December 2007
Monthly Archive
Emergent dynamics: A path from matter to mattering
Posted by Terrence Deacon on 16 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Emergence
Emergent evolution
The Symbolic Species argued that socially produced and transmitted protolanguage created a novel environment that selected for genetic and developmental changes that produced multiple interdependent adaptations that synergistically support language structure, acquisition, & processing.
Evolutionary emergence of a novel functional “synergy” in the brain
Grafting a third eye on a frog embryo produces a phylogenetically unprecedented interdigitated visual “map” that is analogous to cat and primate ocular dominance columns. It emerges due to selforganizing effects of neuronal activity on synaptic competition.
A Lazy Gene hypothesis
Constraints emerge during the interactions of the components (e.g. cells) of growing organisms that can contribute to the spontaneous emergence of regularities which can often be sources of adaptive organization. To the extent that epigenesis can take advantage of spontaneous self-organization or extrinsic regularities, the genome will offload control and shift to regulating contextual variables.
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Multilevel selection in a complex adaptive system: The Problem of Language Origins
Posted by Terrence Deacon on 16 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Emergence
Multilevel selection in a complex adaptive system: the problem of language origins.
Terrence W. Deacon
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
Draft of chapter to be published in B. Weber & D. Depew (eds.) Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered. MIT Press, 2003
Abbreviated title: Multilevel Selection and Language Evolution
1. Introduction: Recipes for Failure
Theories of language origins have almost universally been embarrassments to empirical science. This is because they are typically like narratives exemplifying certain linguistic theories and deep philosophical commitments, rather than efforts to understand the processes involved in generating this uniquely complex phenomenon. The reasons for this tendency are not hard to find. There is an almost complete absence of direct evidence of the process itself; an incomprehensibly complex organ (the brain) underlying the capacity to acquire and use language; and many competing philosophical preconceptions that all make strong claims about the nature of language and its role in human cognitive uniqueness. These are serious constraints and biases (though in at least one of these areas-neuroscience-there has been considerable progress in developing critical tools and compiling relevant evidence). These limits have licensed the acceptance of considerably more speculation in this field than in many others. But even as some of these limitations are becoming removed, as relevant comparative and developmental linguistic and neurological data are becoming available, I believe we are still crippled in a more fundamental way by theoretical biases and naïveté.
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Evolution and intelligence: Beyond the argument from design.
Posted by Terrence Deacon on 16 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Emergence