*Terrence W. Deacon* # Progressive Summary # Definitions functionalism - "the idea that something can have real causal efficacy in the world independent of the specific components that constitute it" # Chapter Notes ## 0 - Absence The invention of the zero opened up whole new possibilities for mathematics. It took the West a millenium of struggle to get there. There was a lot of resistance to the idea that an absence of something needed to be given a representation. There is an analogous blind spot in science, which can't seem to accomodate phonemena that do not have a material basis, and yet which undeniably play a causal role in the world - purposes, meanings, and values. Deacon uses the example of a boy skimming a pebble across water. We could explain that by any number of physical causes, but none would have more explanatory or predictive power than appealing to his mental states, such as his memory of seeing someone else throw the pebble last summer. He calls these "absential relationships". ## 1 - W(holes) The word "tele" has its origins in 2 different Greek words. One is "telos", which means purpose. The other is ?, which means at a distance (ie telescope, television, telepathy). Both capture the idea that there is something extrinsic to an object which explains its behaviour. The word "intention" has two meanings. The folk meaning refers to our purpose. There's also a philosophical meaning which describes how the object of a reference is not present. Deacon coins the word "ententional", to refer to how in both the social and the natural world, there is a way in which something absent plays a causal role. In nature, it could be how the healthy functioning of a body guides the behaviour of an organ. In social environments, it could be the meanings, purposes, etc. The difference between machines and life is that in machines the parts have to be built up to create a whole, whereas life starts out being whole and then evolves through division and differentiation. This is essentially the insight that Goethe, and then Steiner had. It was their revolt against Descartes' mechanistic view of the universe. ## 2 - Homunculi A homunculus argument is one in which "an ententional property is presumed to be explained by postulating the existence of a faculty, disposition, or module that produces it, and in which this property is not also fully understood in terms of non-ententional processes and relationships." # Quotes > In the history of culture, the discovery of zero will always stand out as one of the greatest single achievements of the human race. > – Tobias Dantzig, 1930 [Dantzig 2005 - Number: the language of science](zotero://select/items/1_M9RSWRQ3) # References I re-discovered this book via a book on biosemiotics.