Academic articles by Terrence Deacon and colleagues addressing issues in the material emergence of information, value, purpose, function, end-directedness, life and consciousness from inanimate origins. Telos is Greek for purpose or final cause–that for which something occurs. For those who study nature either from a scientific or religious perspective, Telos has become the elephant in the room. Scientists generally deny it a role in shaping behavior, instead concentrating on understanding behavior as the product of elements, mechanisms and laws, but as a result have a hard time explaining much of what is interesting about living systems. Religious people embrace life’s purpose but have a hard time explaining how purpose emerged and evolves. Teleodynamics is the scientific study of the dynamics that give rise to purposive behavior. It seeks, and is finding a strictly scientific explanation for the physical origins of behaviors such as ours, so clearly shaped by our purposes. This research topic was formalized by Terrence Deacon, biological anthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University 1984) who taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Biological Anthropology and Neuroscience at Berkeley. This site shares the result of ongoing research. http://www.teleodynamics.com en-us Copyright 2008 Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:12:15 +0200 Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:12:15 +0200 http://www.teleodynamics.com js@teleodynamics.com () js@teleodynamics.com From matter to mattering From matter to mattering js@teleodynamics.com No http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=56 Evolution and intelligence: beyond the argument from design.... Podcasts Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:17:50 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No Evolution and intelligence: beyond the argument from design. Evolution and intelligence: beyond the argument from design. 03:41:21 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=53 The investigation of the neural basis and evolution of language abilities is best pursued as a search for language adaptations rather than as a search for the language faculty. The species-uniqueness of language functions is contrasted with the conserved homologies linking human brain structures to ... Podcasts Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:19:29 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No The investigation of the neural basis and evolution of language abilities is best pursued as a search for language adaptations rather than as a search for the language faculty. The species-uniqueness The investigation of the neural basis and evolution of language abilities is best pursued as a search for language adaptations rather than as a search for the language faculty. The species-uniqueness of language functions is contrasted with the conserved homologies linking human brain structures to anthropoid primate brain structures, and the failure to find species-specific neuroanatomical or genetic correlates of linguistically-defined innate features of language (e.g. universal grammar). Comparisons to animal call systems demonstrate minimal anatomical overlap between language systems these vocal functions, and yet extensive overlap with the anatomical substrates of gestural language production, suggesting that language evolution did not proceed by progressive elaboration from nonhuman vocal communication. Although there are no unambiguous gross neuroanatomical dishomologies distinguishing human brains that would suggest a role in language processing, there are clear allometric deviations of quantitative traits, including both gross brain size and deviant scaling of internal structural relationships in human brains, that suggest plausible roles in language processing. Evidence of correlated changes in patterns of axonal connections also implicate the extensive allometric deviations of human brains with language adaptations. One of the most likely correlates of allometrically-related connection change related to language evolution involves the existence of direct cortical projections to the nucleus ambiguous (the laryngeal control nucleus of the brainstem), which are likely absent in other mammals. This enables humans to have articulate control over the viscero-motor lung and larynx control systems and to couple this with articulate control of the skeletal-motor tongue, facial, and jaw muscles. Tracer studies and physiological recording studies of the macaque monkey ventral premotor and prefrontal cortex provide evidence of extensive homology of connectivity, suggesting that the circuits associated with these cortical areas were recruited for language processing during human evolution. Also cells in adjacent macaque premotor cortex that differentially fire with respect to self-initiated and other-initiated grasping behaviors. This suggests that the human homologue to this or nearby areas might be relevant to the mimicry necessary to acquire language. Genetic studies of human language adaptations have identified a gene, FOXP2, that is damaged in an inherited language deficit that affects automatizion of speech and syntactic processes. It turns out to be a highly conserved gene regulating forebrain basal ganglia development in embryogenesis. The human version of the gene contains two unique point mutations, neither of which is implicated in the language disorder. The functional difference produced by these changes are not known, but appear to have spread quickly in the early human population. The homologues to this gene in other species also play roles in vocal behavior. This genetic change is probably only one of a great many that contribute the adaptation for language. These sources of comparative functional and anatomical information argue against saltationist scenarios that hypothesize a sudden recent appearance of language abilities, and instead suggest that many diverse adaptations converged to make language possible. Download PDF of full article 03:10:31 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=51 Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science Winter 2007 By Jeremy Sherman Expression College for Digital Arts and Terrence Deacon University of California, Berkeley Introduction Among the issues of greatest and most pressing interest at the interface between scientific and spiritual underst... