<em>Mind and Cosmos</em> Thesis

The provocative claim that the dominant scientific framework—materialist reductionism combined with neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory—is 'almost certainly false' because it cannot adequately explain the existence of consciousness, the reliability of reason, or the objectivity of value. Nagel's argument is not a rejection of naturalism (the view that everything is part of nature and subject to natural explanation) but an insistence that naturalism must be expanded beyond materialism to accommodate phenomena that material explanation cannot capture. Consciousness exists—this is the most certain fact anyone possesses. Yet no materialist account has successfully explained how subjective experience arises from objective physical processes. Rationality functions reliably—our cognitive faculties track truth across mathematics, logic, and science. Yet if those faculties are merely the products of evolutionary selection for reproductive success rather than truth, their reliability is a lucky accident requiring explanation. Value seems objective—some things genuinely are better than others, independently of anyone's preferences. Yet materialist frameworks reduce value to subjective preference or evolutionary byproduct, undermining the objectivity that moral experience presents as