I don't agree that the subject is the world for Wittgenstein.

He says in the Tracatatus: "The subject does not belong to the world, but it is a limit of the world. (5.632).

He also says: "I am my world. (The microcosm.)" (5.63) (Emphasis mine.)

I think he refers here to the world as experienced. He was no solipsist.

In any case I disagree that we experience the world or that we experience ourselves as being my world. We undergo affects, which we experience as events, people, places, things and so on; along with emotions, thoughts and desires that are occasioned by our experience of these. We think of this as my life, in which we are engaged with these things, the totality of which we think of as my world. But the shared inter-subjective world is always already externalized insofar as it is objectivized as a world of events and objects that are publicly available to experience.

So drill down to the root of being and - if existence is pure individuation - then the ur-stuff is the radically unindividuated. The Apeiron. — apokrisis

I'm a panpsychist who agrees with this conception of substance. If I understand you, of course, which I probably don't.

I don't agree that the subject is the world for Wittgenstein. — Janus

I respect your disagreement. I don't pretend to be sure of what he meant, and I also don't want to be mistaken as trying to argue from an authority I don't believe in. I quote some of the lines relevant to what I am imperfectly aiming at.

Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed
out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to
a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with
it.

Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the
self in a non-psychological way. What brings the self into philosophy is
the fact that 'the world is my world'. The philosophical self is not the
human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology
deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world--not a
part of it.
— W

Note that you left out a key part when you quote the line above. "Not a part of it." So what is this self that the world is for?

So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end. — W

I agree with you that the world is 'my' world in an important sense. As I read Heidegger it is death that most clearly reveals to the 'Dasein' that it is the there itself. But this is the there of being-in, of being-with-others.

It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it
exists.

To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole--a
limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole--it is this that is
mystical. — W

This 'that it exists' is central for me. I can't be sure what 'feeling it as a limited whole' meant to Witgenstein, but I speculate that we have to grasp all that exists as a unity to open up the strangeness of its being there. It's one thing to wonder at a particular thing and another to wonder at the there itself.

When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be
put into words. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at
all, it is also possible to answer it.

Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it
tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist
only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and
an answer only where something can be said. — W

I read this in terms of the brute fact of the world, of the senselessness of the question 'why is there anything rather than nothing?' It's a lyrical pseudo-question with respect to the way we usually understand explanation in terms of necessary relationships between entities within the world. Yet this pseudo-question opens up 'the mystical.'

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make
themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. — W

This is less clear to me. I find it plausible to read this in terms of either feeling or the that-it-is-there.

I think he refers here to the world as experienced. He was no solipsist.

In any case I disagree that we experience the world or that we experience ourselves as being my world. We undergo affects, which we experience as events, people, places, things and so on; along with emotions, thoughts and desires that are occasioned by our experience of these. We think of this as my life, in which we are engaged with these things, the totality of which we think of as my world. But the shared inter-subjective world is always already externalized insofar as it is objectivized as a world of events and objects that are publicly available to experience. — Janus

We probably roughly agree. I acknowledge that being-with-others and being-in-the-world (Heidegger) is pretty close to the pre-theoretical given. But what throws me off is 'objectivized,' because that makes it sound more explicit and theoretical than the 'given' I have in mind. Wittgenstein is a little scientistic in the TLP. He doesn't examine spatiality and time as they are experienced but adopts physics space and physics time unquestioningly. I think Heidegger does a good job of showing just how 'deworlded' the physics versions of time and space are. They are learned abstractions.

I very much agree with concerned engagement as primary, though. But do we not largely disappear into this engagement? The subject is largely an abstraction that is there, itself a usetool, 'for' the metaphysical subject, which is to say 'in the there' which it therefore cannot be.

I don't read Hegel as asserting that being is a "pure thing"; rather it is no-thing. This is Hegel's preemption of Heidegger's ontological difference. I also believe Hegel is concerned with the "what-it-is" of being, but rather with unravelling the logic of the concept of being. That-it-is is a given; Hegel would echo Spinoza in declaring that there is no possibility that there could be nothing. Being is no-thing, ( insofar as we cannot say anything really determinate about it) but it obviously is not nothing at all.

I would say that being is certainly not an abstraction for Hegel. In a way Hegel's notion of being equates with his idea of spirit. the world of beings is the dialectical manifestation of spirit. — Janus

Again, I can't claim to know what Hegel had in mind, but only share what I make of his text. I underline what inspired me to understand being as bare or pure unity.

