INCOMPLETE NATURE: HOW MIND EMERGED FROM MATTER

'Tis said that nature abhors a vacuum. But implicit in this phrase is that nature loves a vacuum and rushes in to fill it at the first opportunity. In this 'monster' of a book entitled Incomplete Nature Terrence Deacon, neuroscientist and anthropologist (Univ. California) makes compelling arguments for what he calls "absential" features: that is for the importance of what is missing or incomplete. He holds that "a causal role for absence appears to be absent from the natural sciences…[which are only] … interested in explaining things that are materially and energetically present." Moreover, he makes the case that absential features are particularly important in understanding emergence of life and mind (consciousness). As subjective meaning and value are absent (excluded) from the natural sciences, despite their importance in everyday life "our theories of how the world works…[have].. implicitly denied our very existence" causing distrust of science as an enemy of human values. [If I may jump ahead to use some of Deacon's reasoning, science has constrained itself by excluding values to such a degree that this very constraint is forcing the emergence of a new paradigm to compensate for what is missing. Nature abhors a vacuum! Incidentally the notion of emergent evolution can be traced back at least to the 1920s].

The reader should be warned that Deacon's 545 page exposition is aptly described, in one cover blurb, as "dense and breathtaking." Dense indeed, as the book enters into wide ranging and detailed chapters on Teleonomy, Emergence, Constraint, Homeodynamics, Morphodynamics, Teleodynamics, Autogenesis, (there is a glossary!!), and finally, but no less densely, Work, Information, Significance, Evolution, Self, Sentience and Consciousness. Excuse me while I do some breath taking!! But I do not imply any criticism of density, except perhaps my own in understanding such a dense oeuvre. Deacon is clearly a remarkable polymath who honours the tradition with an impressive grasp of the sciences and philosophy, respecting the best they have to offer while diplomatically pointing out their shortcomings and "incompleteness." Indeed it is in the gaps, in what is absent, that Deacon finds his most fruitful inspiration. [Leonard Cohen would say there are cracks "where the light gets in"]. Initially I thought that the subtitle "how mind emerged from matter," would signal an unduly scientistic, materialistic approach, but I was soon disabused of this presumption, by being led down many intriguing and counter-intuitive pathways. I realised that no matter (that word) how much one may pay lip service to mind-matter unity, most of us lazily incline to familiar, comfortable explanations, either wishing to explain the world materialistically (as matter) or to hold that "what matters" are the ineffable, magical, intangible forces that inspire awe and reverence, but not necessarily empirical understanding. In many ways Deacon's exposition is as comprehensive and compelling as a scientific exploration of mind-matter unity as one could hope to condense into 545 pages. The essential message is that life emerged from the inorganic realm, not by simple chemistry, or magically inexplicable creative forces but by potentially explicable physio-chemical processes that exercised "constraints" on the well-known forces of entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics) that dissipate everything to equilibrium (heat death) downhill or down the orthograde gradient. On this topic he begins in familiar territory, criticising the "blind watchmaker, accidental robots, machine metaphor for organisms, noting that "design occurs spontaneously" by processes of growth and differentiation which requires us to look at teleology and what he calls "ententional" phenomena: i.e., phenomena that are incomplete and seeking completion in a new level of organisation. So matter can re-organise along a contragrade, uphill gradient because persistent perturbation, say a boiling hot spring in an otherwise cool ocean, forces a new level of organisation due to the absence of equilibrium, or a new type of equilibrium, not simply application of heat. "There are [he says] no material entities that are not processes, and because processes are defined by their organisation… organisation [may be] itself a fundamental determinant of physical causality." But organisation is not simply something added, or complexified, it is also restriction or constraint - the creation of a new habit. And we know that habits beget habits (constraints). Constraint is the fact of many possible constraints not being realised. It is just such constraints that drive processes in specific (non-random, not dissipating) directions, allowing for new emergent phenomena. So perhaps we've been looking at things backwards. Before the emergence of mind Deacon postulates Homeodynamics (simple 2nd law equilibrium) and Morphodynamics (a higher dynamic state capable of becoming "spontaneously more organized") leading to Teleodynamics (involving two or more strongly coupled morphodynamic processes that constrain each other, and through reciprocal synergy show end-directed organisation). Deacon's dense jargon is best alleviated by examples. So, picture biomolecules, reciprocally synthesised and dynamically maintained in a living cell so that they generate the whole (the cell), which in turn generates the molecules. The process is simultaneously bottom up and top down, leading to the emergence of a strong, new, balanced equilibrium. Moving from homeo- to morpho- and teleo-dynamic equilibrium is ratchet like, [and one might say progressive] in creating new levels of stable organisation. Interestingly, though not mentioned by Deacon, Goethean science recognises the simultaneity of bottom up and top down biological dynamics, as well as using the term morphodynamics quite widely. In this sense it is ahead of its time in recognising the importance of intrinsic dynamics, as Deacon does from a slightly different perspective, rather than always resorting to the Darwinian notion that extrinsic selective factors (outside pressure) run the show. The new science of evo-devo is also becoming much more aware of these intrinsic dynamics. In short, the biological evidence demonstrates that organic processes are dynamic and so self -organising as to manifestly be constantly "falling towards" new