Consciousness and cognition provide strong evidence for a metaphysical Creator. Our ability to think and reason and be self-aware defies explanation in terms of the mechanistic laws of chemistry and physics. How can a bunch of living cells, when clumped together to form a brain, give rise to consciousness? How can molecules be capable of thought? Once again, atheists and evolutionists have no viable explanation for this. The origin and source of consciousness is arguably even more problematic for atheism than the origin of the single cell.
VIDEO & AUDIO LINKS
VIDEO PRESENTATION: EPISODE 9, CONSCIOUSNESS & COGNITION
AUDIO PODCAST: EPISODE 9, CONSCIOUSNESS & COGNITION
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Episode 9 of Evidence For Belief, a series which examines the evidence for the existence of God. In this episode, we are going to examine one more indicator of intelligent design which is proving to be extremely problematic for scientists who are seeking to explain life apart from any sort of transcendent Creator: the mystery of human consciousness and cognition. These two facets of the human mind, consciousness and cognition, continue to defy explanation in terms of the materialistic laws of chemistry or physics. Let me deal with each of these two aspects separately.
HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
How can a bunch of living cells, when clumped together to form a brain, give rise to consciousness – to our ability to think and reason and be self-aware? How can the chemical reactions and electrical impulses inside the brain result in consciousness? How can molecules be capable of thought? Once again, atheists and evolutionists have no viable explanation for this. The origin and source of consciousness is arguably even more problematic than the origin of the single cell. Evolutionist philosopher, Dr Michael Ruse, puzzles over this very problem:
“Why should a bunch of atoms have thinking ability? Why should I, even as I write now, be able to reflect on what I am doing? And why should you, even as you read now, be able to ponder my points? … No one, certainly not the Darwinianist [evolutionist], seems to have an answer to this. The point is that there is no scientific answer.”[1]
Ruse is entirely correct. Science simply cannot explain human consciousness. Dr Michael Polanyi, arguably the foremost philosopher of science in the 20th century, wrote:
“Mental processes cannot be explained by physics and chemistry. The laws of physics and chemistry do not ascribe consciousness to any process controlled by them: the presence of consciousness proves, therefore, that other principles than those of inanimate matter participate in the conscious operations of living things.”[2]
Evolutionist scientists, in an attempt to explain how consciousness can arise from the human brain, have recently begun using several nebulous phrases:
Non-local Consciousness:
The idea that our brains are merely the conduit for the mind, not the source of its origin.[3] Scientists who are exploring this concept are investigating what they refer to as “fringe phenomena”, such as near-death experiences and precognition, in the hope of gaining an insight into consciousness.
Integrated Information Theory:
The idea that every molecule of biological life has a tiny amount of consciousness which, when combined together produces a higher level of combined consciousness. Some proponents of this theory even suggest that all matter, even non-livingmatter, has a tiny spark of consciousness.
Emergent Property Theory:
This follows on from the previous idea. It proposes that the latent consciousness within all matter is activated by the particular complex arrangements of the human brain, which is able to activate and focus this consciousness more effectively than other animals or organisms.
The Energy Field Theory:
This is the latest theory, first published in the Oxford University Press journal in 2020 by Dr Johnjoe McFadden of the University of Surrey. Dr McFadden proposes that consciousness resides in the brain’s electromagnetic energy field which surrounds the brain and isn’t generated by the brain’s electrical impulses along its neurons. He theorises that consciousness is “an immaterial wave of energy, rather than a flow of atoms in and out of the nerves.”
What is striking about all of these theories is their frank admission that consciousness cannot be explained by mere physical chemicals and atoms. Each of these theories rests on the premise that consciousness has a non-physical immaterial source. Where these theories all fall down, however, is their inability to explain how a purely physical, mechanistic universe could have created a universal consciousness that somehow pervades each molecule of matter. Where did this consciousness come from? Evolutionists have no reasonable answer.
Human consciousness indicates that we are more than mere physical machines. We are more than flesh and blood. There is an essence within each person that transcends the merely physical. Our consciousness, our ability to think, and feel, and reason, is extremely convincing evidence for the existence of an Intelligent Designer who has implanted a mind within each of us.
