“Ordinarily we believe that other human beings are conscious, and almost everyone believes that other mammals and birds are conscious too. But people differ over whether fish are conscious, or insects, worms, and jellyfish. They are still more doubtful about whether one-celled animals like amoebae and paramecia have conscious experiences, even though such creatures react conspicuously to stimuli of various kinds. Most people believe that plants aren’t conscious; and almost no one believes that rocks are conscious, or Kleenex, or automobiles, or mountain lakes, or cigarettes. And to take another biological example, most of us would say if we thought about it, that the individual cells of which our bodies are composed do not have conscious experiences.”

“It is highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection.”

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.”

— Thomas Nagel (c.2000) (Ѻ)

“I am drawn to a fourth alternative, natural teleology, or teleological bias, as an account of the existence of the biological possibilities on which natural selection can operate. I believe that teleology is a naturalistic alternative that is distinct from all three of the other candidate explanations: chance, creationism, and directionless physical law. To avoid the mistake that White [Roger White] finds in the hypothesis of nonintentional bias, teleology would have to be restrictive in what it makes likely, but without depending on intentions or motives. This would probably have to involve some conception of an increase in value through the expanded possibilities provided by the higher forms of organization toward which nature tends: not just any outcome could qualify as a telos. That would make value an explanatory end, but not one that is realized through the purposes or intentions of an agent. Teleology means that in addition to physical law of the familiar kind, there are other laws of nature that are "biased toward the marvelous".”

— Thomas Nagel (2012), Mind and Cosmos (Ѻ)