The Scientific Model and the Genesis of the Riddle

Abstract

This chapter has two main goals. One is to trace the riddle of consciousness to its source, and thereby to provide deeper roots for mysterianism. We want to come to fully appreciate the intuitions that inform the doctrine that consciousness lies beyond the grasp of science. The other goal is to trace the historical development of the scientific model, and, thereby begin to define the complementary relationship between two models of the world: the manifest and the scientific. The roots of the riddle and the rise of science are closely intertwined, so their histories are mutually illuminating. The scientific model was created in historical times, whereas the source of the manifest model is buried deep in our biological history. The genesis of the riddle lies in the clash between the older manifest model, and the upstart scientific model which first shunned the manifest, but now, after a few centuries of stunning success, has formed the ambition of explaining it.

Thus... bodies are perceived as with qualities which in reality do not belong to them, qualities which in fact are purely the offspring of the mind. Thus nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for his scent; the nightingale for his song; and this sun for his radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves, and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation on the excellency of the human mind. Nature is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly.

Alfred North Whitehead (1925, p. 55)