention is altogether innocent, not malicious, and I take no umbrage thereat. But what, we may rightly wonder, would he say about this excerpt from M4 concerning the crucial Quantum Mechanical experiment cited previously:

“If the particles that certain suitably contrived machines detect are somehow, in some sense, ‘aware’, being cognizant of the conditions under which they exist, it should come as no surprise that a collection of quanta, atoms, molecules, cells, organs, and organ systems should, over the course of hundreds of millions of years, under the influence of a selective, guiding principle aimed at ensuring survival, result in the accretion of awareness and the emergence of what we call consciousness. Consciousness is the epiphenomenal result of the assemblage of molecules whose very elementary constituents are demonstrably possessed of the capacity for awareness. We do not know what it is like for a quark or an electron or an atom to be aware, but there seems to be little reason to doubt that they are in some sense aware. We know, moreover, that we are composed of these very entities. The key to consciousness may lie in the rudimentary awareness of the constituents of which we are composed. Animism is alive (pun intended).” (M4, p.46)

There is something superficially novel about one of Nagel’s arguments. This concerns Naturalistic Teleology. In Dr. Nagel’s estimation, Darwinian developmental doctrines that describe the emergence of awareness from insentient matter are unconvincing; there is, instead, an overarching Order, Intelligence, or Entelechy inherent in existence. This Entity appreciates and is oriented toward “value”—that is, it is able and inclined to discern “good” and “bad”; we sentient souls are manifestations of this Entity; any adequate Theory of Everything (TOE) must explain the irreducible value of value. M4 explicitly embraces Teleology—the idea of an overarching, Proto-Mental Entity inherent in the Universe. I call this abysmal, nebulous entity “Nun”. [See “Nun, Nous, & Numerous: Symbols, Science, & Supreme Mathematics”, in Ch IV of M4 (Amen-Ra, 2007).] Of course this idea is not entirely new, hence my employment of ancient Egyptian iconography to express it in M4. I could just as easily have employed the appellations Amen, Ishvara, Brahman, Purusha, Ptah or other ancient cosmogonic concepts conveying the primacy of consciousness in the Cosmos. What does make the M4 dispensation of Divine Teleology nearly novel is that it dispenses with a Divinity and offers naturalistic arguments and evidence for its principal postulates and conclusions. Thus, Nagel’s admonition to intellectuals to take Teleological Analysis seriously is appreciated though anachronistic. M4 has already introduced and explored the explanatory implications of Teleology for the mystery of Mind. Our case is cogent and compelling. It need only be considered.


Dr. Nun Sava-Siva Amen-Ra, Ascetic Idealist Philosopher
Damascus, Maryland USA
7 September MMIV

Worth the "read." At times, difficult to follow.

I am glad I bought and listened to it, however, the arguments, at times, were too technical philosophically, and I felt a bit lost. Fortunately, I did, overall, feel edified by the book.

Indecipherable

I'm sure this guy is brilliant. His ideas, undoubtedly , are incisive and compelling. The problem is, the average person has no idea what he's talking about. If I had to hear "teleological" or "Protogirou" or "meta" one more time, I was going to scream. Bring it down a few notches. In fact, rewrite the book so normal people understand what you're saying. You can have the best arguments in the world, but you're not going to transfer them to other people if they just want to turn off the book.

I'm not stupid. I'm a Summa cum laude graduate of law school and have been practicing law for 40 years. I forced myself to listen to the end. What a total waste of time.

take that dawkins!

be careful to give your undivided attention to nagel's thoughts and words, for if you do, your mind will be blown.

Logic and Rhetoric at Its Finest

Nagel is brilliant and the audio performance is very well done as well. I would recommend this to anyone who loves the journey more than the destination.

Brilliant! A Theory of Life, Universe & Everything

This is not an easy read/listen, but if like me, you often find yourself caught between the disenchanting sterility of scientism, the often outdated superstitions of religion, and the flakiness of many New Age beliefs it is well worth the effort.

"Mind & Cosmos" not only rationally challenges our current materialist presumption, but proposes a plausible 'third way' between the two modern polarities of 'theism' (which Nagel defines as a belief in the primordial nature of mind), and 'materialist atheism' (a belief in the primordial nature of matter).

The success of Science has established in many people's minds that everything can (and in time will) be explained in terms of physics, chemistry & biology. Yet the "Hard Problem" of consciousness remains intractable. Indeed as Nagel points out, we are further than ever from a reductive materialist explanation of consciousness. If it is the case that consciousness is irreducible, as seems increasingly likely, this brings into serious doubt the whole ontology of materialism as an adequate foundation for the explanations of science. Consciousness is part of biology, yet our current biological theories (e.g. evolutionary theory) take no account of this.

Equally problematic is the opposite theistic polarity, which takes mind and intention outside of Nature altogether to the realm of "God".

Nagel instead proposes the co-emergence of mind and matter as a more complete and satisfying ontology, in the form of 'neutral monism', ascribing a Panpsychist experiential dimension down even to the level of fundamental physics.

This is where for me, things get exciting, for it changes the metaphor of the universe from mechanistic machine, to living organism, of which we are co-creative parts. By bringing 'mind' back into Nature, he argues speculatively for an intentional direction in cosmological evolution. We are the universe becoming self aware, experiential beings in an experiential world, with an evolutionary direction of travel towards even greater complexity, knowledge and self awareness.

In summary, this is not the easiest of books, though it is well and clearly read, but what excited me is it is a genuine attempt, by a well respected Philosopher to see beyond the polarities of both disenchanted materialism and religious idealism, and to reclaim our place as intentional beings integral to the organismic universe we inhabit of mind/matter stuff.

Shower

The somewhat shallow musings of a bloke, the kind of things you think of in the shower. The narrator is not quite so relaxed and goes at it like an actor auditioning for the role of Obstreperous Professor.

Terrible narration

Any additional comments?

The content of thIs book is good, but the narration is terrible. Brian Troxell, according to a Google search, is an actor, not a scientist or philosopher. He may well be a good narrator of fiction works, and I wouldn't want to judge him on his performance in those (I haven't heard anything else narrated by him), but his voice isn't suitable for this kind of subject matter.

Why is the narration so bad?

First, it's far too fast and breathless; one gets the impression he doesn't have a deep understanding of the subject matter, but rather just knows how to read according to the rules of grammar. He also starts new sentences far too quickly, not allowing the implications of often quite dense previous sentences to sink in (possibly for himself as much as for his reader), and so one often finds oneself wanting to pause and go back -- which wouldn't be so bad if the whole book wasn't so dense all the way through, but as it is, it's a complete disaster.

Second, his voice is rather monotonic, possibly because he doesn't seem to be connecting with the rather dry narrative as he might do with fictional material. I don't think it would be impossible to read the book out loud in an interesting way, but it would need a narrator who engaged with, and understood, the work.

It might have been better (if still not spectacular) if he'd read it at half the pace. I think I'm going to have to return this title and go for the Kindle version, which I will be able to read at my natural pace so as to allow its meaning to be absorbed. I should have listened to the sample to have avoided my mistake.

Read this.

Pretty heavy going with regards to terminology, look alive. Good book though, short and sweet.