Why? The Purpose of the Universe by Philip Goff
Oxford University Press, 2023
ISBN: 9780198883760, Hbk.
RRP: £14.99, 287pp
Philip Goff’s new book represents an extension of his earlier philosophical explorations into the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the physical world. In Galileo’s Error (2019) Goff offered putative solutions to the hard problem of consciousness – how the experiential, non-physical nature of minds can be related to and explained in terms of the material world of physical objects – by making use of versions of panpsychism proposed by, amongst others, Galen Strawson (who, incidentally, was Goff’s former tutor and PhD supervisor). The basic thesis – drawing on the work of Eddington, Whitehead and Russell – rejects mind/matter dualism in favour of a monistic perspective whereby ‘conscious experience is itself a form of physical stuff’ (Strawson 2016, 2). As discussed below this form of physicalist/materialist panpsychism is not without its problems and, arguably, is less parsimonious than alternative idealist perspectives (not really considered by Goff) proposed recently by Bernardo Kastrup and Donald Hoffman (see Hyland 2021, 2023).
In his current book, Goff imaginatively extends his original version of panpsychism to provide an explanation of purpose in the universe which combines the fine-tuning of the basic physical constants in nature with teleological perspectives positing a universe driven by evolution towards life, meaning and value. This is indeed a bold thesis – not unlike Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos (2012) cited favourably by Goff – and is carried through by means of wide-ranging perspectives under the labels of ‘pan-agentialism’ and ‘cosmopsychism’.
Pan-agentialism, Goff contends, differs from the original version of panpsychism ‘in holding that particles have a kind of proto-agency of their own. Particles are never compelled to do anything, but are rather disposed, from their own nature, to respond rationally to their experience’ (94). This thesis is connected with a preference for Bohm’s pilot wave interpretation of quantum mechanics which attempts to obviate the wave/particle duality with the additional claim that the:
wave function does not drag the particles around, but rather causes particles to have certain conscious inclinations. The particles then freely respond with the most basic rational response: they do what they feel inclined to do. It is particles responding to the conscious inclinations produced in them by the wave function that results in the standard predictions of quantum mechanics. (96)
The apparent strangeness of attaching rational agency to the quantum world is explained by linking the argument with fine-tuning: nothing would exist without certain basic constants such as the cosmological constant, the ratio of the gravitational force to the electromagnetic force, and the strength of the strong nuclear force (Rees 2001). This leads to the notion that a ‘pan-agentialist world is, by definition, a world that embodies purpose’ (Goff 2023,118).
Goff goes on to argue that:
fine-tuning and rational matter need each other to produce creatures that can understand and respond to what things are and mean. Without fine-tuning, rational matter would be unable to evolve into complex organisms which are responsive to their environment, a pre-condition for the emergence of experiential understanding. (119)
All of these claims are intended to justify the central teleological argument that the basic structure of the universe is directed by purpose and value. This is where ‘cosmopsychism’ comes in. As Goff explains:
In order to combine teleological cosmopsychism with pan-agentialism, we need to identify the cosmic fine-tuner with the wave function itself. On the resulting view, the wave function is a conscious entity that is aware of the complete future consequences available to it and acts by choosing the best one…the best available option to the wave function was to put itself in a state whereby the universe would become life-permitting. (205)
Here the reference is to the wave function of the whole universe which emerged in the ‘Planck era’, the first microseconds of the Big Bang. Thus, the teleological drive towards life was established at the outset, and the next stage of the argument identifies life with purpose, value and the move to ‘make reality better’. The idea is that:
We have the ability to make ourselves and our world better, we can choose to live in the hope that by achieving the highest state that is possible for our form of existence (we’ve got a long way to go!) we will somehow lay the foundation for the next leap forward. We can call this way of living ‘cosmic purposivism’. (206-7)
In the final parts of the book, Goff fleshes out this purposivism in terms of the moves towards secular spiritual advancement (a theme of his earlier work) and the drive towards global justice, equality and harmony. Goff’s central thesis is nothing if not courageous and quite spectacularly creative. It manages to combine imaginatively a diverse range of philosophical and scientific positions including questions surrounding the fine-tuning of the physical constants, quantum mechanics, the hard problem of consciousness, the problems of evil and free will, and, centrally, traditional metaphysical questions about meaning and purpose. Although sharing a good many of Goff’s views on these matters, I would want to offer a number of alternative conceptions – a sort of nuanced critical gloss – to the key perspectives which combine to make up the central argument.
