Mind & Cosmos

1. The Mind-Body Problem Extends to the Cosmos

The aim of this book is to argue that the mind-body problem is not just a local problem, having to do with the relation between mind, brain, and behavior in living animal organisms, but that it invades our understanding of the entire cosmos and its history.

Beyond Localized Issue. The traditional mind-body problem, concerning the relationship between mental states and physical processes in individual organisms, is not merely a localized issue. Instead, it has far-reaching implications that affect our understanding of the entire cosmos and its history. This perspective suggests that the problem is not confined to the philosophy of mind but extends to cosmology and the foundations of science.

Reconsidering Scientific Knowledge. Philosophy should investigate the limits of even the most successful scientific knowledge. We should resist the temptation to assume that our current tools are sufficient to understand the universe as a whole. Recognizing these limits may eventually lead to the discovery of new forms of scientific understanding.

Challenging Reductionism. The author targets a comprehensive world picture extrapolated from biology, chemistry, and physics, which postulates a hierarchical relation among these sciences and the completeness of explaining everything through their unification. This reductive materialism is widely assumed to be the only serious possibility, but the author argues against it.

2. Materialist Neo-Darwinism Is Likely False

My target is a comprehensive, speculative world picture that is reached by extrapolation from some of the discoveries of biology, chemistry, and physics—a particular naturalistic Weltanschauung that postulates a hierarchical relation among the subjects of those sciences, and the completeness in principle of an explanation of everything in the universe through their unification.

Incredulity to Reductionism. The author defends the untutored reaction of incredulity to the reductionist neo-Darwinian account of the origin and evolution of life. It seems implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with natural selection. This skepticism is not based on religious belief but on the belief that the available scientific evidence does not rationally require us to subordinate common sense.

Problems with Probability. There are significant problems of probability that are not taken seriously enough, both with respect to the evolution of life forms through accidental mutation and natural selection and with respect to the formation from dead matter of physical systems capable of such evolution. The more we learn about the intricacy of the genetic code, the harder these problems seem.

Challenging the Consensus. The prevailing doctrine—that the appearance of life from dead matter and its evolution through accidental mutation and natural selection to its present forms has involved nothing but the operation of physical law—cannot be regarded as unassailable. It is an assumption governing the scientific project rather than a well-confirmed scientific hypothesis.

3. Antireductionism Reveals Limits of Physical Sciences

If reduction fails in some respect, this reveals a limit to the reach of the physical sciences, which must therefore be supplemented by something else to account for the missing elements.

Beyond Physical Explanation. Antireductionist arguments suggest that there are some things that the physical sciences alone cannot fully account for. Other forms of understanding may be needed, or perhaps there is more to reality than even the most fully developed physics can describe. This reveals a limit to the reach of the physical sciences.

Mind as Central. If the mental is not itself merely physical, it cannot be fully explained by physical science. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that those aspects of our physical constitution that bring with them the mental cannot be fully explained by physical science either. The possibility opens up of a pervasive conception of the natural order very different from materialism—one that makes mind central, rather than a side effect of physical law.

Need for Comprehensive Alternative. The lack of any comprehensive alternative drives the various reductionist programs about mind, value, and meaning, in spite of their inherent implausibility. A genuine alternative to the reductionist program would require an account of how mind and everything that goes with it is inherent in the universe.

4. Consciousness Is Irreducible and Fundamental

Consciousness is the most conspicuous obstacle to a comprehensive naturalism that relies only on the resources of physical science.

Consciousness as an Obstacle. Consciousness is the most conspicuous obstacle to a comprehensive naturalism that relies only on the resources of physical science. The existence of consciousness seems to imply that the physical description of the universe, in spite of its richness and explanatory power, is only part of the truth.

Failure of Reductionism. The multiple dead ends in the forward march of materialism suggest that the Ψ/Φ dualism introduced at the birth of modern science may be harder to get out of than many people have imagined. Conscious subjects and their mental lives are inescapable components of reality not describable by the physical sciences.

Need for Conceptual Revolution. The mind-body problem is difficult enough that we should be suspicious of attempts to solve it with the concepts and methods developed to account for very different kinds of things. Theoretical progress in this area will require a major conceptual revolution at least as radical as relativity theory.

5. Evolutionary Naturalism Undermines Reason

Evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously, including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.

Undermining Reliability. Evolutionary naturalism provides an account of our capacities that undermines their reliability, and in doing so undermines itself. Mechanisms of belief formation that have selective advantage in the everyday struggle for existence do not warrant our confidence in the construction of theoretical accounts of the world as a whole.

Moral Realism and Evolution. An evolutionary self-understanding would almost certainly require us to give up moral realism—the natural conviction that our moral judgments are true or false independent of our beliefs. Evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously, including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.

Authority of Reason. The evolutionary story leaves the authority of reason in a much weaker position. This is even more clearly true of our moral and other normative capacities—on which we often rely to correct our instincts.

6. Value Realism Challenges Naturalistic Explanations

Realism interprets them as the result of a process of discovery, starting from initial appearances of value that are comparable to perceptual beliefs and moving (we hope) toward a better understanding of how we should live.

Value Judgments and Motivation. The problem of the place of value in the natural world includes but goes beyond the problems of the place of consciousness and of cognition in general, because it has to do specifically with the practical domain—the control and assessment of conduct. It is clear that the existence of value and our response to it depend on consciousness and cognition.

Realism vs. Subjectivism. The dispute between realism and subjectivism is not about the contents of the universe. It is a dispute about the order of normative explanation. Realists believe that moral and other evaluative judgments can often be explained by more general or basic evaluative truths, together with the facts that bring them into play.

Incompatibility with Darwinism. The author agrees with Sharon Street’s position that moral realism is incompatible with a Darwinian account of the evolutionary influence on our faculties of moral and evaluative judgment. 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.

7. Teleology Offers a Potential Resolution

I believe that teleology is a naturalistic alternative that is distinct from all three of the other candidate explanations: chance, creationism, and directionless physical law.

Teleology as a Naturalistic Alternative. Teleology is a naturalistic alternative that is distinct from chance, creationism, and directionless physical law. To avoid the mistake that White finds in the hypothesis of nonintentional bias, teleology would have to be restrictive in what it makes likely, but without depending on intentions or motives.

Teleological Laws. Teleology would mean that some natural laws, unlike all the basic scientific laws discovered so far, are temporally historical in their operation. The laws of physics are all equations specifying universal relations that hold at every time and place among mathematically specifiable quantities.

Organizational and Developmental Principles. A naturalistic teleology would mean that organizational and developmental principles of this kind are an irreducible part of the natural order, and not the result of intentional or purposive influence by anyone.

8. The Universe Is Gradually Waking Up

Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.

Cognitive Shift. The great cognitive shift is an expansion of consciousness from the perspectival form contained in the lives of particular creatures to an objective, world-encompassing form that exists both individually and intersubjectively. It was originally a biological evolutionary process, and in our species it has become a collective cultural process as well.

Part of a Larger Process. Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself. This perspective emphasizes the interconnectedness of individual consciousness and the larger cosmic process.

Beyond Materialism. To understand our questions and judgments about values and reasons realistically, we must reject the idea that they result from the operation of faculties that have been formed from scratch by chance plus natural selection, or that are incidental side effects of natural selection, or are products of genetic drift.

Last updated: February 27, 2025