Keyword: emergence

In my book, The Entangled Brain, I proposed that it is productive to view the brain and a complex, entangled system, one in which the parts dynamically assemble into coalitions that support complex cognitive–emotional behaviors (Pessoa, 2022a). An entangled system is a deeply context-dependent one in which the function of parts (such as a brain […]

Published Open Access in Minds and Machines Abstract: Enactivism advances an understanding of cognition rooted in the dynamic interac- tion between an embodied agent and their environment, whilst new mechanism sug- gests that cognition is explained by uncovering the organised components underlying cognitive capacities. On the face of it, the mechanistic model’s emphasis on localisable […]

This post consists of excerpts from Juarrero’s forthcoming book, Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence (MIT Press 2023). In the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog the scorpion asks the frog to ferry it across the river safely. When the frog hesitates, fearful the scorpion would kill it, the scorpion protests that doing […]

From the Symbolic Species to Incomplete Nature Auguste Nahas  So it’s only in your first book, The Symbolic Species, that you came back to Peirce.  Terrence Deacon Yes. I was thinking about the evolutionary origins of human language. It was very clear to me that you just couldn’t talk about ‘pre-language’. Animals aren’t speaking in […]

Undergraduate & Graduate Days: Peirce, Cybernetics, Neuroscience Terrence Deacon is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches the co-evolution of language and the human brain. His recent work has touched on diverse questions at the intersection of philosophy and biology, such as the nature of complexity and the place […]