Being, pure being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relatively to an other; it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing.

Nothing, pure nothing: it is simply equality with itself, complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content — undifferentiatedness in itself. In so far as intuiting or thinking can be mentioned here, it counts as a distinction whether something or nothing is intuited or thought. To intuit or think nothing has, therefore, a meaning; both are distinguished and thus nothing is (exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is empty intuition and thought itself, and the same empty intuition or thought as pure being. Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as, pure being
— Hegel

I realize that Heidegger was probably inspired by this connection of being and nothing, but I don't see the ontological difference here at all. It looks like concept analysis.

I respect your disagreement. — t0m

As I do yours. We each read these philosophers differently, and I am not wanting to say there is one correct way to read them. So, I am just telling you how I read them, just as you are telling me how you do.

I realize that Heidegger was probably inspired by this connection of being and nothing, but I don't see the ontological difference here at all. It looks like concept analysis. — t0m

Again,I see the ontological difference (that being is not a being) as implicit in Hegel's understanding that being is akin to nothing, meaning it is not a thing, or in Heidegger's parlance, not a being.

I'm not denying that such theories can't be useful, but that they often occupy a position of exaggerated importance in the landscape. — Wayfarer

Ummm, yeah. So, some theory that explains the mind and how it came to be, which includes whatever theory you have on the subject as well, isn't important, and doesn't need to be useful to be important. Okay, Wayfarer.

Every animal is different from each other. If humans are special because they are different, then every animal is special because each species is different from another. — Harry Hindu

You make my point for me. — Wayfarer

Perfect. Then we finally agree on something. We finally agree that humans are just another species of animal and that differences doesn't make one special, because every species, and every individual within that species, is unique, and would make every one of them special, which would then just dilute the meaning of "special".

You premise that your mind is part of your body, so you're just begging the question. I can't answer that question because your premise is not something I'm willing to accept. And I do not agree with your use of "I feel it in my mind". Any time a bee has stung me (many times I might add), I have felt it in the part of my body where it stings me, not in my mind. Do you not recognize a distinction between the conclusion you make with your mind, "a bee is stinging me", and the observations which lead you to that conclusion? — Metaphysician Undercover

That is my perspective - of being inside the head of a body. If our minds are not processes of our bodies, then why does it seem that way? Why is it so brute? This isn't a rhetorical question. I expect an answer, MU. Please don't try to wiggle your way out of it.

That is my perspective - of being inside the head of a body. If our minds are not processes of our bodies, then why does it seem that way? Why is it so brute? This isn't a rhetorical question. I expect an answer, MU. Please don't try to wiggle your way out of it. — Harry Hindu

It is you who is wiggling. Last post you said your body "includes my mind", implying that the mind is a part of the body. Now you say that the mind is a process of the body. Which are you claiming? If the former, I cannot agree, as I've already explained. If the latter, then I need an explanation from you as to how something which is referred to with a noun, "the mind", can be said to be a process, an activity. All I see is category error on your part, attempting to make something (the mind) which is understood as a thing engaged in the activity of reasoning, into a process, the activity itself.

Why don't you just come out and say what you are alluding to? You believe that the mind is the brain. I don't believe that at all, because contrary to what you are saying, it doesn't seem to me, to be that way at all. Nor does it seem like the mind is a process of the body, because the mind is the thing which is carrying out this process of reasoning, it does not seem to be the process itself.

It may be possible at some point in the future to establish causation between levels of abstraction, but third person observation/measurement of subjective experience is not possible (as others have already noted). — Galuchat

But doesn't that impossibility result if you insist experience is something more than (a pattern of) neurons firing? A map isn't the terrain either. Chemical equations aren't the reactions either. So I'm not sure how this is an argument against. Can you elaborate?

Theoretically it's possible to record a brain pattern and activate it by stimulating another brain with the same pattern, allowing that other person to experience the same thing in the same way (assuming 2 different brains are sufficiently similar). There have also been test to project the images people dream on screen. I'm not sure what else should be observed or measured.

But doesn't that impossibility result if you insist experience is something more than (a pattern of) neurons firing? — Benkei

This is exactly what is referred to as ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.

It is you who is wiggling. Last post you said your body "includes my mind", implying that the mind is a part of the body. Now you say that the mind is a process of the body. Which are you claiming? If the former, I cannot agree, as I've already explained. If the latter, then I need an explanation from you as to how something which is referred to with a noun, "the mind", can be said to be a process, an activity. All I see is category error on your part, attempting to make something (the mind) which is understood as a thing engaged in the activity of reasoning, into a process, the activity itself.