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:16:38 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science Winter 2007 By Jeremy Sherman Expression College for Digital Arts and Terrence Deacon University of California, Berkeley Introduction Among the iss Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science Winter 2007 By Jeremy Sherman Expression College for Digital Arts and Terrence Deacon University of California, Berkeley Introduction Among the issues of greatest and most pressing interest at the interface between scientific and spiritual understandings of reality are questions regarding the nature and origins of teleological phenomena; i.e. end-directed processes and properties, like functions, representations, intentions, purposes, meanings, values, and of course subjective consciousness. We refer to this diverse array of phenomena as all exhibiting a general property we will call telos, (from the Greek: end, aim, goal, purpose, completion, fulfillment), referring to their common feature of being organized with respect to some end or intended content, and closely related to Aristotle’s notion of a final cause: that for the sake of which something exists or is done. Unfortunately, an immense logical chasm appears to exist between explanations of things given in the terms of telos and explanations given in terms of the familiar pushes and pulls of physics and chemistry. For the most part, the history of the natural sciences during the past two centuries has been characterized by a systematic effort to eliminate teleological explanations. This is because they are essentially truncated explanations; accounts of phenomena that point to black boxes and then stop. To say that an intention, belief, or desire is the cause of something does no more than point to some location, typically in a human agent, without saying anything about the specific details of the mechanism involved. There is very little doubt that physical-chemical processes taking place in a body are critical to the physical consequence that ensue, but such an account says nothing about the relationships that link these processes to the mental representations that human experience tells us were the origins of this process. So everyday human experience appears to result from an intractably contradictory combination of clockwork and purpose. Download PDF of full article Audio: Contemporary science and philosophy have not yet found an acceptable way to deal with this dilemma that both retains the precision and completeness of a scientific account and yet also does justice to the distinctiveness of teleological processes and particularly the unique internal subjective experience of representation and agency. This is not necessarily a problem for those in the two extreme camps who are either satisfied with an account of teleology as ineffable mystery or convinced that it is purely epiphenomenal. Ultimately, however, lack of a constructive scientific account of telos is a dilemma for any more modest view that both holds to the rigor of science and to the undeniable reality of teleological phenomena. This is a dilemma that must ultimately be resolved within science, by showing how telos can be both consistent with natural science and not merely impotent and illusory. Explaining and explaining away Historically, we can discern four main categories of attempts to explain or explain away telos: Preformationist answers posit that these special phenomena are already present fully formed in the very fabric of the universe. For example, some argue that the mental realm with its implicit meaning and value is pre-formed in the mind of God; or that information is a basic component of all patterned physical phenomena so that it is implicit in quantum events and intrinsic to DNA molecules. Eliminativist answers posit that these special phenomena not only aren’t as special as they appear, but in fact are conceptual mirages, the residue of pre-scientific thinking. For example, some argue that consciousness is nothing more than chemical processes in brains, that mental representation and the experience of ag 03:19:41 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=49 Our understanding of speech and language disorders may be aided by information about the constraints and predispositions contributed by neural developmental processes. As soon as we begin to look at human neuroanatomy and development from a comparative perspective, it is possible to recognize a numb... