Constructing life and consciousness, how hard can it be?

Authors

  • Ben Page Pembroke College & Oriel College University of Oxford

Keywords:

Life – Consciousness – Teleology – Reduction – Emergence

Abstract

How easy is it to construct life and consciousness from the building blocks of reality? Some philosophers seem to think both are pretty easy, whilst others take consciousness to be difficult but life to be no problem. In this paper I question whether we should in fact think this, could life after all be difficult to construct? I contend that the answer to this, much like the answer to how hard consciousness is to construct, largely depends on the nature of life and the building blocks of reality. I will show that many of the considerations as to whether consciousness is hard to construct can be paralleled when thinking about the construction of life, and that given one prominent definition of life, it does in fact seem difficult to construct. I will conclude by offering a few suggestions for future research, and suggest that philosophers should be more hesitant in their affirmation that life is easy to construct.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

ARIEW, André. «Teleology». In The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, eds. David L. Hull, & Michael Ruse, 160-181. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

AUSTIN, Christopher J. Essence in the Age of Evolution. New York: Routledge, 2019.

_______, Christopher J., & Anna Marmodoro, «Structural Powers and the Homeodynamic Unity of Organisms». In Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science, eds. William M. R. Simpson, Robert C. Koons, & Nicholas. J. Teh, 169-184. New York: Routledge, 2017.

BADA, Jeffrey L. «How life Began on Earth: a status report». Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2004) 226:1-15.

BALTSCHEFFSKY, H., et al. «On the Origin and Evolution of Life: An Introduction», Journal of Theoretical Biology (1997) 187:453-459.

BARHAM, James. «Normativity, agency, and life». Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (2012) 43:92-103.

BAYNE, Tim. The Unity of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

BEALER, George. «Materialism and the Logical Structure of Intentionality». In Objections to Physicalism, ed. Howard Robinson, 101-126. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

BEISBART, Claus. «What is Life? And Why is the Question Still Open». In What Is Life? On Earth and Beyond, ed. Andreas Losch, 111-131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

BENNER, Steven A. Life, the Universe and the Scientific Method. Gainesville, FL: FfAME Press, 2008.

BENNETT, Karen. «Exclusion Again». In Being Reduced, eds. Jakob Hohwy, & Jesper Kallestrup, 280-306. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

BOHN, Einar D. «Normativity all the way down: from normative realism to pannormism». Synthese (2018) 195:4107-4124.

BONJOUR, Laurence. «Against Materialism». In The Waning of Materialism, eds. Robert C. Koons, & George. Bealer, 3-24. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

BRENTANO, Franz. Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkt. Leipzig: Dunker & Humbolt, 1874.

CLELAND, Carol E. «Life without definitions». Synthese (2012) 185:125-144.

________, Carol E., & Christopher F. Chyba, «Defining ‘life». Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere (2002) 32:387-393.

________, Carol E., & Christopher F. Chyba, «Does ‘life’ have a definition?». In Planets and life, eds. Woodruff T. Sullivan, & John A. Baross, 119-131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

CHALMERS, David J. A Conscious Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

CHALMERS, David J. «Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness». In Explaining Consciousness – The ‘Hard Problem’, ed. Jonathan Shear, 9-30. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997.

_________, David J. «Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness». In Explaining Consciousness – The ‘Hard Problem’, ed. Jonathan Shear, 379-422. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997.

_________, David J. «The Combination Problem for Panpsychism». In Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives, eds. Godehard Brüntrup, & Ludwig Jaskolla , 179-214. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

CHURCHLAND, Paul M. A Neurocomputational Perspective. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989.

___________, Patricia Smith. «The Hornswoggle Problem». In Explaining Consciousness – The ‘Hard Problem’, ed. Jonathan Shear, 37-44. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997.

CRANE, Tim. Elements of Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001

DENNETT, Daniel C. «Quining Qualia». In Consciousness in Contemporary Science, eds. Anthony J. Marcel, & Edoardo Bisiach, 42-77. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

________, Daniel C. «Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness». In Explaining Consciousness – The ‘Hard Problem’, ed. Jonathan Shear, 33-36. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997.

DES CHENE, Dennis. Life’s Forms. New York: Cornell University Press, 2000.

EDITORIAL. «Meaning of ‘life’». Nature (2007) 447:1031-1032.

FESER, Edward. Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science. Heusenstamm: editiones scholasticae, 2019.

FORBER, Patrick. «Contemporary Teleology». In Teleology: A History, ed. Jeffrey K. McDonough, 255-279. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

FRY, Iris. «Philosophical Aspects of the origin-of-life problem». In Exploring the Origin, Extent, and Future of Life, ed. Constance M. Bertka, 61-79. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

GINSBURG, Simona, & Eva Jablonka (2019) The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

GODFREY-SMITH, Peter. «Not Sufficiently Reassuring». London Review of Books (2013) 35:20-21.