Why don't you just come out and say what you are alluding to? You believe that the mind is the brain. I don't believe that at all, because contrary to what you are saying, it doesn't seem to me, to be that way at all. Nor does it seem like the mind is a process of the body, because the mind is the thing which is carrying out this process of reasoning, it does not seem to be the process itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

Congrats, MU. You win the award for the most pathetic attempt to avoid answering a direct question. What is it with you "philosophers" that like to question the basis of some scientific theory, but then don't question any "philosophical" theory that you hold and then have to perform these mental gymnastics in order to avoid answering the questions. It's quite pathetic to watch what I thought were intelligent people, behave as if they are delusional.

To get back at what you're saying, because I always answer questions and address all arguments made against my statements, unlike yourself, it isn't a contradiction to say that the body includes my mind and that that mind is a process. This is no different than saying that my body includes the process of digestion.

Science itself has shown that there aren't things, but only processes. Every "thing" is just an amalgam of smaller interacting "things", which is itself an amalgam of smaller interacting "things", all the way down. Things are just processes. Everything is a process.

Now, are you going to provide an answer that will show why we appear to be inside bodies? If you aren't going to answer it, MU, then don't waste your time posting a reply because I won't be continuing this conversation with you if you can't show me the same courtesy that I have shown you in answering your questions.

But doesn't that impossibility result if you insist experience is something more than (a pattern of) neurons firing? — Benkei


This is exactly what is referred to as ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. — Wayfarer

Is the mind a model of the brain, or is the brain a model of the mind? When we look at another brain, why don't we see their experiences instead of neurons firing? Is the brain we see just the way our mind models their mind? Or is the mind a delusion of the brain?

When we look at another brain, why don't we see their experiences instead of neurons firing? — Harry Hindu

For the very simple reason that experience requires a subject, and ‘the subject’ can’t be an object of perception.

When you look at fMRI data, you don’t see experience - you see a graphic representation of neural activities. But it’s not until those activities are integrated into a meaningful unity, that it becomes an experience; and the faculty that performs that integration isn’t seen in the fMRI data. That is not hyperbole - it’s an aspect of the neural binding problem.

Brains don’t have delusions. Actually brains don’t have or do anything; they only operate meaningfully embodied in the body, in the nervous system, in the environment.

But it’s not until those activities are integrated into a meaningful unity, that it becomes an experience; and the faculty that performs that integration is not known to science. That is not hyperbole - it’s an aspect of the neural binding problem. — Wayfarer

Yes, I think this is a good reason to think that consciousness is not a property of anything by virtue of its differentiated structure. I think the binding problem is a strong reason to think consciousness is a property of reality-as-continuum.

I'm a panpsychist who agrees with this conception of substance. If I understand you, of course, which I probably don't. — bert1

I was arguing that the Aristotle's hylomorphic story on substance can be read two ways. And the radical one here would be the "top-down" individuation version.

The panpsychic version would instead be the more familiar bottom-up story where substance is a stuff with properties. The only difference with panpsychism is that all stuff comes with two distinct classes of property - the material and the mental.

The top-down story is instead "mind-like" in stressing the role of formal and final purpose in the act of individuation. So Being is the result of constraints imposed on potentiality. Concrete material stuff is produced by acts of individuation that limits formless "material" potential. And material is in quotes as ultimately the notion of potential - Aristotle's prime matter - has to be as matterless as it is formless.

Congrats, MU. You win the award for the most pathetic attempt to avoid answering a direct question. What is it with you "philosophers" that like to question the basis of some scientific theory, but then don't question any "philosophical" theory that you hold and then have to perform these mental gymnastics in order to avoid answering the questions. It's quite pathetic to watch what I thought were intelligent people, behave as if they are delusional. — Harry Hindu

As I explained, your questioning was nonsensical. You shifted from the assumption that the mind is part of the body, to the assumption that the mind is a process of the body. And I explained why it was nonsense to speak of the mind as a process. That's why I couldn't answer your question, it really didn't make any sense to me.

This is no different than saying that my body includes the process of digestion. — Harry Hindu

"The body" doesn't include the process of digestion, that is something that the body is doing. It is this type of category mistake which makes discussion with you very difficult. See, in the act of digestion, something which is not part of the body becomes part of the body. Since this process necessarily includes something which is not part of the body, we cannot properly say "the body includes the process of digestion". You continue with your nonsense.