Theologian and philosopher, Dr J. P. Moreland, states:
“You can’t get something from nothing. If the universe began with dead matter having no consciousness, how, then, do you get something totally different – conscious, living, thinking, feeling, believing creatures – from materials that don’t have that? But if everything started with the mind of God, we don’t have a problem with explaining the origin of our mind.”[4]
COGNITION
A second, but closely linked, aspect of the human mind is cognition. By this I mean our ability to decode the fundamental laws of the universe. This involves the embracing of abstract concepts. Any animal can observe an apple falling from a tree, but only the human mind can perceive the abstract concept of gravity and seek to define and explain it in precise mathematical terms. Roy Williams, in his book God Actually, makes the point that there is no good explanation of this ability to engage in abstract thinking in terms of mere ‘survival value’.[5] As he states,
“It ought to be enough that Man, like many other animals, is capable of seeing and dodging out of the way of the falling apple. Anything else looks like a huge case of overkill.”[6]
In other words, our ability to discover and embrace theoretical knowledge that has no obvious survival value argues against its origin via natural selection. Dr Thomas Nagel, Professor of Philosophy and Law, Emeritus, at New York University, made precisely this point:
“Darwinism may explain why creatures with vision or reason survive, but it does not explain how vision or reasoning are possible … The possibility of minds capable of forming progressively more objective concepts of reality (i.e. of decoding Nature) is not something the theory of natural selection can attempt to explain.”[7]
Nowhere is this inexplicable aspect of the human mind more obvious than in the area of mathematics. Astrophysicist, Dr Paul Davies, Regents’ Professor and Director of the Beyond Centre for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, writes:
“The most striking product of the human mind is mathematics. This is a baffling thing. Mathematics is not something that you find lying around in your backyard. It’s produced by the human mind. Yet if we ask where mathematics works best, it is in areas like particle physics and astrophysics, areas of fundamental science that are very, very far removed from everyday affairs. In fact they are at the opposite end of the spectrum of complexity from the human brain. In other words, we find that a product of the most complex system we know in nature, the human brain, finds a consonance with the underlying, simplest and most fundamental level, the basic building blocks that make up the world. That, I think, is an astounding and unexpected thing, and it suggests to me that consciousness and our ability to do mathematics is no mere accident, no trivial detail, no insignificant by-product of evolution that is piggy-backing on some other mundane property. It points to what I like to call the cosmic connection, the existence of a really deep relationship between minds that can do mathematics and the underlying laws of nature.”[8]
In other words, the inexplicable ability of the human mind to engage in abstract thinking is made doubly inexplicable by the fact that the abstract concepts that we formulate accurately reflect the fundamental forces of nature and provide a meaningful explanation of them. Thus, not only is intelligent design obvious in the existence of the logical, orderly universal constants and fundamental forces of the universe, but also in our ability to decipher and quantify them. The hand of an intelligent Creator is evident in both the fundamental codes of the universe and in our ability to decode them. As theoretical physicist Dr Sir John Polkinghorne states, “The reason within [matches] the reason without.”[9]
This is what Einstein was referring to when he remarked, “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility”.[10] Indeed, it is a great mystery for evolutionists, because this profound intelligibility of the physical universe can’t be accounted for by natural selection. Our ability to construct abstract formulae to understand and explain the universe offers no logical benefit for our survival as individuals or as a species.
This particular argument for God’s existence may seem, on the surface, a little esoteric, but those who follow it through to its logical conclusion find it extremely convincing. For instance, Roy Williams, author of God Actually, writes that this evidence of mankind’s ability to engage in abstract thinking in order to understand the universe “played an important part in my passage toward belief in Christianity … because the theistic implications of this argument seemed to me inescapable, and still do.”[11]
The inability of natural selection to provide an adequate explanation for the link between ‘the reason within and the reason without’ leads many, like Roy Williams, to believe in a supernatural Intelligent Designer. It is this link between our ability to engage in abstract thought and the discoverable laws of science that require abstract thought, that also led theoretical physicist Dr Sir John Polkinghorne to conclude that God is the most logical explanation for these two phenomena, stating, “there is some deeper rationality which is the ground of both, linking them together.”[12]
For more information, you can check out my books which are available on my website, smartfaith.net, where you can also subscribe to my weekly blog.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Miachel Ruse, in Lee Strobel, “The Case for a Creator”, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2004, p.307
[2] Michael Polanyi, “The Anatomy of Knowledge”, Rutledge Press, London, 1966 p.323
[3] https://www.gaia.com/article/consciousness-is-a-big-problem-for-science
[4] J. P. Moreland, in Lee Strobel, “The Case for a Creator”, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2004, p.307 f.
[5] Roy Williams, God Actually, ABC Books, Sydney, 2008, p.69
[6] Roy Williams, God Actually, ABC Books, Sydney, 2008, p.69
[7] Quoted in Peter Watson, A Terrible Beauty: A Cultural History of the Twentieth Century, Phoenix Press, 2000, pp.673-4
[8] Paul Davies, Are We Alone?, Penguin Books, 1995, p.84
[9] John Polkinghorne, “God’s Action in the World”, J.K. Russell Fellowship Lecture, 1990, pp.3-4.
[10] Albert Einstein, “Physics and Reality”, Franklin Institute Journal, March 1936.
[11] Roy Williams, “God Actually”, ABC Books, 2008, p.68
[12] John Polkinghorne, “God’s Actions in the World”, J.K. Russell Fellowship Lecture, 1990, p.4.