Discuss Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

On June 21, 2025, four of us started our exploration of Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back. Aristotle constructed his theory of everything by asking four questions: What is it made of (the material cause)? What is its shape (the formal cause)? How was it made (the efficient cause)? Why was it made (the final cause)? For instance, a table and chair could be made of wood, their configuration conforms to a plan used to guide someone to assemble them, and for another to sit in a chair and write on the table. He also thought that by examining the structure of a part of an organism, he could determine its function, giving its final cause. For example, a bird's beak is structured for feeding depending on the bird's diet.
Gould and Lewontin used the term Panglossian Paradigm to describe the belief that all parts of an organism are good for something. The term "Panglossian" originates from Voltaire's satirical novel Candide. The character Dr. Pangloss is depicted as an overly optimistic philosopher, a caricature of Leibniz, who believed that everything is for the best in this "best of all possible worlds," even in the face of overwhelming adversity and suffering. Leibniz's concept of the "best of all possible worlds" is strongly influenced by his adaptation of Aristotelian final causes.
This approach can draw the wrong conclusion regarding vestigial organs, sometimes with tragic consequences. For many years, the thymus, found in the upper chest, behind the sternum, was considered a vestigial organ that had lost its original function and was no longer needed. In the 1950s, doctors thought a swollen thymus would hinder a child’s breathing and used radiation to reduce its size. However, researchers found that irradiating the thymus increased the risk of cancer for these children. In the 1960s, other researchers determined that the thymus was the organ needed to mature certain lymphocytes, known as the T-cells, that are essential to a healthy immune system, which is also important for eliminating cancerous cells.
The framework of the four causes also led Thomas Aquinas to conclude that a prime mover exists as an immaterial, eternal, and unchanging entity that is the ultimate source of all motion and change in the universe. He influenced Descartes, who found certainty in thought, even while doubting everything else since doubting is a form of thinking that could not be doubted. This led him to "Cogito, ergo sum", "I think, therefore I am". He thought mind and body as made of distinct substances, leading him to conclude that the mind, the thinking thing, is fundamentally different from the body, the physical thing. The mind, the immaterial and immortal soul, sits in the driver's seat of the body and perceives the sensory inputs staged in a Cartesian theater, and pushes buttons and pulls levers to make the body move in response. However, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, corresponding with Descartes, wondered, “How can the immaterial soul perceive the sensory inputs and push the buttons and pull the levels of a material body? Is there another way to create a mind?
As Dennett argues in his Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, natural selection eliminates the need for the final cause. The forces of nature, the efficient cause, are sufficient to give matter its form. He noted that in parts of Alaska and the Norwegian islands of Spitsbergen, stones appeared to be piled to form circles, polygons, stripes, islands, and labyrinths. Pranksters are not at work in these remote areas, nor are aliens, or elves moving stones to make these patterns. Kessler and Werner found that the cyclic freezing and thawing of the ground drives a simple feedback mechanism that generates these patterns, which are examples of self-organization without a mystical Zen gardener.
The Darwinian Paradigm holds that laws of physics and chemistry are sufficient to transform carbon compounds in the various cycles found in underwater plumes to become the metabolic pathways of living cells. The template for the enzymes facilitating those pathways is encoded in long chains of nucleic acids and passed on beneficial changes to subsequent generations. Sexual reproduction speeds up the spread of beneficial genetic changes and expedites descent without modification. Could life have arisen for a reason without a reasoner? Could matter act competently without comprehension? Is it possible for a material process to evolve minds to think immaterial thoughts?
We invite you to continue our conversation on Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds, B105.C477D445 2017, on July 5, 2025, from 2 PM to 4 PM.