Fine-Tuning and the Anthropic Principle
There is a recognition in the book of alternative solutions to the so-called fine-tuning problem such as the multiple universe theory and the anthropic principle but all are dismissed in favour of cosmic purpose. This might be a trifle hasty. Within contemporary physics there are several different approaches to fine-tuning, including the idea that in time a ‘theory of everything’ will explain why the constants are just as they are. In this sense, physics today may be in the state that biology was before Darwin’s theory explained how myriad forms of life evolved. Incidentally, the fine-tuning arguments seem to me highly selective; biology is not unduly emphasised (since it is explained by natural selection?) nor facts like the 23.5 degrees tilt of the earth without which there would be no seasons and which would render many regions uninhabitable (as climate change is doing today), or the ‘goldilocks’ zone in which the earth and moon are just the right distance from the sun to permit life.
However, it is the rejection of the anthropic principle – the notion that things are just as they are because, if they were different, we would not be around to observe and ask questions about them – that I would want to question. Goff suggests that it solves nothing and leaves everything as it is. However, it is, arguably, a perfectly justifiable philosophical position – endorsed by thinkers from Bishop Butler to the later Wittgenstein – to accept that things just are as they are, and it is the task of philosophy to unravel and explore what is given to us. This results in giving priority to pragmatic rather than metaphysical approaches to ethics and epistemology (as will be further developed below).
Pan-Agentialism and Panpsychism
The idea that perspectives on panpsychism which claim proto-consciousness for particles or fields is criticised as being still attached to forms of dualistic materialism by philosophers and scientists such as Kastrup and Hoffman. Although Goff claims monism for his version, it does seem that particles still just are physical/material whereas consciousness is mental/non-physical. It is not obvious how the mind can emerge from matter or, indeed, how the two can manage to combine, thus it is not really a completely satisfactory solution to the hard problem of consciousness. Along with putative alternative strategies, Goff could have considered the new idealist perspectives proposed by Kastrup and Hoffman.
Kastrup is a fierce critic of all aspects of materialistic science and philosophy, and proposes a much simpler and more parsimonious strategy which argues for an ‘idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations’ (2019), and which obviates the so-called mind-body problem of explaining consciousness. The position is summarised as follows:
spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding – but dissociated from – our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. (Kastrup 2019: 57)
On this account, our subjective experience as dissociated alters – that is, individually segmented parts of an all-encompassing mental cosmos – is founded upon and supported by a robust metaphysical idealism which may be used to circumvent the false picture presented by physical science and the illusions of mind-body dualism.
In a similar vein, Hoffman (2019) employs the principle of parsimony (also favoured by Goff) to conclude (as Kastrup does) that ‘all attempts at a physicalist theory of consciousness have failed’ (183). He reasons that:
Occam’s Razor, applied to the science of consciousness, counsels a monism over an amphibious dualism, a theory based on one kind rather than two…If we grant that there are conscious experiences, and that there are conscious agents that enjoy and act on experiences, then we can try to construct a scientific theory of consciousness that posits that conscious agents – not objects in space-time – are fundamental, and that the world consists entirely of conscious agents. (ibid., 182-183)
Hoffman accepts that this theory of conscious realism may be mistaken and, in the light of the need for verifiability/falsifiability, he offers a mathematical model of how conscious agents interact within networks, commenting that:
Conscious realism makes a bold claim: consciousness, not spacetime and its objects, is fundamental reality and is properly described as a network of conscious agents. To earn its keep, conscious realism must do serious work ahead. It must ground a theory of quantum gravity, explain the emergence of our space time interface and its objects, explain the appearance of Darwinian evolution within that interface, and explain the evolutionary emergence of human psychology. (ibid., 198)
Such attempted neo-idealist solutions to the hard problem of consciousness are, in my view, as worthy of consideration as Goff’s conceptions of pan-agentialism and cosmic purposiveness.
