The philosopher Thomas Nagel has a short, new book out: Mind and Cosmos.  The title is neutral enough; it's the subtitle that's meant to command attention: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.  The mind-body debate is, of course, an old one, and Nagel's main point is familiar: he cannot accept the notion that the physical science of the mind with its emphasis on matter, such as neurons, explains consciousness.  And since consciousness is part of life, then neo-Darwinian materialism is inadequate to explain life itself.  Natural selection and adaptation respond to the current environment of a species, so evolution, as it's now conceived, cannot be purposeful or aim toward a goal.  "Materialist naturalism" is almost certainly wrong.

But then comes the kicker.  We might expect to conclude from this that Nagel is about to introduce God into the discussion.  Nagel, however, is an atheist.  What he proposes to fill the gap is a complement to our current conception of natural laws: teleological laws of nature.  That is, among the laws of evolution is one that we don't yet understand, a law of nature that includes the purposefulness of evolution.  What's particular about Nagel's sense of teleology is that he eliminates agency, someone's special intentions.  Rather, it's just the way it is; teleology is simply another facet of the general theory of evolution.  The new concept is hard to grasp (even if we are willing to consider it at all), but that may well be because our cognitive abilities haven't yet evolved to the point where we can understand it. 

Nagel's book is short, an introduction to his hypothesis rather than a full-fledged exploration of it.  One question that comes to mind immediately is that since living organisms that lack sentience far outnumber those who possess "consciousness," how would the teleological law apply to non-sentient organisms?  Let's say that those who are religious want to enlist Nagel on their side.  Surely, common beliefs are more likely to be attracted to solving the mind-body problem with a god than with a vaguely formulated teleological principle.  Teleology has traditionally embraced agency; what could it mean without an overarching designer?  In current debates about religion, however, that is probably not very appealing to the religious.  It gets them no further than a prime mover, a Deist clockmaker, and that's neither emotionally satisfying nor compatible with what most believers want from a god. 

In a recent episode of "The Good Wife," the Julianna Margulies character announces that she is an atheist.  The immediate response of the other character is not to ponder abstract principles of final causes but to ask whether she would remain an atheist if Jesus walked in and performed a miracle.  Theists want a personal god, and more: a familiar personal god that fits the mold of a particular religion.  At its most extreme, many Western religions involve a formula like "If you don't accept X, then no other belief counts."  Christians are often guilty of this hubris: if you don't accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior, then you can't go to heaven."  Catholics at least used to have limbo for those who led good lives but were born either temporally or spatially without the possibility of being Christian, but now the concept of limbo is itself in limbo in Catholicism--neither a necessary part of belief, but not officially rejected either.  For those of us who are atheists, this exclusivity is one of the most galling beliefs.  It's also, of course, a belief that has led to countless wars and deaths and that has persisted throughout the centuries. 

It is also galling when those who are religious assume that atheists can't live moral lives.  Dostoevski to the contrary, without god, all is not permitted.  Like everyone else, we make moral decisions on a situational, ad  hoc basis.  We don't need the carrot-and-stick of heaven and hell.  Indeed, heaven and hell are concepts that make no sense to us.  Mark Twain's satire of a Christian's idea of heaven (lots of harp playing but no sex, for example) is indictment enough.  But my favorite treatment of what heaven would be like is Wallace Stevens's in "Sunday Morning."  The main character of the poem is enjoying a lovely, peaceful, sun-filled Sunday morning until she begins to think that maybe she should be in church, or as Stevens puts it, she "feels the dark / Encroachment of that old catastrophe."  The rest of the poem is a dialogue between the woman's thoughts and the voice of the poet who argues against belief, with the woman's questions and arguments becoming progressively shorter and less convincing.  One of the most beautiful parts of the poem is the beginning of the sixth stanza when the poet suggests suggests how awful a world without change would be:

          Is there no change of death in paradise?
          Does ripe fruit never fall?  Or do the boughs
          Hang always heavy in the perfect sky,
          Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
          With rivers like our own that seek for seas
          They never find, the same receding shores
          That never touch with inarticulate pang?
          Why set the pear upon those river-banks
          Or spice the shore with odors of the plum?
          Alas, that they should wear our colors there . . .

Alas, indeed!  "Love calls us to things of this world," as Richard Wilbur wrote.  Our disbelieve is almost certainly right--and much more satisfying.