But you try to resolve it by assuming a series of unguided random mutations can create this unfathomable complexity which comprises our human awareness.
I’ve exited this mb (at least pending anyone at least attempting an argument worthy of the name for “God” etc) but I was reading something from Nicholas Taleb’s “Antifragile” on a flight home last night (Venice for a short break since you ask – very nice indeed thanks) that seems relevant.
Alan’s ever-more convoluted schtick starts with the assertion that “conscious awareness” could not have arisen naturally (though I’ve no idea
why he thinks that, and nor it seems has he – the best he has seems to be, “laptops can’t do it…er, neither therefore could vastly more complex humans” or something) and proceeds with ever more baroque constructions, including:
- consciousness is not “fully defined”, therefore it can’t be natural (although that’s not a problem it seems for, say, not fully defined gravity occurring naturally);
- there’s a little man at the controls called a “soul” that he can’t define at all, that has no discernible evidence to locate it, that apparently (and bizarrely) in some way functions neither deterministically nor randomly, and that has no explanation whatever of its working methods;
- this little man we’re also told does its mysterious thing “outside of nature”, though what “outside of nature” would even
mean is left blank;
- despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the little man is needed only though to “interact” with people but not with other species, even it seems when those species demonstrate higher levels of cognitive awareness than some people can;
- when all else fails, he'll resort to the circularity of asserting what this god supposedly thinks or wants in response to questions about why anyone should think “He” exists at all.
So to the Taleb. Alan’s position is essentially solipsistic – the whole universe was designed to produce us as its outcome, so the chances of that happening by chance are like really
slim (ie, a mish-mash of the reference point error, personal incredulity and a failure to grasp the significance of the anthropic principle). As Taleb puts it though (page 67):
“
Nature does not find its members very helpful after their reproductive abilities are depleted (except perhaps in special situations in which animals live in groups, such as the need for grandmothers in the human and elephant domains to assist others in preparing offspring to take charge). Nature prefers to let the game continue at the informational level, the genetic code. So organisms need to die for nature to be antifragile – nature is opportunistic, ruthless, and selfish.”
No doubt he’ll respond (if at all) with his standard argument from consequences fallacy – he doesn’t like the sound of that, therefore…erm…it can’t be true – but there it is nonetheless.
Oh well.
