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By Ken Van Cleve and Brunla Van Cleve, Ph.D.

Is Evolution a Fact?

A famous zoologist says he "believes in the FACT of evolution" and traces the origin of life back to a critical instant when a mysterious something in the ocean, through some mysterious mechanism, became alive. In most cases we believe in evolution too. Life does evolve. But "evolution" is only one of science's models. When it comes to studying "The Origin of Life" or "The Birth of Consciousness," we believe evolution is the wrong model because it depends on chance. In this essay we will attempt to show the virtual statistical improbability that either life or consciousness evolved by chance. Further, we will explore the confusion that even noted researchers encounter in their attempt to define consciousness. As yet, there is no generally accepted definition, or explanation of consciousness.

The Origin of Life

It has been said that life is biology's greatest embarrassment. Almost all biologists are materialists and believe in the "fact" of evolution.  But when they attempt to trace life back to its beginning the so-called "fact" proves rather to be that miraculous "something" which came out of the ocean and subsequently, thanks to another mysterious and miraculous mechanism, became alive. And for a third miracle, this living "something" somehow developed consciousness. 

Talk about improbability! Singly, each of these occurrences strains credulity; together, such a combination is totally unimaginable. Too bad the philosopher-mathematician Blaise Pascal, who formulated laws of probability, is not with us today. He would be the first to figure out that the odds were far too great for one, or two, let alone three miracles to have just "happened." The "fact" breaks down when we consider the laws of probability.

To cite a well-known example of similar, fallacious statistics, recall the infamous million monkeys, typing on a million typewriters, for a million years who produced the complete works of Shakespeare.  In fact, they wouldn't even have been able to come up with this modest essay by chance, let alone the complete works of Shakespeare because of the virtually impossible odds.  Yet, according to evolutionary theory, we are expected to believe in the accidental sequencing of not one, but all twenty amino acids to form a protein.  Such odds are far worse than those monkeys'. 

The trouble with the biologists' solution is that instead of looking at the whole life system, they break it into smaller and smaller sub-systems. Then, through random emergence phenomena, it is theoretically possible for life to have "happened," provided, of course, that all the necessary ingredients were available in just the right proportions and at just the right time. But this ignores the myriad probability factors contained in the total life system, which must include, and multiply together, all the probabilities from all the sub-systems. This astronomical multitude makes it impossible to solve the mystery of life by random trials. So a little honest math shows the biologists' Darwinian "solution" to be false.

Consciousness

Although some respected scientists and philosophers deny that consciousness exists, most of us think we know what it is. Few of us would deny we have it. In fact, most of us would sooner lose our arms and legs than lose our consciousness. And almost everyone would agree we are conscious at least part of the time. We are aware of our own consciousness but are less sure of others'.  Most of us equate consciousness with our own mind and self-identity:  "I think, therefore I am." So it would seem that we could at least come up with a definition.

Many people are trying. Since 1993 up to a thousand top scientists and philosophers have been attending a biennial conference called, "Toward a Science of Consciousness" in Tucson, Arizona.  (A world conference was held in May, 1999 at the United Nations University in Tokyo.) Many of these attendees had a materialistic approach, and most were convinced that their solution was the only one possible. But there were both hard and soft approaches to the study of mental phenomena. Papers presented ranged from artificial intelligence to epiphenomenal artifacts of neural activity. There also were Dualists, who suggested that the essential nature of  consciousness is beyond human understanding. Psychologists, psychiatrists, humanists and various other disciplines are coming to believe that the view of science must be enlarged in order to capture the total phenomena of consciousness. 

Of particular interest to Panpsychists is that panpsychist viewpoints were represented.  Panpsychist attendees attempted to explain how consciousness could not have come from lifeless matter (the materialistic view). They proposed, instead, that all matter is in some way sentient and experiential even at the molecular level--all the way down! A not too dissimilar view was even presented by noted philosopher David Chalmers (his Double Aspect Theory) 

Hopefully, the combined contributions of this broad range of viewpoints could shed some light on the difficult, complex and elusive subject of consciousness. Unfortunately, there was instead a high level of confusion, interdisciplinary rivalry and even hostility. Chalmers has, in fact, challenged the attendees to address the hard problem of consciousness, which he says is actually not one, but many, theories.

We join him in the challenge; meanwhile we believe that there remain two fundamental mysteries, "How Was Life Created?" and "What Is Consciousness?" After due consideration of other disciplines, we believe Panpsychism may be the best way yet known to fathom them.