Meaning, Purpose and Value
As mentioned earlier, Goff’s overall thesis envisions a teleological universe directed towards life and the value of continued betterment and advancement. However, it is entirely plausible to accept all of this without committing to cosmic purpose. Arguments in this area need look no further than evolutionary theory. Although it is now undisputed that we are ‘Darwinian creatures, our forms and our brains sculpted by natural selection, that indifferent, cruelly blind watchmaker’ (Dawkins 2017,34), this does not mean that our future development must be strictly determined by the blind watchmaker. Darwin had allowed for the development of moral instincts in humans which rise above the ‘selfishness’ of our evolutionary endowment to build communities defined by trust and benevolence. Our big brains were ideally suited to the precarious and desperate struggle for existence by our ancestors as hunter-gatherers living on the Savannah plains 200,000 years ago but once we had such brains they could then be used for purposes beyond mere survival such as making art, language, music and building settled communities characterised by laws and moral codes. Daniel Dennett (2018) puts the case powerfully in noting:
Dawkins’s title The Blind Watchmaker (1986) nicely evokes the apparently paradoxical nature of these [evolutionary] processes: on the one hand they are blind, mindless, without goals, and on the other hand they produce designed entities galore, many of which become competent artificers (nest-builders, web-spinners, and so forth) and a few become intelligent designers and builders: us. (37)
A notable product of such design is the construction of communities governed by laws and ethical codes characterised by altruism and co-operation which rise above the brute competitiveness of the evolutionary instincts and impulses.
Given this rich source of explanation of meaning, purpose and value, it seems reasonable to ask why we should spend too much time on pursuing metaphysical questions such as ‘why something rather than nothing?’. Were we to accept what is given, as mentioned earlier, we could devote more time to solving the many urgent problems facing life as it is. Amongst such existential problems are the ones set out by Toby Ord in Precipice (2020), where he outlines starkly the disasters – both natural and anthropogenic – that are facing our present and future generations. This futuristic pragmatic philosophy is precisely what is called for in what can only be described now as the very worst of times. In a similar vein – in the spirit of Marx calling for philosophers to change rather than merely interpret the world – Peter Singer (2023) illustrates the vast range of current problems calling out for immediate ethical responses in the current climate. Such work is, arguably, worth any number of metaphysical treatises. Having said this, Goff’s commitment to ethical and spiritual advancement – which can be endorsed independently of his metaphysical treatise – indicates clearly that his ethics is in general agreement with such humanistic visions.
Notwithstanding these reservations, I have nothing but admiration for Goff’s project here. The book is replete with rigorous discussions of important scientific and philosophical problems, all of which are articulated lucidly and illustrated with highly imaginative metaphors and thought experiments. The book has been favourably reviewed by, amongst others, Philip Pullman, Donald Hoffman, and Paul Draper, and Goff provides a spirited defence of the principal arguments in a recent interview with Robert Lawrence Kuhn (2023) for the Closer to Truth series of podcasts.
It is a treasure trove of fascinating scientific and philosophical speculation – lots of material here for philosophers of education and academics in related fields to get their teeth into.
References
Dawkins, R. 2017. Science in the Soul. London: Bantam Press
Dennett, D. 2018. From Bach to Bacteria: The Evolution of Minds, London: Penguin
Goff, P. 2019. Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. London: Rider
Hoffman, D. 2019. The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. London: Penguin
Hyland, T. 2021. Perspectives on Panpsychism. Mauritius: OmniScriptum Publishing
Hyland, T. 2023. Scientific Materialism, Consciousness and the New Idealism: An Exploration of Some Implications for Education. International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education. 10(3): 23-35
Kastrup,B. 2019. The Idea of the World. Hampshire: iff Books.
Kuhn, R.L. 2023. Interview with Philip Goff. Closer to Truth. https://youtu.be/-1VRYkaIfy0?si=kVmprxNoSo6egoAY
Nagel, T. 2012. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Ord, T. 2020. Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. London: Bloomsbury
Rees, M. 2001. Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe. New York: Basic Books
Strawson, G. 2016. Consciousness isn’t a mystery. It’s matter. New York Times. 16/5/16
Singer, P. 2023. Ethics in the Real World. Princeton University Press
