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

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Has anyone read this book, or heard much about it? I thought it might be an interesting read.

Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False by Thomas Nagel (http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-ebook/dp/B008SQL6NS/ref=pd_sim_b_6)


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.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Nobody is interested in this? I'm not agreeing, i'm just saying it would be an interesting read and wondering what anyone else thought or if anyone else had read it or read anything by the author.

[Devrim]

Basically it is a stalking horse for intelligent design. It is not the sort of thing that I would read, but what ever you enjoy.

Devrim

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I'm not saying I would read it because I would like it. I'm saying it would be a good critical read. I am currently reading C.S. Lewis's Signature Classics (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, The Abolition of Man, etc.). I am not a Christian at all, but it's good to read the works of the "other side" so to speak. I'm not saying you don't (I think you are a very intelligent poster) but i'm just letting posters know where my interests lie.

[Rafiq]

Basically it is a stalking horse for intelligent design. It is not the sort of thing that I would read, but what ever you enjoy.

Devrim

When I first stumbled upon this, my thoughts exactly.

The darwinian conception of natural history is materialist in the Marxian sense in nature. As a matter of fact, in the same way Historical materialism was a materialist conception of human history, Darwin's was a materialist conception of natural history.

One must not be fooled by "social darwinists" to discredit darwin. In truth, the real social darwinism was already embedded in Marxism and the struggle for survival is mediated through class wars, not individuals. The proletariat, in this sense, is more "fit" as it is the only class capable of change.

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[Jimmie Higgins]

Materialism in modern science often is reductionist or determinist - but that's a misapplication of science - and when it comes to "our genes" determining all our social behaviors, it's a ideologically-influenced misapplication like the "social darwinist" use of science.

So, just based on that description alone, and not knowing anything about the author's perspective, I'd say it seems like a sort of straw-man argument if the target is materialist science rather than a target of some examples of overly mechanical materialist arguments in contemporary science.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I only read the OP but isn't the burden of proof on the author to prove that the ... "mind" ... is more than just a weird abstraction of chemical processes in the brain, a reaction of a mildly complex computer interpreting the world in an infinite series of "if ... then" statements?

[cyu]

For pro-capitalists who are social darwinists (which I would say most are), I think it's actually interesting that they encourage everyone to engage in cooperation, in order to set up a system of competition. In other words, they want everyone to obey claims of property (ie. cooperate) so that they can set up an economic contest where the winners flush their toilets with distilled alpine water, and the losers die homeless on the street. And this they call "The Market" - which would only exist if everyone works together (cooperates) to ensure property claims are obeyed, contracts are tracked down, and corporate structure enforced - the end result of such cooperation is so that a system of competition can be imposed between people.

I see most leftist ideologies as cooperative systems - which attempt to find a place for everyone, not to die, but to be helped by everyone else. What I think is interesting is that leftists engage in debate (competition) between different cooperative systems, with the end goal being that the winner of the competition - ie. the system that is judged to best enable everyone to cooperate - as the system that should be implemented.

[cyu]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3417387/

viruses recognized as macroorganism with huge collection of genes, most unknown that constitute the planet's gene pool. They play a fundamental role in evolution since their sequences are capable of integrating into the genomes in an “infective” way and become an essential part of multicellular organisms. They have content

abuse of terms such as competition between proteins, arsenal, coercive strategies, policing, the destruction of others, the “problem” of altruism, and others denote subjective and moral categorizations. it assumes as true that life follows capitalism. They are antropocentric projections of dogmas and social economic models.

Integration is observed at every level: virus and phages “living” in an intracellular state, where they participate actively in the metabolism and in the plasticity of the genome, bacteria forming complex populations, bacteria and “parasites” have cohabited for thousands of years with their host/cohabitant and co-evolving. A change in approach and appraisement of these processes will have no need for twisted excuses to explain the “strange phenomenon” of cooperation.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete.

How so? I think it's pretty clear that minds serve to enhance the survival of a species, which is perfectly in line with evolution by natural selection.


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.

How are minds "materially irreducible"? All the evidence as far as I'm aware points to minds being an emergent property of functional brains.


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.

Doesn't the first sentence contradict the second?

Maybe it's explained better in the book, but somehow I doubt it.

[blake 3:17]

I'm not saying I would read it because I would like it. I'm saying it would be a good critical read. I am currently reading C.S. Lewis's Signature Classics (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, The Abolition of Man, etc.). I am not a Christian at all, but it's good to read the works of the "other side" so to speak. I'm not saying you don't (I think you are a very intelligent poster) but i'm just letting posters know where my interests lie.

I am far more interested in reading Lewis on Christianity -- he was a big influence on my father during the Second War --than the book in the OP.