There are at least three ways of seeing evolution as history of a quale. One mentioned above and noted by Nagel, is that an entity at its base (Chemistry) contains the necessary ingredients of experience that appear complex in the latest example of the entity (living being). Another is that qualia are emergent properties that appear as the entity has progressed through certain stages. A third is that mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain. Was mind at the beginning of creation? Can mind be used to describe all we can experience of nature?
surreptitious57
Very often yes. But is this the best way to define a thing? simply as we “see” it?
That might give meaning but not necessarily reality.
For someone who has no idea of the iceberg, someone would define that as some flat kind of thing floating above water.
That might be a good question but perhaps a better one would be if you could give an example of an individual who does NOT define something in this way.
By going outside of our own perspective. We can do this by realizing that our perspective is not the only one and that others do see things differently and with a broader landscape and perhaps with more validity than what we see with.
Seeing something is not necessarily understanding it. That can just be the beginning of it. We have to go “under” what we see - that’s where mind comes in.
In examining how certain chemicals could become conscious organisms overtime Nagel embraces teleology but eschews intelligent design. I don’t see how the two can be separated.
Nagel claims his take on teleology is from Aristotle. Has anyone else here read about this in Aristotle’s works?
As for the notion of an isolate quale, I believe we can communicate, to a large extent, how we feel about what we experience.
My take on the Aristotelian/Nagel concept of teleology goes like this–An acorn contains all the necessary ingredients for becoming a tree. This becoming is influenced by the natural conditions of its environment. There is no force outside the acorn that is responsible for its precondition to become a tree. In this sense teleology represents an internal drive toward a goal or a specific outcome. Environment may be fortuitous for the entire growth and development of the acorn, but it has nothing to do with the acorn’s innate drive to become a tree.
I’ve finished Nagel’s short book and cannot find in it hard evidence that the Darwinian explanation of the development of consciousness in animals with brains is somehow false. As a believer intelligent design, I have no difficulty in describing genetic evolution as purposeful. I have no problem seeing mind as an extension of matter.
Seems true enough to me.
It is still difficult for me to image a teleology that does not include i.d. Nagel did denounce the ridicule Behe, et. al, have received from some in the scientific community; but the notion of religion as anti-science still persists in the modern scientific and philosophical arenas.
It is the inability of mind to define itself which enables it to pervade the universe