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.