Science itself has shown that there aren't things, but only processes. Every "thing" is just an amalgam of smaller interacting "things", which is itself an amalgam of smaller interacting "things", all the way down. Things are just processes. Everything is a process. — Harry Hindu

As soon as you can explain to me how there could be an activity, or process occurring, without a thing, or things, which are carrying out that activity, then I might take what you say seriously. And by the way, science has shown no such thing. That is a metaphysical principle, which assumes that there are only processes. Science has gone in the opposite direction, attributing everything to fundamental particles. Look at light for example, it is described as photons, things.

Now, are you going to provide an answer that will show why we appear to be inside bodies? — Harry Hindu

What's wrong with being inside a body? I don't see any problem with this. I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. Does that answer your question? The problem that I have with what you have said, is that you have proceeded from the assumption "My mind is inside a body", to two distinct and equally invalid conclusions. 1, My mind is part of a body, and 2, my mind is the process of a body.

For the very simple reason that experience requires a subject, and ‘the subject’ can’t be an object of perception. — Wayfarer

So, then how is it that you can even talk about your mental processes and feelings if you aren't aware of yourself, or your own mind? How is it that you can talk about being aware of being aware, if the "subject" can't be an object of perception? How can you talk about your own perceptions?

When you look at fMRI data, you don’t see experience - you see a graphic representation of neural activities. But it’s not until those activities are integrated into a meaningful unity, that it becomes an experience; and the faculty that performs that integration isn’t seen in the fMRI data. That is not hyperbole - it’s an aspect of the neural binding problem. — Wayfarer

This doesn't answer my question at all.

When you look at fMRI data, or just look at someone's brain, WHY can't we see their experiences? Why is our mind cut off from other minds? WHY do we see brains/bodies instead of experiences? Is what we experience a model of their experiences? What I'm asking is, is there really a brain filled with neurons there, or is it experiences there and the brain only exists in our mind as a model of their experiences? There is no binding problem if brains don't really exist except in minds. The binding problem would be a problem of the model itself. That was my initial question: Do brains only exist in minds as models, or do minds exist in brains?

Brains don’t have delusions. Actually brains don’t have or do anything; they only operate meaningfully embodied in the body, in the nervous system, in the environment. — Wayfarer

What does "operate meaningfully embodied in the body" even mean, and what does that have to do with my question?

As I explained, your questioning was nonsensical. You shifted from the assumption that the mind is part of the body, to the assumption that the mind is a process of the body. And I explained why it was nonsense to speak of the mind as a process. That's why I couldn't answer your question, it really didn't make any sense to me. — Metaphysician Undercover

You tried to explain but failed. It isn't nonsensical. You merely took one small meaningless difference in a part of my post, that wasn't part of the question, and focused on that, rather than answering the question.

"The body" doesn't include the process of digestion, that is something that the body is doing. It is this type of category mistake which makes discussion with you very difficult. See, in the act of digestion, something which is not part of the body becomes part of the body. Since this process necessarily includes something which is not part of the body, we cannot properly say "the body includes the process of digestion". You continue with your nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, something the body is doing isn't a process? Who's being nonsensical?

What's wrong with being inside a body? I don't see any problem with this. I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. Does that answer your question? The problem that I have with what you have said, is that you have proceeded from the assumption "My mind is inside a body", to two distinct and equally invalid conclusions. 1, My mind is part of a body, and 2, my mind is the process of a body. — Metaphysician Undercover

I never said anything was wrong with being a body. Sheesh, MU. You are all over the place, jumping through impossible hoops in your mind - all in an attempt to not answer a simple question. Well, it's simple for me, but not for you because you assume that the mind isn't part of the body when that is how it forcefully appears. I'll tell you what, MU. I'll make a post with the question all by itself, so you can't get side-tracked with other stuff, that has nothing to do with the question, that I said. You can continue to respond to this post, but I'll just ignore it, as I'm only concerned with the answer to my question in the following post:

MU, why does it appear that we are inside individual bodies if we aren't?

When you look at fMRI data, or just look at someone's brain, WHY can't we see their experiences? — Harry Hindu

For the reasons I provided.