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:09:08 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No Our understanding of speech and language disorders may be aided by information about the constraints and predispositions contributed by neural developmental processes. As soon as we begin to look at h Our understanding of speech and language disorders may be aided by information about the constraints and predispositions contributed by neural developmental processes. As soon as we begin to look at human neuroanatomy and development from a comparative perspective, it is possible to recognize a number of ways that human brains diverge from the general pattern of other ape and monkey brains. These divergences may offer clues to language evolution. Large-scale quantitative changes in the relative proportions of brain regions (as opposed to just overall expansion) offer some of the most obvious clues. Additional information about how axons are guided in their extensions to distant developmental targets and how competitive trophic processes sculpt these connections also provides a way to understand how gross quantitative changes in cell numbers could affect circuit organization and ultimately behavior. Download PDF of full article 02:45:32 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=47 ABSTRACT: Language is a spontaneously evolved emergent adaptation, not a formal computational system. Its structure does not derive from either innate or social instruction but rather self-organization and selection. Its quasi-universal features emerge from the interactions among semiotic constraint... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:03:49 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No ABSTRACT: Language is a spontaneously evolved emergent adaptation, not a formal computational system. Its structure does not derive from either innate or social instruction but rather self-organizatio ABSTRACT: Language is a spontaneously evolved emergent adaptation, not a formal computational system. Its structure does not derive from either innate or social instruction but rather self-organization and selection. Its quasi-universal features emerge from the interactions among semiotic constraints, neural processing limitations, and social transmission dynamics. The neurological processing of sentence structure is more analogous to embryonic differentiation than to algorithmic computation. The biological basis of this unprecedented adaptation is not located in some unique neurological structure nor the result of any single mutation, but is vested in the synergistic interaction of numerous co-evolved neurological biases and social dynamics. Download PDF of full article 02:41:11 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=45 "Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of and to remember. The first is that a person is not absolutely an individual. His thoughts are what he is "saying to himself," that is, is saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time. When one reasons, it is that ... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:50:10 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No "Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of and to remember. The first is that a person is not absolutely an individual. His thoughts are what he is "saying to himself," that is, is saying "Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of and to remember. The first is that a person is not absolutely an individual. His thoughts are what he is "saying to himself," that is, is saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time. When one reasons, it is that critical self that one is trying to persuade; and all thought whatsoever is a sign, and is mostly of the nature of language. The second thing to remember is that the man's circle of society (however widely or narrowly this phrase may be understood), is a sort of loosely compacted person, in some respects of higher rank than the person of an individual organism." (5.423) 1. Introduction Semiotics, the general theory of signs and signification, was first formally developed by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce just before the turn of the last century. Although Peirce is probably best known for being the founder of Pragmatism, these two studies are for him completely interdependent. Unfortunately, they are often treated separately by his modern interpreters. This has been paralleled by a tendency, in modern interpretations of semiotics, to neglect the pragmatic issues involved in understanding signification, focusing instead on the relationships between the sign and the signified or between signs themselves independent of what is signified. Peirce on the other hand began his study of signs as a development from a broader philosophical problem. His studies of Kant and Hegel led him quite early in his career to the discovery of a powerful categorical system. Based on three fundamental concepts which he called a First, Second, and Third, it became the cornerstone for all his later philosophical work including the theory of signs. Modern philosophers have suggested that these concepts may be among the most important contributions to philosophy by any American philosopher.3 This system has, however, all but vanished from current semiotic theories due to the difficulties of making these ideas clear (even though all aspects of his semiotic classification scheme depends on it). I will attempt here to reconstruct these ideas in the light of current advances in systems and information theories in order to reintroduce Peirce's semiotics. Without beginning from a clear understanding of these fundamental tools, with which the theory was fashioned, Peirce's semiotics must remain finally incomprehensible and arbitrary. Download PDF of full article In contrast to many current semiotic studies, Peirce did not consider it necessary as a pioneer in this area to collect, classify, and describe a wide variety of natural and man made signs. This has left a paucity of exemplars to help decode his meanings in some cases. He recognized, however, that the initial steps in this study would necessarily involve a focus on a reformulation of the metaphysical sign relation itself, so he directed most of his efforts towards the construction of this philosophical foundation. Unfortunately this system has been ignored, misunderstood, essentially abandoned by modern semioticians, even as they borrow heavily from the system of sign relations it defines. Peirce