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Nagel's position is that principles of an entirely different kind may account for the emergence of life
Like for example?
and in particular conscious life
But according to Nagel, "mind is a basic aspect of nature", which implies all life is conscious on some level.
and that those principles may be teleological, rather than materialist or mechanistic. He stresses that his argument is not a religious one
How could it not be religious? What else could it be?
Viriditas (
talk) 12:13, 22 September 2012 (UTC)reply
I've just started reading it, but he is arguing for an
Aristotelian teleology without intention: "an understanding of the universe as basically prone to generate life and mind ...". He argues that we should not assume that the mental can be explained using the same language and concepts that we use to explain the physical, and that ultimately the truth may be beyond our reach in principle.
SlimVirgin(talk) 01:25, 23 September 2012 (UTC)reply
That seems to be it exactly. If he had only checked Wikipedia he might have saved himself some time. :D
SlimVirgin(talk) 01:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)reply