Mind and Cosmos

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Jon L
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Mind and Cosmos

Post by Jon L »

In his book mind and cosmos Thomas Nagel argues that mind cannot be accommodated by the conventional physicalist framework. Moreover he argues that natural selection and random mutation is inadequate to explain the origin of complex biological structures as well as mentality. since a purely physical account of evolution cannot account for the emergence of mind or anything else, evolution cannot be an entirely physical process either.
This leads him to postulate that mind or something like it must have a primary role in the cosmos. He goes on to suggest an Aristotelian non intentional teleology to undergird the Universe and evolution. He makes his distaste for a Theistic solution clear and so in this case a non intentional teleology is presumably the only way to go.
I'm not at this point concerned as to whether he is right about natural selection and the emergence of mind. My thought is does the idea of non intentional teleology make any sense? is it coherent to conceive of nature moving towards very specific future complex goals without intention?
A theist would probably say that anyone who argues like Nagel should embrace some form of theism and intelligent design and that he only adopts his non intentional teleology because of his dislike for theism. Would someone who made that charge be correct, incorrect. Thoughts?
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

Post by Sanchez »

I read the book recently. I honestly had a bit of trouble following his arguments. I think the case can be made that the reductionist purely Darwinian account of evolution might be false, or at least an incomplete picture. It's all very controversial and far from proven, but there are competent scientists out there who claim to have some evidence that evolution has some direction. Mainly they argue that positive mutations are more likely than negative ones, which would suggest there is something more at work than just random mutation and blind natural selection. I'm not sure whether that requires a teleological universe, or if it just means that there is some evolved capacity that makes creatures better at evolving. Either way, it would challenge the current view which basically sees evolution as something that happens to species, not something where living beings are active agents.

Most of living beings are still microscopic and even many large species (sharks, crocodiles) have changed very little over long periods. I don't know if this is compatible with the idea of evolution having a direction. When it comes to mentality and consciousness, we have to keep in mind our biased position, as we are looking at the problem from the inside and cannot look at it from any other angle. The very fact that we are the most complex species on the planet might bias us into seeing more complexity when in fact most lifeforms are still relatively simple. So, while I don't think we can just discount his ideas, I certainly don't agree with him. What really bothered me about the book was how vague he was when trying to present an alternative. Not that he necessarily needs to have all the answers before pointing out the flaws in the current paradigm, but I would have liked a clear alternative theory.

I am glad that he is criticizing the prevailing view. Nothing prevents progress more than a premature consensus. Plus the response the book has gotten indicates that the field of biology has become a bit dogmatic. Nagel was attacked and it seemed to me some of those attacks were really emotionally charged. People didn't like for Darwinism to be criticized. I guess it was even worst because this time it didn't come from religious folks and the intelligent design movement (in which case it can be dismissed as ideological and actually supports the reductionist camp), but from a respected secular philosopher.
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

Post by Simplyhuman »

Let me begin by stating, I have not yet read this book. However, I feel you bring up an interesting question. I feel that yes, it is possible for teleological processes to not only begin, but thrive without intention. We can identify the atom as the the smallest particle involved in the construction of things we know. But the atom is made of things that are yet even smaller. So small that we cannot see them with the naked eye. With that in mind, I feel that we can stare out into the cosmos and be looking at something so big that we cannot recognize it. Be it deity based or not. Similar to the Russian dolls that fit inside one another. The doll in the middle may recognize smaller dolls inside themselves. But may not be able to identify the doll that they reside in as a larger doll. To use a more identifiable example; My toddler loves to grab a hold of leaves and flowers, run through the yard, and rip up whatever he has in his hands. As a result, we now have flowers and vegetables thriving in far corners of the yard, nowhere near the garden. Hence, teleological growth and beauty is born from the unintended actions of a child. The growth, the advancement does not need to be put in motion with intent or even consciousness. I am not ruling out the deity or the intent of a deity. But if the cosmos and god(s) are larger than we can fathom, I feel it is possible that we can be a beautiful side effect or even mistake of something much larger. The "something" may very well be a force of nature or multiverse reaction that we are simply to young and small to identify as humans. Or, we may very well have come to be by a deity who created something much larger and we are but the atom to that creation.
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

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Sanchez wrote:
Mainly they argue that positive mutations are more likely than negative ones, which would suggest there is something more at work than just random mutation and blind natural selection.
Isn't this Lamarckian? If not, what other mechanism could there be other than some supernatural one?
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

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Belinda wrote:Sanchez wrote:
Mainly they argue that positive mutations are more likely than negative ones, which would suggest there is something more at work than just random mutation and blind natural selection.
Isn't this Lamarckian? If not, what other mechanism could there be other than some supernatural one?
How can they be sure what the ratio is? Many negative mutations will disappear quickly, and some won't even make it past the zygote stage. I think it's fair to say that most things in reality appear to have a single tendency - to grow - and to that end they tend to aggregate (and, necessarily, recycle used materials).

