Errata and Comments - absence/absence.github.com GitHub Wiki

Contents

Acknowledgements

0: ABSENCE

The missing cipher

What matters?

2013-02-01 ~ Theo: page 5: regarding autopoesis, I find Deacons's dismissal of the theory to be so curt, that I fail to grasp its meaning.

Calculating with absence

A Zeno's paradox of the mind

"As simple as possible, but not too simple"

1: (W)HOLES

A stone's throw

What's missing?

Denying the magic

Telos ex machina

Ex nihilo nihil fit

2013-01-13 ~ Theo: Wikipedia seems to have a slightly different version about Lucretius being the original source for ex nihilo nihil fit.

When less is more

2: HOMUNCULI

The little man in my head

Homuncular representations

The vessel of teleology

Hiding final cause

Gods of the gaps

Preformation and epigenesis

Mentalese

Mind all the way down?

3: GOLEMS

2013-01-13 ~ Theo: Among the many well-known golems that Deacon does not mention, one of my favorites is the Sorcerer's Apprentice. There are many tellings of this tale: Goethe's being the canonical version but the episode in [Fantasia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer%27s_Apprentice_(Dukas)) is perhaps the most loved.

Elimination Schemes

Heads of the Hydra

Dead truth

The ghost in the computer

The ballad of Deep Blue

4: TELEONOMY

4.1 Back to the future

2013-01-21 ~ Theo ~ Page 108: There's a bit of jump in the thought process that I don't really follow: From paragraph ending on the Second law being a tendency but not a necessity. First sentence next paragraph jumps to time reversal appearing implicit, also Aristotle's 'final cause'.

The Law of Effect

Pseudopurpose

Blood, brains, and silicon

Fractions of life

The road not taken

5: EMERGENCE

Novelty

The evolution of emergence

Reductionism

The emergentists

A house of cards?

Complexity and "chaos"

Processes and parts

6: CONSTRAINT

2013-01-13 ~ Theo: Contraints is a difficult topic. It moght be a good thing to draw up a list of example constraints...

Habits

2013-01-13 ~ Theo: page 185 ~ Why is the word 'Scholastic' capitalized? Ditto page 375 and 550?

Redundancy

More similar = less different

Concrete abstraction

Nothing is irreducible

7: HOMEODYNAMICS

Why things change

A brief history of energy

Falling and forcing

Reframing thermodynamics

A formal cause of efficient causes?

8: MORPHODYNAMICS

Order from disorder

Self-simplification

Far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics

Rayleigh-Bénard convection: A case study

The diversity of morphodynamic processes

The exception that proves the rule

9: TELEODYNAMICS

A common dynamical thread

Linked origins

Compounded asymmetries

Self-reproducing mechanisms

What is life?

Frankencells

10: AUTOGENESIS

The threshold of function

Autocatalysis

Containment

Synergy

Autogens

Autogenic evolution

The ratchet of life

The emergence of teleodynamics

11: WORK

Forced to change

Effort

Against spontaneity

Transformation

Morphodynamic work

Teleodynamic work

Emergent causal powers

12: INFORMATION

Missing the difference

Omissions, expectations, and absences

Two entropies

Information and reference

It takes work

Taming the demon

13: SIGNIFICANCE

Aboutness matters

Beyond cybernetics

Working it out

Interpretation

Noise versus error

Darwinian information

From noise to signal

Information emerging

Representation

14: EVOLUTION

Natural elimination

"Life's several powers"

Abiogenesis

The replicator's new clothes

Autogenic interpretation

Energetics to genetics

Falling into complexity

15: SELF

Starting small

Individuation

Selves made of selves

Neuronal self

Self-differentiation

The locus of agency

Evolution's answer to nominalism

The extentionless cogito

16: SENTIENCE

Missing the forest for the trees

Sentience versus intelligence

The complement to computation

Computing with meat

From organism to brain

17: CONSCIOUSNESS

The hierarchy of sentience

Emotion and energy

The thermodynamics of thought

2013-01-13 ~ Theo: in my Kindle version the final 't' is missing in the word 'thought' in the title of this section.

Whence suffering?

Being here

Conclusion of the beginning

EPILOGUE

Nothing matters

The calculus of intentionality

Value

Glossary

Notes

References

Index