The Universe in Essays

No scientific theory has been more thoroughly tested, examined, expanded, applied, and verified than evolutionary theory, the claim that all organic life arose from a common origin millions of years ago. The driving force behind that process is natural selection: over thousands of generations, organisms better suited to the environment eventually replace less-fit organisms. While the theory applies to biological life, physicist Lee Smolin has argued that the universe is subject to a cosmological natural selection (“Did the universe evolve?”). According to Smolin, his quasi-evolutionary theory has the power to explain why the laws of physics permit the existence of life. However, when one carefully explains and analyzes the theory, several difficulties arise.

“Consciousness” writes J. P. Moreland, “is among the most mystifying features of the cosmos” (“The Argument from Consciousness” 119). Consciousness mystifies us because it is at once incomprehensible and deeply familiar. I identify with it and live within it, but if you ask me to define it, I cannot. The apparent identity of myself and consciousness gives questions of the mind a level of significance that is hard to beat. If I am nothing other than my brain, then when my body dies, so do I. If I am something more, then perhaps I continue even when my body ends. My focus is on an argument from philosopher Alvin Plantinga for the soul’s existence. His claim is that material things cannot think, and because I clearly can think, I am not a material thing. After examining the argument on its own terms and then in the light of recent neuroscientific evidence, I conclude two things: (i) that Plantinga does not succeed in giving sufficient evidence for the soul, but also (ii) that m...