The most fascinating aspect of this tendency to grow, push outwards, expand and (in biology) thrive is emergence - how something new comes from the "aggregated old" once it reaches certain thresholds. So a vast tribe of microbes, cellular and free, can produce an Albert Einstein. So compressed material in space can pass a mass threshold and produce nuclear explosions - and a new star ignites. Similarly, organic materials built up in density (in this case informational and systemic rather than physical) and once again, a "flame ignites" - abiogenesis.

Meanwhile, humans band together and suddenly a new form "ignites" - the corporation - with power and abilities far greater than those of its individuals, and with its own agendas and demands that come at the expense of the composite individuals. It's akin to us sacrifice parts of ourselves for the sake of the whole (eg. removal of gangrenous tissue), pr a star flinging its spent material out into the cosmos. One thing you can be sure of, whatever complex informational systems exist that comprise us, they will have a tendency to grow, aggregate and recycle too. They will also be about as "similar" to our consciousness as our minds are to bacterial impulses. It seems more likely to me that "consciousness" does not exist everywhere but "something informational" does appears to be everywhere so consciousness as we know would be just a subset of that larger phenomenon. Just as we can only perceive certain wavelengths of light without technological aid, we can only perceive certain kinds of the phenomena of which consciousness is just a part.

It seems to me that the aim of the game is to recycle rather than be recycled, and avoid the latter for as long as possible. That may seem glib, but the act of being alive is a defiance of entropy, a refusal to allow the outside environment to break you open. That's what happens without our living efforts; "nature" tests all of its components for durability by constantly moving to restore chemical and energetic balance, and this is achieved by by essentially turning you inside out and scattered your insides around.

So death is, in essence, a turning inside out, and it occurs because a system no longer has the strength to resist the constant push of nature (via bacteria, scavengers, predators, radiation, oxidation, etc). Almost everything around us is blindly pushing to access those juicy insides of ours, which are thankfully usually well protected by our skin and ego. The doubts that Nagle raises will remain unless definitive causative, rather than just correlative, links are made between the physics and chemistry of neurons and conscious experience.

This post could be organised better (sorry) but lunch calls :)
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

Post by Sanchez »

Belinda wrote:Sanchez wrote:
Mainly they argue that positive mutations are more likely than negative ones, which would suggest there is something more at work than just random mutation and blind natural selection.
Isn't this Lamarckian? If not, what other mechanism could there be other than some supernatural one?
Had to do some digging on this one. The phenomena is called directed mutagenesis. Basically the studies have subjected living beings (bacteria, for example) to an environment with an artificial selection pressure. Apparently one study involved bacteria that weren't able to metabolize lactose, but when placed in an environment where lactose was the only form of energy, they evolved this capacity with a rate much higher than one would expect from random mutations. What I read is that Lamarckism isn't completely dead, either. Some biologists do still believe that there might be something to it. Not that there's a whole lot of evidence but apparently in some cases it seems like certain acquired traits are inherited. I'm not a biologist so I don't even dare to have an opinion on this. Perhaps there is more at work than just Darwinian selection, but I have trouble imagining what that would be. How would simple beings like bacteria essentially "know" how to mutate?

One thing that Nagel said in the book and I agree with is that there is no good Darwinian explanation of rationality. There are evolutionary arguments that effectively say that nothing has provided us with better survival advantage than the ability to make correct judgments of the external world. So, that would be the explanation of rationality. As Nagel pointed out, this is circular, since it already assumes that the argument itself was rational. What I don't agree with is the idea of having some alternative explanation for rationality. I think any argument used to support the existence of rationality, materialistic, teleological, dualistic etc. will have the same problem. They all assume rational thought. I don't think this is about the structure of the universe, but rather the nature of human thought. We can't escape epistemology and even if we try to refute the foundation of knowledge, we actually have to accept the basic premise that this refutation itself has truth value.