GOFF, Philip. Consciousness and Fundamental Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

HALDANE, John J. «Naturalism and the problem of intentionality». Inquiry (1989) 32:305-322.

________, John J. «Insight, Inference, and Intellection». American Catholic Philosophical Association Proceedings (2000) 73:31-45.

HARDCASTLE, Valerie Gray. «The Why of Consciousness: A Non-issue for Materialists». In Explaining Consciousness – The ‘Hard Problem’, ed. Jonathan Shear, 61-68. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997.

HAZEN, Robert M. «Emergence and the Experimental Pursuit of the Origin of Life». In Exploring the Origin, Extent, and Future of Life, ed. Constance M. Bertka, 21-46. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

HEIL, John. Philosophy of Mind. New York: Routledge, 2013.

JAWORSKI, William. Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2011.

KOONS, Robert C. «Against Emergent Individualism». In The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism, eds. Jonathan J. Loose, Angus J. L. Menuge, J. P. Moreland, 377-393. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018.

KOONS, Robert C., & Alexander Pruss, «Must Functionalists be Aristotelians». In Causal Powers, ed. Jonathan D. Jacobs, 194-204. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

______, Robert C. (2017) «The ontological and epistemological superiority of hylomorphism». Synthese (2021) 198 (Suppl 3):S885-S903.

LOCKE, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding. ed. Peter H. Nidditch. New York: Clarendon Press, 1975.

MACHERY, Edouard. «Why I stopped worrying about the definition of life... and why you should as well». Synthese (2012) 185:145-164.

MORANGE, Michel. «Science and Philosophy Faced with the Question of Life in the Twentyfirst Century». In What is Life? On Earth and Beyond, ed. Andreas Losch, 97-110. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2017.

MOSSIO, Matteo, & Leonardo Bich, «What makes biological organisation teleological?». Synthese (2017) 194:1089-1114.

ODERBERG, David S. Real Essentialism. New York: Routledge, 2007.

_________, David S. «Synthetic Life and the Bruteness of Immanent Causation». In Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics, ed. Edward Feser, 206-235. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

_________, David S. «The Great Unifier». In Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science, eds. William M. R. Simpson, Robert C. Koons, & Nicholas J. Teh, 211-234. New York: Routledge, 2017.

ODERBERG, David S. «Finality Revived: powers and intentionality». Synthese (2017) 194:2387-2425.

OKRENT, Mark. Rational Animals: The Teleological Roots of Intentionality. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2007.

_______, Mark. Nature and Normativity. New York: Routledge, 2017.

PERLMAN, Mark. «Traits Have Evolved to Function the Way They Do Because of a Past Advantage». In Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology, eds. Francisco J. Ayala, & Robert Arp, 53-71. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

PLANTINGA, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

REA, Michael C. World Without Design. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

ROSENKRANTZ, Gary S. «Animate Beings: Their Nature and Identity». Ratio (2012) 25:442-462.

RUIZ-MIRAZO, Kepa, & Pier Luigi LUISI, «Special Issue: Workshop OQOL’09: Open Questions on the Origins of Life 2009». Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres (2010) 40:347-497.

RUSE, Michael. «The Origin of Life: Philosophical Perspectives». Journal of Theoretical Biology (1997) 187:473-482.

SEARLE, John R. «Minds, brains, and programs». Behavioural and Brain Sciences (1980) 3:417-457.

SEHON, Scott. Teleological Realism: Mind, Agency, and Explanation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

SHIELDS, Christopher. «The dialectic of life». Synthese (2012) 185:103-124.

STOVE, David. Darwinian Fairytales. Aldershot: Avebury, 1995.

STRAWSON, Galen. Real Materialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

TOEPFER, Georg. «Teleology and its constitutive role for biology as the science of organized systems in nature». Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (2012) 43:113-119.

TYE, Michael. «Qualia». The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL: <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/qualia/>.

WALKER, Sara I. Walker, Norman Packard, & George D. Cody. «Re-conceptualizing the origins of life». Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A (2017) 375:1-11.

WALSH, Denis M. «Teleology». In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Biology, eds. Michael Ruse, 113-137. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

______, Denis M. Organisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

WILSON, Jessica M. Metaphysical Emergence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Published

12/28/2021

How to Cite

Page, B. (2021). Constructing life and consciousness, how hard can it be?. Sapientia, 76(247), 27–53. Retrieved from https://erevistas.uca.edu.ar/index.php/SAP/article/view/3895

Issue

Section

Articles