did not work backwards from examples to identifying the characteristics exhibited by different kinds of signs. Instead he began by systematically outlining all the possible varieties of signification from a general theory of the sign-function. He focused his investigation on the nature of the function itself rather than on any particular examples of signs because he recognized early on that this could be misleading. The particular quality, event or object that serves in the capacity of a signifier or sign vehicle5 need exhibit no other connection to that which it signifies except the fact that in a particular interpretive context one represents the other. This is not to say that this s 04:32:53 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=43 Abstract: Despite decades of research that has revolutionized the neurosciences, efforts to explain the major features of human brain evolution are still mostly based on superficial gross neuroanatomical features (e.g. size, sulcal patterns) and on theories of selection for high-level functions that... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:45:51 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No Abstract: Despite decades of research that has revolutionized the neurosciences, efforts to explain the major features of human brain evolution are still mostly based on superficial gross neuroanatomi Abstract: Despite decades of research that has revolutionized the neurosciences, efforts to explain the major features of human brain evolution are still mostly based on superficial gross neuroanatomical features (e.g. size, sulcal patterns) and on theories of selection for high-level functions that lack precise neurobiological predictions (e.g. general intelligence, innate grammar). Beyond its large size we still lack an account of what makes a human brain different. However, advances in comparative neuroanatomy, developmental biology, and genetics have radically changed our understanding of brain development. These data challenge classic ideas about brain size, intelligence, and the addition of new functions, such as language, and they provide tools with which we can test hypotheses about how human brains diverge from other primate brains. Download PDF of full article Audio: 02:41:40 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=39 One of the great mysteries of animal development is how the cells in mouse embryos and elephant embryos know how many times to divide before committing to fixed cell fates in each tissue in order to produce proportioned adult bodies of vastly differing sizes. Given the incredible difference in scale... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:15:22 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No One of the great mysteries of animal development is how the cells in mouse embryos and elephant embryos know how many times to divide before committing to fixed cell fates in each tissue in order to p One of the great mysteries of animal development is how the cells in mouse embryos and elephant embryos know how many times to divide before committing to fixed cell fates in each tissue in order to produce proportioned adult bodies of vastly differing sizes. Given the incredible difference in scale from zygote to adult organism, it is remarkable that many comparative morphological relationships exhibit highly predictable scaling patterns in animals of different sizes. Such regularities imply that the control of differentiation and growth is highly conserved and tightly regulated even when extrapolated in time and space over many orders of magnitude. Not surprisingly, elephants take longer to grow than do mice, and they also take longer to reach developmental stages comparable to those of mice. Surprisingly, the two animals reach these different end points from highly similar beginnings and by using almost identical mechanisms extrapolated to different degrees during development. Thus, the timing mechanisms underlying development play critical roles in animal design, and their variations are widely cited as likely major factors in morphological evolution. Time, growth, and developmental differentiation of tissues are linked variables, but the mechanisms linking them, the extent to which each is dissociable from the others, and the role these relationships play in the evolution of animal forms remain poorly understood. Download PDF of full article When Ernst Haeckel coined the term heterochrony, he applied it to either the accelerated or the retarded maturation or growth of an organ with respect to its embryonic developmental timing in an ancestor. He was particularly interested in cases that disrupted true recapitulation as he conceived of it. Although critical of the assumptions behind Haeckel's "biogenic law," which served as the reference frame for the definition of heterochrony, many subsequent writers (such as de Beer, Gould, and McKinney) have argued for the value of retaining the term heterochrony irrespective of his larger theoretical scheme. They have advocated using it more generally, however, to refer to any shift in the timing of developmental events relative to one another as compared with their developmental relationships in some ancestral condition. These more contemporary heterochrony theories echo Haeckel's view that mosaic changes in developmental timing can explain marly important trends in morphological evolution, and their proponent5 have collected diverse examples of organisms that exhibit apparently paedomorphic (developmentally regressive) or peramorphic (developmentally extrapolative) traits in adulthood (for more precise definitions, see the chapters by McKinney and Shea, this volume). Yet the precise identification of these developmental modifications in different phylogenetic comparisons has not been