Oh, and I also disagreed with Nagels idea of objective values. I had a hard time following his arguments, but I think if values were really objective (meaning they existed outside the minds of anyone), you'd have to conclude that there two sorts of values in the universe: one type is the objective ones, and the other are the variable subjective ones we encounter. We have no way of distinguishing between these two and the subjectivity of values would actually explain everything we observe. These objective values would effectively be invisible or at least we don't know if we've ever followed them.
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Jon L
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

Post by Jon L »

I the same as Sanchez found the argument that Darwinian explanations of rationality are circular and self refuting quite strong. I also found the arguments for objective values harder to follow. If I recall Nagel argued apart from the specifics that in order for a Teleological explanation to be meaningful it would presuppose some kind of "Value" I find it difficault to think in terms of value outside of a subjective consciousness. If the Universe has objective value I could see how this could come about as a consequence of a creative mind in which the values reside. Value being imputed to the creation by virtue of it's being conceived and brought into being within the mind of a creator. I don't find it so easy to talk about value without a discriminating mind though. On the issue of alternative evolutionary forces I am aware that some suggest there may exist a bias toward beneficial mutations. That could be interpreted in a teleological fashion ie the present change is attracted towards its future end by that future end. I get the impression rightly or wrongly that most who advance the argument that evolution is biased wouldn't except the term Teleological to describe their position though.
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

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Sanchez wrote: Apparently one study involved bacteria that weren't able to metabolize lactose, but when placed in an environment where lactose was the only form of energy, they evolved this capacity with a rate much higher than one would expect from random mutations........ How would simple beings like bacteria essentially "know" how to mutate?
So bacteria evolution is the only evolution we observed directly. Is that complex to simple evolution or simple to complex evolution taking place?

Is it both?

How does any genetic processes know how to do what they do? Were pretty sure they did not read a book or see a video.

Biological genetic processes are most complex part of Universe, with woman being the pinnacle of that complexity. Barring any ideas of one or more women etc....

I believe there exists cosmic static map or code at ultra-micro scales of existence that, corresponds to complex set of dynamic interrelation ships that will never be able to access in any meaningful way, because to small and too complex to map/chart. exactly all of the relationships, trajectories etc....

In this sense, we may find, that, the basis for biological life exists eternally, within context of an eternally existent, finite, occupied space Universe.

We may be able to produce some simple, static maps/charts/models that correlate to the fundamentals of these dynamic processes.

r6
"U"niverse > UniVerse > universe > I-verse < you-verse < we-verse < them-verse
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

Post by Sanchez »

I think very few biologists today are willing to openly offer teleological explanations. For a lot of people this reeks of religious ideas and perhaps for a reason. The response to Nagels book also shows that the field is a bit biased against such ideas. I have no idea what the other explanations are, though. In the experiments I mentioned, the bacteria do develop totally new capacities, so this doesn't seem like it could be a Lamarckian process. What bugs me about teleological explanations is the fact that evolution itself could in theory be explained by non-teleological processes. It's just the speed (at least in some cases) that suggests otherwise. Would this imply that most of evolution is random, but some other force has an influence every now and then? Seems extremely odd to me. Then again, there has been only limited research on directed mutagenesis and I wouldn't say the evidence is strong enough to establish it as a fact. I think it's something worth looking into, but I wouldn't be incredibly surprised if it turned there were some major flaws in either the experiments or the interpretation. And no, bacteria aren't the only lifeforms where evolution has been observed directly. There have been experiments with insects, the fruit fly being a popular subject. I'm not sure if directed mutagenesis has been observed, though.
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

Post by Belinda »

Sanchez, natural selection is so powerful that even some far-fetched possibility of accidental cloning apart from identical twinning would be overarched by natural selection.

Artificial selection of fruit flies and bacteria show human intentions not supernatural or any other deeper , underlying layer of reality. I can sort of see that while Lamarckism might not be inexplicable, final cause or intention applies only to certain beings and species and not to nature as a whole or to inanimate stuff. Indeed, the presence of intentions towards the other perhaps may be the difference between life and not-life.
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Re: Mind and Cosmos

Post by Rr6 »

Rr6--So bacteria evolution is the only evolution we observed directly. Is that complex to simple evolution or simple to complex evolution taking place?

Is both occurring?

Biological genetic processes are most complex part of Universe, with woman being the pinnacle of that complexity. Barring any ideas of one or more women etc....

...\**/.... 2ndary symbolism for woman aka closed triangle
.....\/.......... and most complex woman

*Y* is 2ndary symbolism for less complex man.

\Y/ is birds-eye-view of tetrahedron i.e. man inside woman creates minimal 2D structure a tetrahedron that has half-way between being out-side out and inside out.

r6
"U"niverse > UniVerse > universe > I-verse < you-verse < we-verse < them-verse
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