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The Argument from Consciousness

The Mystery of Consciousness

Consciousness is among the most mystifying features of the cosmos. Geoffrey Madell opines that "the emergence of consciousness, then is a mystery, and one to which materialism signally fails to provide an answer."¹

Naturalist Colin McGinn claims that consciousness borders on sheer magic because there seems to be no naturalistic explanation for it:

How can mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the after-effects of the Big Bang; so how did it contrive to spring into being from what preceded it?"²

Finally, naturalist William Lyons argues that:

[Physicalism] seem[s] to be in tune with the scientific materialism of the twentieth century because it [is] a harmonic of the general theme that all there is in the universe is matter and energy and motion and that humans are a product of the evolution of species just as much as buffaloes and beavers are. Evolution is a seamless garment with no holes wherein souls might be inserted from above.³

In other words, matter is all there is and evolution is a purely physical process that produces only different arrangements of physical materials (DNA and so forth). And you can't get consciousness from simply rearranging matter. So, Lyons' reference to souls being "inserted from above" appears to be a veiled reference to the fact that theism explains consciousness quite nicely.

Some argue that, while finite mental entities may be inexplicable on a naturalist worldview, they could be explained by theism, thereby furnishing evidence for God's existence.

The Nature of the Mental

I believe those who argue for consciousness by theistic explanations are correct, and in what follows, I shall say why. As a preliminary, I shall assume a commonsense understanding of mental states, such as sensations, thoughts, beliefs, desires, volitions and the very selves that have them. Understood in this way, mental states are in no sense physical, since they possess five features that physical states do not:

1. There is a raw, qualitative feel or a "what it is like" to have a mental state such as a pain.
2. Many mental states have intentionality — ofness or aboutness — directed towards an object.
3. Mental states are inner, private and immediate to the subject having them.
4. Mental states require a subjective ontology — namely, mental states are necessarily owned by the subjects who have them.
5. Mental states fail to have crucial features (e.g. location) that characterize physical states and, in general, cannot be described using physical language. For example, a thought that lunch was good isn't, say, two inches long, but the brain state associated with the thought is.

The Argument from Consciousness

As mentioned in the introduction, many believe that finite minds provide evidence of a Divine Mind as their creator. If we limit our options to theism and naturalism, it is hard to see how finite consciousness could result from the rearrangement of brute matter; it is easier to see how a Conscious Being could produce finite consciousness since, according to theism, the First Being is Himself conscious. Thus, the theist has no need to explain how consciousness can come from materials bereft of it. Consciousness is there from the beginning.

To put the point differently, in the beginning there were either particles or Reason. If you start with particles and just rearrange them according to physical law, you won't get consciousness. If you start with Reason, you already have consciousness.

Top thinkers in the field of consciousness have offered at least four reasons for why there is no natural, scientific explanation for the existence of mental states:

1. The uniformity of nature. Prior to the emergence of consciousness, the universe contained nothing but aggregates of particles/waves standing in fields of forces relative to each other. The story of the development of the cosmos is told in terms of the rearrangement of micro-parts into increasingly more complex structures according to natural law.
   
   On a naturalist depiction of matter, it is brute mechanical, physical stuff. The emergence of consciousness seems to be a case of getting something from nothing.
   
   In general physicochemical reactions (that is, ones that deal with both physical and chemical properties) do not generate consciousness — not even one little bit. But strangely enough, they do in the brain. And yet, the brain seems so similar to other parts of organisms' bodies (i.e., both the brain and, say, the spleen, are collections of cells totally describable in physical terms). Brain cells are similar to other cells in many ways, yet they are related to radically different effects — brain cells correlate with consciousness and other cells do not. How can such like causes be correlated with such radically different effects? The appearance of consciousness is utterly unpredictable and inexplicable.



2. Contingency of the mind/body correlation. The regular correlation between types of mental states and physical states seems radically contingent. Why do pains instead of itches, thoughts, or feelings of love get correlated with specific brain states? No amount of knowledge of the brain state will help to answer this question.
   
