Summary of Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The mind-body problem is not just a local problem, having to do with the relation between mind, brain, and behavior in living animal organisms, but that it invades our understanding of the entire cosmos and its history.
#2 The argument from the failure of psychophysical reductionism is a philosophical one. It argues that because the physical sciences cannot provide a comprehensive theory of everything, any other more or less unified understanding must take in the entire cosmos as we know it.
#3 The reductionist neo-Darwinian account of the origin and evolution of life is highly implausible. It is difficult to believe that life as we know it was created through a sequence of physical accidents and natural selection. However, many people have no doubt that accidental genetic variation is enough to support the actual history of evolution by natural selection.
#4 The idea that historical understanding is part of science has become familiar through the transformation of biology by evolutionary theory. But more recently, with the acceptance of the big bang, cosmology has also become a historical science. Mind, as a development of life, must be included as the most recent stage of this long cosmological history.

Sujets

• Space Science
• Sciences et techniques
• Cosmology
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 12 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822507166
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The mind-body problem is not just a local problem, having to do with the relation between mind, brain, and behavior in living animal organisms, but that it invades our understanding of the entire cosmos and its history.

#2

The argument from the failure of psychophysical reductionism is a philosophical one. It argues that because the physical sciences cannot provide a comprehensive theory of everything, any other more or less unified understanding must take in the entire cosmos as we know it.

#3

The reductionist neo-Darwinian account of the origin and evolution of life is highly implausible. It is difficult to believe that life as we know it was created through a sequence of physical accidents and natural selection. However, many people have no doubt that accidental genetic variation is enough to support the actual history of evolution by natural selection.

#4

The idea that historical understanding is part of science has become familiar through the transformation of biology by evolutionary theory. But more recently, with the acceptance of the big bang, cosmology has also become a historical science. Mind, as a development of life, must be included as the most recent stage of this long cosmological history.

#5

The problem with the origin of life is that the option of natural selection as an explanation is not available. And the coming into existence of the genetic code, an arbitrary mapping of nucleotide sequences into amino acids, seems particularly resistant to being revealed as probable given physical law alone.

#6

The design alternative to physics as a theory of everything is not a real option for me. I lack the sensus divinitatis that allows people to see in the world the expression of divine purpose as naturally as they see in a smiling face the expression of human feeling.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The conflict between scientific naturalism and various forms of antireductionism is a staple of recent philosophy.