Life May Be Not Only

It Is Prima Facie Highly Implausible That Life As We Know It Is The Result Of A Sequence Of Physical Accidents Together With The Mechanism Of Natural Selection. We Are Supposed To Abandon This Naïve Response, Not In Favor Of A Fully Worked Out Physical/chemical Explanation But In Favor Of An Alternative That Is Really A Schema For Explanation, Supported By Some Examples. What Is Lacking, To My Knowledge, Is A Credible Argument That The Story Has A Nonnegligible Probability Of Being True.

A Theory Of Motivation Is Defective If It Renders Intelligible Behaviour Which Is Not Intelligible.

A Person May Be Greedy, Envious, Cowardly, Cold, Ungenerous, Unkind, Vain, Or Conceited, But Behave Perfectly By A Monumental Act Of The Will.

The Great Cognitive Shift Is An Expansion Of Consciousness From The Perspectival Form Contained In The Lives Of Particular Creatures To An Objective, World-encompassing Form That Exists Both Individually And Intersubjectively. It Was Originally A Biological Evolutionary Process, And In Our Species It Has Become A Collective Cultural Process As Well. Each Of Our Lives Is A Part Of The Lengthy Process Of The Universe Gradually Waking Up And Becoming Aware Of Itself.

Eventually, I Believe, Current Attempts To Understand The Mind By Analogy With Man-made Computers That Can Perform Superbly Some Of The Same External Tasks As Conscious Beings Will Be Recognized As A Gigantic Waste Of Time.