review and précis of terrence deacon’s incomplete nature how mind emerged from matter审查和摘要terrence执事的不完整自然心灵摆脱物质.pdfVIP

Information 2012, 3, 290-306; doi:10.3390/info3030290 OPEN ACCESS information ISSN 2078-2489 /journal/information Review Review and Précis of Terrence Deacon’s Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter Robert K. Logan 1,2 1 Department of Physics and St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, 60 St. George St., Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada 2 Strategic Innovation Lab OCAD University, Toronto, ON M5T 1W1, Canada; E-Mail: logan@physics.utoronto.ca; Tel.: +1-416-361-5928 Received: 25 June 2012; in revised form: 23 July 2012 / Accepted: 30 July 2012 / Published: 7 August 2012 Abstract: We review and summarize Terrence Deacon’s book, Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter . Keywords: thermodynamics; morphodynamics; teleodynamics; ententional; absential; information; constraints 1. Introduction Terrence Deacon, a UC Berkeley professor of biological anthropology and neuroscience, has written a fascinating study, Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter [1], in which he attempts to deal with issues such as values, purpose, meaning, from a scientific perspective. He also attempts to “first understand life, then sentience, then the human mind (p. 466) [2]” in terms of what he calls absentials, which he defines in terms of the constraints on physical matter as is described below. He also attempts to find an alternative to dualism that is compatible with canonical scientific thinking. The book contains the