In a recent issue of The Philosophers Magazine, atheist philosopher Raymond Tallis claims that Darwinism cannot explain the human mind:
Consciousness makes evolutionary sense only if one does not start far enough back; if, that is to say, one fails to assume a consistent and sincere materialist position, beginning with a world without consciousness, and then considers whether there could be putative biological drivers for organisms to become conscious. This is the only valid starting point for those who look to evolution to explain consciousness, given that the history of matter has overwhelmingly been without conscious life, indeed without history. Once the viewpoint of consistent materialism is assumed, it ceases to be self-evident that it is a good thing to experience what is there, that it will make an organism better able so to position itself in the causal net as to increase the probability of replication of its genomic material. On the contrary, even setting aside the confusional states it is prone to, and the sleep it requires, consciousness seems like the worst possible evolutionary move.
If there isn’t an evolutionary explanation of consciousness, then the world is more interesting than biologists would allow.
Indeed it does. I’ve always thought it was rather obvious that a person could believe in materialism or a Darwinism but not both. As much as some people might want to mash them together, the two concepts are simply incompatible.
(Via: Doug Groothius)
November 10th, 2009 | 11:21 am
“Indeed it does. I’ve always thought it was rather obvious that a person could believe in materialism or a Darwinism but not both. As much as some people might want to mash them together, the two concepts are simply incompatible.”
Really? If we’re defining Darwinism tightly – the theory that explains the origins of species by means of natural selection – then that, at least, seems to me completely consistent with materialism.
Of course, Darwinism as used most commonly today – as a mere bludgeon-in-a-lab-coat with which to gleefully beat down all opponents to nominally progressive thoughts and trends – well, that kind of Darwinism isn’t even consistent within itself, let alone with anything else.
November 10th, 2009 | 1:04 pm
I have absolutely no interest in the details of evolutionary theory (my advanced degrees are in physics), but it seems to me that looking at evolution in this way (this feature makes or does not make “evolutionary sense”) is rather pathetic “just so” storytelling, isn’t it? We can look at various animals and plants and try to come up with a story as to why they developed certain traits, but surely no one thinks that animal traits are ideal or perfect. “Why don’t people have body hair?” Because it doesn’t make evolutionary sense! I know that you can weave a more complicated tale about metabolism trade-offs and the like, but it really just boils down to trying to come up with a (completely unproveable) story that you like. “Why do humans have consciousness?” Because it makes evolutionary sense! But it doesn’t make evolutionary sense, because all these other animals aren’t conscious!
Feh. Basically philosophers have ruined science. A pox on them all. Popper especially, at the root. Science is an idea, that we can learn about the universe through observation. Because the idea has been successful, it has gained much credence and influence. Philosophers then attempted to turn this idea into a philosophy in order to claim some of that influence for themselves. And so now we get nonsense like this “philosopher” thinking he can speculate about the details of evolutionary biology, which is nothing but a pathetic pseudoscience anyway, which I suppose makes the whole thing rather amusing. So Ha-Ha after all. Good show, Mr. Tallis! Sing me another one!
November 12th, 2009 | 6:57 am
Philosopher Ned Block has confessed that we have no idea how consciousness could have emerged from non-conscious matter. Jaegwon Kim, Professor of Philosophy at Brown University, notes our inability to understand consciousness in an essentially physical world. But to say that “philosophers have ruined science” is incorrect.
Professor John Searle from Berkeley notes that consciousness is the leading problem in the biological sciences. Another wonders how our technicolour awareness could have emerged from grey soggy matter. Most telling is this admission from Dawkins who writes, “Neither Steve Pinker nor I can explain human subjective consciousness – what philosophers call qualia. In How the Mind Works Steve elegantly sets out the problem of subjective consciousness, and asks where it comes from and what’s the explanation. Then he’s honest enough to say, ‘Beats the heck out of me.’ That is an honest thing to say, and I echo it. We don’t know. We don’t understand it.”
If anything is ruined, it’s a theory which seeks to explain humanity but doesn’t have an adequate explanation for one of the most human properties. Perhaps the one thing that makes us distinctly human.
November 19th, 2009 | 7:27 am
Sir Anthony Kenny- an agnostic and ex-priest- has pointed out that there are three things atheist materialism cannot explain; 1. Human language, 2. Human Language, and 3. the universe.
Three strikes and you’re out.
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