Evolutionary researchers encountering evidence for consciousness have been forced to shift their weight to the other foot, so to speak, and acknowledge the reality of consciousness rather than asserting that the essence of mind is merely an illusion. Evidence on the question of consciousness extends from flowers to butterflies. For example, a Cornell University evolutionary biologist

…made the case…that the goldenrod plant is intelligent. This points to the growth of panpsychism (everything is conscious*) in mainstream science….Panpsychism is, as noted in earlier posts, a form of naturalism (nature is all there is). But, unlike Dennett’s eliminative naturalism, it treats consciousness throughout nature as real, not illusory.

Their inclination is to evoke a sort of psychic mysticism in which even the simplest things naturally possess a nascent consciousness. The recipe seems to read as follows: Assemble enough of these physical components so that complexity precludes careful analysis, and then grandly point out consciousness as an emergent property of neurons, or even individual cells. 

Some Rudimentary Form

It may be that consciousness in some rudimentary form exists in even simple life forms. However, drawing the conclusion of panpsychism as an extension of naturalism is reminiscent of the deluded soul who believed he was dead. When confronted with the evidence that a fresh cut on his finger caused bleeding, he artfully pivots to embrace the new evidence without shifting an iota from his original conviction: “I guess dead men do bleed!” So now we see this display of dubiously rational mental gymnastics: “The immaterial human mind is an illusion; new evidence shows pervasive elements of consciousness. Consciousness is a natural phenomenon that permeates the natural universe!”

The dissatisfaction I have with such an attempt at rationalizing the evidence is that it turns on an allegiance to materialism while ignoring centuries of research into the physics of matter. Postulating consciousness as an emergent property of matter would be fine if it rested on more than belief emerging from a worldview and instead built upon demonstrable and repeatable experimental evidence that nature’s forces could transform atoms into a mind. Note that showing the existence of minds does not demonstrate that consciousness could arise naturally.

The evidence does indicate that minds really exist, and yet the evidence from studying matter, energy, and the laws of nature shows that nature couldn’t produce even a single protein molecule, let alone a living cell. To suggest that nature could produce a conscious mind departs from everything that is known about nature from the study of physics over the last two hundred years. 

“Minding the Brain”

Supposing that consciousness could arise as a result of a manufacturing process (natural or artificial) has serious problems, as the recent book Minding the Brain powerfully argues. On the other hand, a conclusion consistent with our reason and experience is that life, consciousness, and the human mind arose from a Source possessing these qualities as inherent attributes of itself.

Departing from Scientific Reality

Evidence for an immaterial human mind has always been more convincing than assertions that mind is an illusion. What is lacking is evidence that material forces could naturally produce consciousness and the qualities of mind. To respond to mounting evidence for the reality of consciousness by capitulating on denying the reality of mind, while establishing consciousness as a new ability of materialism, is to depart from scientific reality.

In a recent article at Evolution News on evidence for design in the sleep-wakefulness balance, I noted that a possible explanation for why we need sleep is to provide our bodies rest from our minds.

One could almost conclude that the way a conscious mind/brain thinks and how it responds to external stimuli is inimical to the sustained well-being of a physical body. Sleep gives respite to the body against the demands of the ever-vigilant mind/brain. This is especially true when the mind/brain is stimulated by thoughts due to fear, anger, jealousy, or other stress-producing emotions.

Consider the idea that if the mind and nervous system are “inimical” to the physical being, then it becomes untenable to propose that the mind or even a rudimentary nervous system arose as an evolutionary adaptation for survival. The underlying assumption of evolutionary theory is that the physical features of creatures are those that were selected for a survival advantage. The process, as defended by atheistic proponents of evolution, is entirely undirected and devoid of any foresight or teleological design considerations.

• “To set the mind on the flesh is death.”¹
• “If it’s alive, it sleeps.”²

The inescapable conclusion from studying the need for sleep, which all creatures with a mind or even a nervous system exhibit, is that the body cannot survive without a regular reprieve from effects of this system on the body. We are forced by the uneasy alliance between mind and flesh to conclude that the whole set-up, the “invention” of physical creatures governed by nonphysical consciousness, involves a significant compromise for the existence of such creatures.

This compromise, shown by the need all living creatures have for sleep, is much more than a halfway outcome or a simple settling into an in-between state. The compromise involved in sleep exemplifies a common type of engineering design that balances multiple factors to achieve an optimal result within overall constraints. Going to sleep and returning to wakefulness involve the development of sophisticated physiological mechanisms affecting both body and brain.

Inscrutable Sleep

Sleep, the inscrutable and counter-intuitive behavior of all living creatures, is a consequence of the compromise necessitated by the essence of life, recognized as involving sentience. This applies not only to humans but even the lowest forms of life. Consciousness, awareness, cognition, and sentience are terms that researchers are now using to describe even the simplest of living organisms.

Sleep itself, when considered as a necessary compromise to allow consciousness to govern the physical body, is enough to reveal that living creatures could not be purely physical arrangements of molecules, originating from undirected interactions of interatomic forces. A monotonic drive to survive would not be expected to select for anything that would pose such obvious survival risks to the organism as consciousness, with its attendant need for regularly rendering the body immobile and insensitive in sleep. Not only is consciousness itself seemingly not derivable from any physical state of matter, its ultimate advantages could only be anticipated by a designer with adequate foresight to foresee the value of mind over matter.

Notes

1. Romans 8:6 (ESV).
2. Paul Shaw, neuroscientist from Washington University in St. Louis. ‘If it’s alive, it sleeps.’ Brainless creatures shed light on why we slumber | Science | AAAS .