uncontroversial. Humans, in particular, have been variously described as neotenous, paedomorphic, or peramorphic bv different researchers over the past century (and also in different chapter in this volume), often with specific reference to the growth and developmental timing of the brain and brain functions. Many of these apparently incompatible conclusions reflect differences in the ways these terms have been defined over the many generations in which they have been used. Efforts to systematize the use of these concepts in recent years have helped to resolve some of the confusion. Some of the variety of interpretation, however, may also reflect deeper theoretical disagreements about how these concepts should apply to different levels of cellular, morphological, and functional development. Stephen Jay Gould introduced a widely influential way of conceiving of morphological heterochrony with his notion of linked developmental clocks for size, shape, and age (e.g., time to sexual maturation). 03:31:32 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=37 PP Download PDF of full article Audio: ... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:03:47 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No PP Download PDF of full article Audio: PP Download PDF of full article Audio: 02:32:13 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63 http://www.teleodynamics.com/?p=63?file=35 Terrence W. Deacon, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley Chapter 14 in: Bruce Weber & David Depew (eds.) Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered. MIT Press, 2003 1 Introduction ". . . something more from nothing but." Biological evolution is chara... Podcasts Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:02:21 +0200 js@teleodynamics.com No Terrence W. Deacon, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley Chapter 14 in: Bruce Weber & David Depew (eds.) Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered. MIT P Terrence W. Deacon, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley Chapter 14 in: Bruce Weber & David Depew (eds.) Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered. MIT Press, 2003 1 Introduction ". . . something more from nothing but." Biological evolution is characterized by a collection of highly convoluted processes that produce a remarkably complex kind of combinatorial novelty. The contention of this paper is that biological evolution and evolutionary processes in general are a subset of processes drawn from a much larger set of novelty-producing processes that also includes self-assembly and self-organizing processes. Not only does it appear that these are related concepts, I think it is also clear that they are interdependent in complex and subtle ways that have yet to be fully delineated, especially in the processes of life and mind. It is also suspected by many writers that a synthesis that successfully integrates the logic of these various kinds of creative processes will do more than significantly advance our understanding of how life came about and how thoughts and experiences are generated. It could possibly also provide new insights into the very nature of physical causality. But there are some broad theoretical issues that stand in the way of this outcome. These issues derive from a set of unresolved problems about the nature of physical novelty itself, and how we conceive of its origination in terms of current theories of causality. These most enigmatic physical phenomena all have something to do with creative or originative processes in nature, and for this reason seem inevitably to come in conflict with our otherwise quite successful reductionistic account of most other aspects of the world. A more general term often used to describe this larger class of spontaneous, and only weakly predictable, order-generating processes is "emergence." This is a promising abstract explanatory concept, but one that is at risk of becoming overused and too vague for any technical purposes, precisely because of its generality and only partially specified meanings. The purpose of this essay is to take the concept apart and to attempt to discern what (if any) features about physical causal processes it accurately reflects, so that it contributes to the empirical investigation of biological and mental processes, and not just to philosophizing about them. Download PDF of full article The concept of emergence probably has gained its worst reputation when it has been used in a primarily negative sense, i.e. to point to something missing in reductionistic explanations. In explicitly anti-reductionistic criticisms of standard accounts of such phenomena as life and mind, it has come to be a code word identified with a complex systems theoretic perspective. In this use, the concept of emergence is a place-marker intended to indicate points where standard reductionistic accounts fail or seem incompletely to explain apparent discontinuities in properties exhibited at different levels of physical scale. This negative usage has unfortunately led many more orthodox thinkers to suspect that there is no underlying phenomenon to be described, only a vague suspicion due to incomplete analysis. On the other hand, in examples where it has been more precisely described (e.g., the emergence of liquidity or surface tensions from the interactions of water molecules), it is seen as adding nothing of empirical significance to standard physical reductionistic accounts. And finally, where it is used to describe more complex phenomena (e.g., emergence of life or mind), the details and logic are sufficiently obscured by incomplete scientific investigation to be of much use. Incautious uses allow critics to rightfully claim that it mostly serves only as a sort of philosophically motivated promissory note. Neverthe 03:17:58