levels of equilibrium. Although these are contragrade "uphill" dynamics, relative to the orthograde 2nd law, the dynamics ratchet "up" from one level of equilibrium to another in contragrade-orthograde cycles. The appropriate quote here is from one Stanley Salthe: "natural selection disposes what self-organisation proposes." Addressing the so called hard problem of consciousness (explaining subjective experience) Deacon suggests we have framed questions wrongly when thinking in "mechanistic and computational terms " Consciousness is not "embodied in some material or energetic substrate." Computational mechanics don't map intentional properties of mentality, they only transfer extrinsic constraints from place to place, whereas cognition generates intrinsic constraints that propagate and self-organise. Brains are not wired point to point, but accommodate "noise" as a potential design feature, not a bug. Thus, hard problem features (subjectivity) are expected, emergent consequences of the aforementioned hierarchical dynamics. Deacon argues that sentience involves "self-preservation work" and sensitivity to extrinsic influences. Thus, "closure and autonomy …are the very essence of sentience." This closure also isolates sentience, helping create self-other distinctions, arrived at through the aforementioned ladder or ratchet of dissipative (ortho or downhill) and self -organising (contra or uphill) processes. These alternations between inertia and momentum create a dynamic feeling: i.e., emotion, and the psychic tension that separates self from non-self . But this "emotion" is not, according to Deacon, a mere energetic phenomenon like Chi, Kundalini or Elan vital that animates the body through physical forces. Mental experience is not like the "ebb and flow of some vital fluid." According to Gregory Bateson's claims, energetic processes are not the same as information processes, as the latter are about something. Here again information processes are, like other processes, characterised as a plateau arrived at by "dynamical ascent." Hierarchy exists in the evolutionary triune brain whose "hypothalamic, midbrain and brainstem circuits…play a critical role in regulating global body functions"…although at the same time most of these robust higher order functions do not "directly enter mental experience." [i.e., unconsciousness v. consciousness]. In the final analysis Deacon claims to have "broken the spell of dualism" by focusing on "what is present and what is absent," thus pointing the way to a "non-mystical account of the apparent non-materiality of consciousness." If we understand constraint we can stop searching for consciousness in the brain, or thinking it composed of neural signals. "We are what we are not: continually, intrinsically, necessarily incomplete by our very nature." "Self is literally…emerging each moment from what is not there….something coming out of nothing…newly embodied at each instant." [Quite a spiritual live-in-the-moment philosophy if I may say so]! As Deacon belatedly admits on p. 538 his subtitle is "slightly misleading. Mind did not exactly emerge from matter, but from constraints on matter." Once developed however, mind can constrain "all matter" of phenomena! Ironically Deacon's exposition of "incomplete nature" has many parallels in theology. For example, so-called Irenaean theodicy proposes that creation is incomplete. Manifestly humans are not yet fully evolved, and experience evil and suffering in order to develop. If creation were perfect and finished, existence would pose no challenges or aspirations for growth or evolution. Humankind could neither have or perceive any relationship with a higher power, or "the other." While, Deacon has faith (perhaps the wrong word, despite his surname) in humankind's ability (or should I say special self- and other consciousness ability) to understand (partially understand) our relationship with the natural world, through the explanatory metaphors and hypotheses that science has so far proposed on the subject of energy and matter, he proposes we take further steps into the unknown. In his exposition, as yet difficult to understand in detail, he admits his hypotheses are incomplete, and is perhaps not as radical as it is provocative. Not radical because it proposes that we can explore the unknown with our present scientific tool kit, but provocative because he proposes, quite convincingly, that we need to rethink our mental tool kit and probe the "gaps," the cracks where the light gets in, not to find new matter or energy but to understand the value and potential of incompleteness, and how it influences and reorganises the tangible world and our cognition. Perhaps in this regard he has proved his point by initiating a paradigm shift, or at least opening the door to a conceptual reorganisation of our thinking about the incompleteness of the present scientific edifice, and, I might add, fundamentally rethinking what we mean by incompleteness, to give it a very different "meaning." Deacon ends with a powerful epilogue. The message is that "the success of science appears to have dethroned the gods and left no foundation upon which unimpeachable values can rest." Thus "the current crisis of faith" is a reaction to … "a vision of reality that has no place for subjectivity or value…the specter of nihilism, to many, is more threatening than death." [Keep Calm]! "By rethinking the natural sciences in a way that has the metaphysical; sophistication to integrate the realm of absential phenomena as we experience them …we can chart an alternative route." [Carry on]! " There is more than stuff. There is how stuff is organised and related to other stuff. And there is more than what is actual. There is what could be, what should be, what can't be…" At the risk of simplification, if we can't yet explain the origin of life and consciousness then simple logic suggests that something is missing from our understanding. Ironically Deacon attempts to address these missing factors, not by finding "missing stuff," but by celebrating the important influence of what is missing on what is not. He was, it seems, driven by the constraints of science to suggest we reorganise our scientific thinking.

As LaoTzu said: "Clay is shaped into a vessel to enclose an emptiness that can be filled. Doors and windows are cut into walls to provide access to their protection … use comes from what is not there."