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Everything is Alive: The Metaphysics of Panpsychism
We have spent much of our time in this series treating consciousness as a riddle to be solved—a mysterious property that somehow attaches itself to certain complex biological systems. We have explored the materialist “User Illusion” of Daniel Dennett and the functionalist idea that the mind is merely what the brain does. But as we…
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The Bit and the Being: Information and the Geometry of Consciousness
Throughout this series, we have investigated various ways to explain the mind, navigating the tension between physicalists and idealists. We have looked at the purely materialist “user-illusion” of Daniel Dennett, the inherent “teleological” purpose proposed by Thomas Nagel, and the perspective of process philosophy, which views consciousness as a continuous flow of creative events. We…
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Natural Teleology: Thomas Nagel’s Critique of the Materialist Worldview
Thomas Nagel, Emeritus Professor at NYU, presents a philosophical position that challenges the completeness of the current scientific worldview. In his 2012 book Mind and Cosmos, Nagel argues that the standard materialist model of nature—the one holding that life and mind are accidental byproducts of physical laws—is logically insufficient. His work is not a defense…