What I'm asking is, is there really a brain filled with neurons there, or is it experiences there and the brain only exists in our mind as a model of their experiences? — Harry Hindu

Obviously, there is a brain. The philosophical question is, whether experience, and mind, can be understood as a product of the brain, and the brain as a product of material causes. That is the view of philosophical materialism, which is what Nagel's book is criticizing. But neither Nagel, nor I, would deny that the brain is obviously central to the nature of experience - if you have a brain injury, or take an intoxicant, then the nature of experience, and the operation of your mind, is affected. But that is not the whole story, as there is also a feedback loop in the other direction - the mind can affect, even 'reconfigure', the brain (which is one of the findings of neuro-plasticity). So the nature of the mind, and its relationship to the brain, is still an open question, it hasn't been definitively solved by neurobiology or evolutionary science.

MU, why does it appear that we are inside individual bodies if we aren't? — Harry Hindu

Didn't you read my post? I said:

I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. — Metaphysician Undercover

Further, I said that if the mind is inside a body, this does not lead to the conclusion that the mind is part of a body, nor does it lead to the conclusion that the mind is a process of the body.

Here's a question for you HH. What do you think it means "to be inside a body"?

Didn't you read my post? I said:

I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. — Metaphysician Undercover


Further, I said that if the mind is inside a body, this does not lead to the conclusion that the mind is part of a body, nor does it lead to the conclusion that the mind is a process of the body.

Here's a question for you HH. What do you think it means "to be inside a body"? — Metaphysician Undercover

It means that it is part of my body and not yours or anyone else - just like your nervous system is part of your body and not part of mine.

Saying that the mind can exist apart from the body is like saying the nervous system can exist apart from the body, and goes against the medical knowledge that we have in that when parts of the brain are damaged, parts of the mind are missing or non-functional, like being able to speak your native language or recognize faces.

Now it's my turn to ask a question(s):
How does a mind see, hear and feel without eyes, ears and a nervous system? What is the point of having a body if a mind can do these things without one?

It means that it is part of my body and not yours or anyone else... — Harry Hindu

Being inside a body means to be part of that body? Since when? Does being inside a box mean that you are part of the box? How about a car, or a house, does being inside one of these mean that you are part of it?

Saying that the mind can exist apart from the body is like saying the nervous system can exist apart from the body... — Harry Hindu

Why would you say this? The mind and the nervous system are two distinct things. Unless you have a principle which makes them comparable, your comparison is like comparing apples and oranges. In the case of apples and oranges there is a common principle, they are both fruit. In the case of the mind and the nervous system we could say that they are both properties of life. But this does not make what is true of the nervous system also true of the mind, just like what is true of an apple is not necessarily true of an orange. Clearly your comparison is meaningless.

How does a mind see, hear and feel without eyes, ears and a nervous system? What is the point of having a body if a mind can do these things without one? — Harry Hindu

A mind doesn't do these things without a body. Obviously.

Being inside a body means to be part of that body? Since when? Does being inside a box mean that you are part of the box? How about a car, or a house, does being inside one of these mean that you are part of it? — Metaphysician Undercover

When inside the car and the car moves, do you not move with the car? A radio is inside the car and can be removed. Does that make the radio not part of the car? Do you even think before typing and submitting a post, or are you simply trying to pull my leg?

Why would you say this? The mind and the nervous system are two distinct things. Unless you have a principle which makes them comparable, your comparison is like comparing apples and oranges. In the case of apples and oranges there is a common principle, they are both fruit. In the case of the mind and the nervous system we could say that they are both properties of life. But this does not make what is true of the nervous system also true of the mind, just like what is true of an apple is not necessarily true of an orange. Clearly your comparison is meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover

What happens in an apple doesn't happen in the orange. Apples and oranges aren't a good comparison. When something happens in the mind, we can point to some event in the nervous system. The nerves in your arm are connected to your brain. This is why you feel, or aware, of the bee sting in your arm.

A mind doesn't do these things without a body. Obviously. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then I don't know what it is that we are disagreeing on here. What does a mind do without a body? Can it exist without a body? Can digestion exist without a body?

When inside the car and the car moves, do you not move with the car? A radio is inside the car and can be removed. Does that make the radio not part of the car? Do you even think before typing and submitting a post, or are you simply trying to pull my leg? — Harry Hindu

OK, so when you are inside your car you believe that you are part of your car. I don't, so we have a difference of opinion on that.

Then I don't know what it is that we are disagreeing on here. — Harry Hindu

I know what we are disagreeing about, it's stated right above. You think that because a mind is inside a body it is part of a body. I do not. You don't see a difference between a mind and a body. I do. So we disagree.

When I first engaged you in conversation, it was because I didn't agree with your claim that if the mind and the body are two distinct things, they couldn't interact. Is that why you claim that you a part of your car when you are inside it, because you believe that if you were not part of your car, you wouldn't be able to interact with it?