   For the naturalist, the regularity of mind/body correlations must be taken as contingent brute facts. But these facts are inexplicable from a naturalistic standpoint, and they are radically sui generis — that is, unique — compared to all other entities in the naturalist ontology. Thus, it begs the question simply to announce that mental states and their regular correlations with certain brain states is a natural fact.
   
   
   God is free to act or refrain from acting in various ways.
   Since on most depictions, the theistic God possesses libertarian freedom, God is free to act or refrain from acting in various ways. Thus, the fact that the existence of consciousness and its precise correlation with matter is contingent, fits well with a theistic personal explanation that takes God's creative action to have been a contingent one. God may be a necessary being, but God's choice to create conscious beings and to correlate certain types of mental states with certain types of physical states were contingent choices, and this fits nicely with the phenomena themselves.



3. Epiphenomenalism and causal closure. Epiphenomenalism is the idea that some phenomenon may well exist, but it doesn't cause anything to happen. It is causally impotent. The worldview of most naturalists depends on all entities being physical or depending on the physical for their existence and behavior. One implication of this belief is commitment to something called the causal closure of the physical.
   
   According to this principle, any physical event can be explained by other physical things. In short, physical effects only have physical causes. Rejection of the causal closure principle would imply a rejection of the possibility of a complete and comprehensive physical theory of all physical phenomena — something that no naturalist should reject.
   
   Thus, if mental phenomena are genuinely non-physical, then they must be epiphenomena — effects caused by the physical that do not themselves have causal powers. But epiphenomenalism is false. However, naturalists must see physical explanations for mental causation — otherwise, their worldview is faulty. That is why the admission of epiphenomenal mental entities may be taken as a refutation of naturalism. As naturalist D. M. Armstrong admits:
   
   

   I suppose that if the principles involved [in analyzing the single all-embracing spatio-temporal system which is reality] were completely different from the current principles of physics, in particular if they involved appeal to mental entities, such as purposes, we might then count the analysis as a falsification of Naturalism.⁴

4. The inadequacy of evolutionary explanations. Naturalists are committed to the view that, in principle, evolutionary explanations can be proffered for the appearance of all organisms and their parts. It is not hard to see how an evolutionary account could be given for new and increasingly complex physical structures that constitute different organisms. However, organisms are black boxes as far as evolution is concerned. As long as an organism, when receiving certain inputs, generates the correct behavioral outputs under the demands of fighting, fleeing, reproducing and feeding, the organism will survive. What goes on inside the organism is irrelevant and only becomes significant for the processes of evolution when an output is produced.
   
   
   Once we understand consciousness and its inexplicable nature when defined by evolutionary theory, we can see the evidence for God and against evolutionary naturalism.
   Strictly speaking, it is the output — not what caused it — that bears on the struggle for reproductive advantage. Moreover, according to evolutionary theory, the functions organisms carry out consciously could just as well have been done unconsciously. Thus, both the sheer existence of conscious states and the precise mental content that constitutes them is outside the pale of evolutionary explanation. As Howard E. Gruber explains:
   
   

   The idea of either a Planful or an Intervening Providence taking part in the day-to-day operations of the universe was, in effect, a competing theory [to Darwin's version of evolution]. If one believed that there was a God who had originally designed the world exactly as it has come to be, the theory of evolution through natural selection could be seen as superfluous. Likewise, if one believed in a God who intervened from time to time to create some of the organisms, organs, or functions found in the living world, Darwin's theory could be seen as superfluous. Any introduction of intelligent planning or decision-making reduces natural selection from the position of a necessary and universal principle to a mere possibility.⁵

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Although this was a complex article, it is important for us to grasp the intricacies of evolutionary thought and its processes. Once we understand consciousness and its inexplicable nature when defined by evolutionary theory, we can see the evidence for God and against evolutionary naturalism.⁶