Mind and Cosmos

Summary

In Mind and Cosmos Thomas Nagel argues that there needs to be a fundamental part of reality that corresponds to consciousness. Something like an atom of consciousness from which everything else derives its conscious properties. In his mind the hard problem of consciousness is insoluble and there has to be something like a res cogitans to explain it. The main problem he sees with the current world view: that consciousness is "just" a physical process that we don't understand yet, is that it doesn't explain why there is consciousness at all.

Why should evolution produce consciousness? Why should it be like something to be a bat? Sure behavior and all that can be explained by evolution, but not the subjective experience of being a bat. That is something that comes on top that physically has no good reason to be there.

Nagel argues that mind and consciousness are not accidental byproducts of evolution but central features of the universe that require a new explanatory framework.

Nagel proposes that philosophy, specifically teleology—the idea that nature has inherent purposes or goals—might offer a better explanation for the emergence of life, consciousness, and reason. Nature itself has a directionality towards more consciousness, towards more reason.

Reductionism, the attempt to explain complex systems entirely in terms of their simplest components, is inadequate for understanding phenomena like consciousness and reason. Nagel argues that the reductionist approach is flawed because it fails to account for the emergence of new properties at higher levels of organization.

The book emphasizes the importance of philosophical inquiry in addressing questions that science, as currently practiced, cannot fully resolve.

Nagel criticizes the intellectual rigidity of materialist naturalism, suggesting that it often dismisses alternative views without adequately addressing their challenges.

Key Themes

1. Mind is a Fundamental Aspect of Reality
2. Philosophy Over Science, Teleology over Evolutionary Reductionism
3. Critique of Dogmatism in Science

To me the main critique towards Nagels book itself is that his view of science is somewhat outdated and doesn't take into account more modern ideas, namely those of emergence and how connected systems that have consciousness like properties do become useful and therefore get selected for.

The works of people like Kevin Mitchells Free Agents or Daniel Dennetts From Bacteria to Bach and Back come to mind.