Theorizing that the human brain and language developed in concert, a study of the origin of language argues that the seeds of language grew and developed in pair bonding between proto- and early-human males and females.

The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Deacon, Terrence W.

Psychology & Counseling

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

A radical new explanation of how life and consciousness emerge from physics and chemistry. As physicists work toward completing a theory of the universe and biologists unravel the molecular complexity of life, a glaring incompleteness in this scientific vision becomes apparent. The "Theory of Everything" that appears to be emerging includes everything but us: the feelings, meanings, consciousness, and purposes that make us (and many of our animal cousins) what we are. These most immediate and incontrovertible phenomena are left unexplained by the natural sciences because they lack the physical properties―such as mass, momentum, charge, and location―that are assumed to be necessary for something to have physical consequences in the world. This is an unacceptable omission. We need a "theory of everything" that does not leave it absurd that we exist. Incomplete Nature begins by accepting what other theories try to deny: that, although mental contents do indeed lack these material-energetic properties, they are still entirely products of physical processes and have an unprecedented kind of causal power that is unlike anything that physics and chemistry alone have so far explained. Paradoxically, it is the intrinsic incompleteness of these semiotic and teleological phenomena that is the source of their unique form of physical influence in the world. Incomplete Nature meticulously traces the emergence of this special causal capacity from simple thermodynamics to self-organizing dynamics to living and mental dynamics, and it demonstrates how specific absences (or constraints) play the critical causal role in the organization of physical processes that generate these properties. The book's radically challenging conclusion is that we are made of these specific absenses―such stuff as dreams are made on―and that what is not immediately present can be as physically potent as that which is. It offers a figure/background shift that shows how even meanings and values can be understood as legitimate components of the physical world. 12 black-and-white illustrations

Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

W.W.Norton&Company

"A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."―New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain

“A tour de force encompassing biology, neurobiology, metaphysics, information theory, physics, and semiotics.”―Publishers Weekly As scientists study the minutiae of subatomic particles, neural connections, and molecular compounds, their attempts at a “theory of everything” harbor a glaring omission: they still cannot explain us, the thoughts and perceptions that truly make us what we are. A masterwork that brings together science and philosophy, Incomplete Nature offers a revolutionary, captivating account of how life and consciousness emerged, revealing how our desires, feelings, and intentions can be understood in terms of the physical world. 12 illustrations

Naturaleza incompleta: Cómo la mente emergió de la materia

Tusquets Editores S.A.

La specie simbolica. Coevoluzione di cervello e capacità linguistiche

Giovanni Fioriti Editore

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Books by Deacon, Terrence W.