Nagel, Thomas - Consciousness

12/21/2012

Mind And Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Ch 3, Oxford University Press, 2012

This is chapter 3 of author's book arguing against current versions of Darwinian reductive materialism. In this chapter, author takes phenomenal consciousness to be the major irreducible element for reductive materialists. Because this kind of materialism cannot account for such a "striking" element of life, a new theory that encompasses such a phenomenon will not be identical to neo-Darwinian materialism, thus neo-Darwinian materialism is false.

Author starts with a brief sketch of some historic attempts to solve the mind/body problem using materialism, and calls for a new theory to try to solve it (pg42). Next, author considers the failure of 'psychophysical reductionism' to be an "essential component of a broader naturalistic program, which cannot survive without it'. (pg42-3) Author's argument that the failure of psychophysical reductionism "infects" the entire naturalistic materialist understanding (pg43). Author calls for evolution to account for the appearance of not just qualia but of a 'subjective individual point of view' (pg44), a call which author believes cannot be answered by evolutionary theory as it currently stands. Evolutionary theory, of course, could show how consciousness is a "bonus" (pg47) of an organic, highly-complex, information-processing system, but this would make consciousness a 'brute fact' , which does not 'provide a significant explanation'. (pg45) Interestingly, author continues to claim that mind is a 'biological phenomenon'-- suggesting that a new conception of the biological, not a dualist conception of mind-stuff, is needed. (pg45)

The need for intelligible explanations is a fundamental component of author's argument, so author takes some time outlining the call for them. First off, there is a difference between an "immediate" cause and an explanation: the immediate cause of consciousness is brain activity but it is not an explanation. Author insists that evolutionary explanations show why conscious organisms, not just complex ones, are "likely" (pg48-50). Author also rejects epiphenomenalist accounts of consciousness (pg50) as not being a satisfactory explanation. Author does not want even to have an explanation of why a particular organism has a conscious life, or the particular conscious life it has; author also wants to know why such an organism has evolved on this planet. (pg50-1) This is a call for both an 'ahistorical account' of the constitution of consciousness, and also a 'historical account' of how such systems arose from the universe.

Author spends time considering options for the ahistorical account (pg54-8). Author discusses dualistic conceptions, a conception of consciousness where it is an emergent property of certain complex systems (author rejects this), and looks for "neutral monism" (pg57), which can also be conceived of as panpsychism.

In section 5 author looks at the historical account, offering three broad options: causal, teleological, or intentional. The causal account seems favorable to reductionism, so author focuses on that first (pg59-). Author allows for the emergence of consciousness through purely physical evolution, but does not like the theory since it utilizes the brute fact of emergence (through a causal outcome of a certain level of complexity) (pg60-1). Author also considers a panpsychic reductionism, claims it is 'form but no content' (pg62), but nevertheless applauds the form (pg62-3) and likes the ahistorical version of it (pg64). Both the emergent and the panpsychic reductive projects fail to provide a suitably explanatory historical account of the evolution of consciousness, according to author (pg65). Thus, author moves to teleological and intentional alternatives in section 6. While the intentional option is live, author talks more about a teleological natural law, one that guides change in material states to certain types of outcomes. These can be either value-free or self-fulfilling values (pg67), and author wants it to be realistically considered, though does not endorse it.