I'm quite interested in Dawkins' selfish molecule thought experiment, and the way it was referenced in this interview. It seems to me that it is paradoxical. "Imagine you were a molecule, what would you do to to survive?" Shermer says.
It seems to me that, under Dawkins' own materialist paradigm, the answer would have to be, 'nothing', because a molecule has no consciousness. Because surely, the desire to survive must be based on an entity valuing itself, then directing itself (assuming the means to do so) to preserve this valued self; and surely to value itself it needs to be aware of itself; which is to say it needs to be conscious, even if at only some dim atavistic level. Thus it seems to me that Dawkins' thought experiment can only work under a metaphysical schema that Deepak would agree with wholeheartedly. So I'm confused. Maybe someone can explain to me how supposedly inert matter acts to preserve itself, and why the dead aren't rising out of their graves to continue the struggle for survival.
Paradoxically the same camp correlates the phenomenon of consciousness to complexity of interconnectivity. For them, consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain's inconceivably complex neurological interactions, just as one day our computers are going to turn on us, when they suddenly develop their own sufficient complexity to emerge into consciousness. And yet a molecule is already sufficiently complex to be be an actor in its own struggle for survival.
Doesn't Dawkins' thought experiment presuppose that a.) a molecule is not conscious, because it is not complex; b.) but it still values itself, (despite not being conscious); and c.) it can still somehow somehow direct itself to create new situations or maintain serendipitous situations favourable to its continued existence (despite not being conscious)?