What does a mind do without a body? Can it exist without a body? Can digestion exist without a body? — Harry Hindu

I understand your perplexity. The dualism of body and mind - the idea that these are separable - goes back to Descartes. He depicted the human as a composite of the physical, res extensia, which has size but no intelligence, and the mental, res cogitans, which is intelligent but has no extension.This can be depicted as body and mind, physical and mental, body and spirit, and so on.

Descartes himself couldn't really say how the mind and the body interacted although he believed it did so through the pineal gland. But regardless of its strengths and weaknesses, Descartes' philosophy, and the reactions and criticisms of it, gave rise to the modern 'mind-body' problem, as described by Thomas Nagel in the book we're discussing here.

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them.

Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.

Underline added.

I have noticed that you often refer to the 'cause and effect' relationship between objects and perception - that objects cause perceptions - and that your view is very similar to what is described in the above passage. And it is the common-sense view which I think many people would naturally accept. Part of this view, is that the fundamental constituents of being, are the physical elements which comprise objects, namely atoms. In this view, everything, including the mind itself, is ultimately atoms and can be ultimately explained in terms of physics. Evolution itself can be understood in similarly physical terms, although in that case higher-level factors are said to supervene on the physical, so as to give rise to living organisms and eventually the evolved intelligence of h. sapiens even though these might seem not to be purely physical. However, the only real entities are physical entities.

So that is the view of the 'neo-darwinist materialism' which Thomas Nagel is setting out to criticize. But it might be helpful to spell all of this out so it is clear what is being criticized by this book, and on what grounds.

According to Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker, anyone who raises even philosophical objections of the kind that Nagel does, must ipso facto be on the side of creationism. There are only two possibilities in their view: materialist or creationist.
— Wayfarer

I don't know much about Coyne, but I like and agree with some of Dennett's work, and ditto for Pinker - particularly 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' ... But I can't agree with them on that. It's not just my worldview that they are summarily dismissing, but also that of the very many religious or spiritual people who work in evolutionary biology. — andrewk

The point is, materialism, or physicalism (which for these purposes are the same) is an all-or-nothing proposition. It is the idea that ‘everything real is physical’, or, put another way, that ‘only the physical is real’. So it can’t be a little bit wrong - it’s either entirely correct, or it’s not. That’s why when an eminent philosopher like Nagel comes out and challenges it, the wagons are circled, and he’s set on by a Darwinist mob.

Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought that the main source of negative reviews of Nagel's book was that in it he gave credence to some Intelligent Design advocates. Decrying Intelligent Design as pseudo-science and claiming that 'everything is physical' are two very different things, even if there is a correlation. I see Intelligent Design (meaning the claim that complex life forms were separately designed and implemented, not evolved, NOT the much more benign idea held by many Christian scientists that the process of evolution was planned and set in place by a deity, or that the universe itself was somehow planned) as mind-rotting rubbish that needs to be fought at every opportunity, but certainly do not subscribe to statements like 'everything is physical' (which is, in my view, not even wrong).

Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought that the main source of negative reviews of Nagel's book was that in it he gave credence to some Intelligent Design advocates. — andrewk

But that's mainly because of the 'if you're not with us, you're against us' attitude that is typical of 'philosophical Darwinism'. You know that when the UK Astronomer General, Martin Rees, accepted the Templeton Prize a few years back, Richard Dawkins exclaimed that he was 'a compliant Quisling'! That gives you an idea of the depth of the animus.

Nagel explains in his book that he lacks a 'sense of the divine' ('sensus divinatus'), and that he really is a convinced atheist; although it is also true that he has said that intelligent design arguments have been treated unfairly by their opponents, and that they at least deserve consideration on their philosophical merits. But that is not what caused the reaction against him. (Actually, if you haven't read Andrew Ferguson's summary of the book and the issues, I urge you to have a look).

Actually that phrase I just coined has made me realise the entire problem: it’s ‘philosophical Darwinism’. Because: there is no such thing. The theory of evolution by natural selection is a biological theory, it’s not a philosophy. And the whole problem is, feeding philosophical questions through the meat-grinder of biological theory. Why? Because in Darwinian theory, there’s only one criterion: what survives. Everything that exists, does so for that purpose. As an explanation for why there are elephants, and not mammoths, it makes perfect sense. But as an explanation for why there is anything at all, it is a pseudo-philosophy. That’s the only problem - but it’s a big problem.