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Neither Ghost nor Machine: The Emergence and Nature of Selves
If the universe is aimless, how do selves and aims emerge? Why do living beings have aims when inanimate things do not? Current science encourages us to reject the ghost-in-the-machine explanation—that something called spirit, soul, mind, or will was somehow breathed into matter—and instead accept that selves are just matter, in aimless mechanistic motion like everything else. But what about life’s many emergent qualities, the multifarious purposes that shape actual physical behavior not just in human lives, but in all of life? Even the simplest life forms have adaptive functions, traits that accomplish goals or ends. How can we explain the nature and origin of selves and aims without resorting to supernatural forces or explaining them away as nothing but cause-and-effect mechanisms?In Neither Ghost nor Machine, Jeremy Sherman explains the emergence of selves and aims in an aimless universe. He distills for a general audience the theory developed by renowned neuroscientist Terrence Deacon, which extends the breakthrough constraint-based insight that inspired evolutionary, information, and self-organization theory. Emergent dynamics theory provides a testable hypothesis for how mattering arose from matter, function from physics, and means-to-ends behavior from cause-and-effect dynamics. It offers a physics of purpose, demonstrating that there is a strictly physical explanation for the emergence and nature of selves and aims, one that shows our existence in an otherwise inanimate universe is not absurd. Neither Ghost nor Machine bridges the gap between the hard and soft sciences, suggesting fresh and exciting solutions to philosophical mysteries that have perplexed humanity for millennia, from free will to causality to morality.
292 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 20, 2021
Why has this book not yet sold a million copies? If I made one right investment this new year, then it is purchasing this book! The author has made a sincere attempt into curating our minds on the topic of the emergence of 'Self' (Soul) which the evolutionary theories have no answer for. To the author, the Self is a thing whose emergence can be traced, is less complex, and has an aim of regeneration, protection, and reproduction against constraints that would otherwise destroy the Self. The author very clearly and bravely takes the reader through his research and thought process, like answering his own life-size question. And discovers a lot more in the book. To me, it was more illuminating than the popular Let-go therapies. While those therapies totally work and achieve internal peace, in the end, they are merely ideas that we believe, but not reason out. What about the logical questions on philosophy and science, a human mind is always seeking to know? And the interpretation of life as a result of such 'limited' knowledge? If any regular reader is looking for a book that deals with complex science topics but written less cumbersome, then you have landed on the right book. It did take a while to complete reading, however, the mind was lingering with the thoughts of it until I have finished reading it. I never know that science could be packaged into something so interesting. I started watching Sherman's youtube videos and reading Psychology Today blogs about a year ago. So, I do know the author's style and approach a bit before buying his book. But, certainly, this book has exceeded all my expectations about the author and what he is capable of thinking and writing. I could observe my brain activity while I was reading this book and it brought big smiles in many pages, whenever the reasonings given in the book made a lot of sense. I wish a lot of success to the author.
March 14, 2021
This book is an excellent digest of what I think was a significant and important book by Terrence Deacon, "Incomplete Nature." Deacon's ideas are themselves informed by others, and ultimately by late 19th century philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.
I struggled with Deacon's book because of its unusual terminology and unfamiliar technical details on chemistry and biology. So I don't recommend it, unless you want to get into the technical weeds. But the Sherman book greatly simplifies the terminology and the biology. It is still dense, abstract reading, though somehow a bit repetitious.
One slight disappointment is Sherman's book does not further expand on the broader philosophical and even neuroscientific implications of the view of emergence presented here. While some may think of "emergence" as either woo or something almost supernatural, Deacon's (and Peirce's) idea is that an "emergent" structure or quality is not a mysterious addition, but a subtraction - a constraint, due to the interaction of its parts. Any given particle or part at some level (an atom, molecule, cell, organism, etc.) is has essentially infinite degrees of freedom, except to the extent it is constrained by other entities at its level. Thus everything that has emerged - bacteria, complex organisms, solar systems, democracy, traffic laws, language - are structures of constraints. This also means that descriptions of things at different levels is not merely for our convenience, but because unique constraints apply at each level. There are all sorts of potential interactions here between this view of emergence and systems theory, information theory, and other areas focusing on entropy, self-organization, and complexity. Sherman barely touches these areas. I don't blame him, since that would make the book an even heavier lift. But it would have been worth at least noting the implications for these areas.
Sherman also tries to argue for free will towards the end of the book. But I think his argument is weak, simplistic, and doesn't follow the implications of general theory of emergence presented here.
I struggled with Deacon's book because of its unusual terminology and unfamiliar technical details on chemistry and biology. So I don't recommend it, unless you want to get into the technical weeds. But the Sherman book greatly simplifies the terminology and the biology. It is still dense, abstract reading, though somehow a bit repetitious.
One slight disappointment is Sherman's book does not further expand on the broader philosophical and even neuroscientific implications of the view of emergence presented here. While some may think of "emergence" as either woo or something almost supernatural, Deacon's (and Peirce's) idea is that an "emergent" structure or quality is not a mysterious addition, but a subtraction - a constraint, due to the interaction of its parts. Any given particle or part at some level (an atom, molecule, cell, organism, etc.) is has essentially infinite degrees of freedom, except to the extent it is constrained by other entities at its level. Thus everything that has emerged - bacteria, complex organisms, solar systems, democracy, traffic laws, language - are structures of constraints. This also means that descriptions of things at different levels is not merely for our convenience, but because unique constraints apply at each level. There are all sorts of potential interactions here between this view of emergence and systems theory, information theory, and other areas focusing on entropy, self-organization, and complexity. Sherman barely touches these areas. I don't blame him, since that would make the book an even heavier lift. But it would have been worth at least noting the implications for these areas.
Sherman also tries to argue for free will towards the end of the book. But I think his argument is weak, simplistic, and doesn't follow the implications of general theory of emergence presented here.
January 12, 2019
Sherman does an excellent job at portraying the history of philosophy and science necessary to understand the meaning of a "self". By the time he dives into Terrance Deacon's actual models, I was practically salivating with anticipation. This book put me deep into an existential/deterministic fervor for weeks, struggling to reconcile concepts of reality I had never been made to consider so specifically. Truth be told it took me a long time to finish this, but I'm happy to say that I did and came out with some serious insights into what it is we mean when we try to pin down the place where life resides.
Sherman leaves you feeling competent but sufficiently mystified. I'm ready for the next one.
Sherman leaves you feeling competent but sufficiently mystified. I'm ready for the next one.
November 9, 2022
I took a really long time getting through this book, first off. It was a difficult read. Perhaps unnecessarily so. It was certainly pedantic or repetitive at points. Some topics just escaped my intellectual grasp, like the discussions of semiotics. But when occasionally I understood something, more than half the time it fundamentally shifted my thinking about life, evolution, physical reality, and what makes anything good or bad. I do have some qualms with the way things are represented; in particular, I take issue with the simplistic representation of materialism (among other things). There are a few times I notice the author essentially failing to apply logic he used paragraphs prior to other issues with such open-mindedness and clarity. The ending sort of left a sour taste in my mouth, this declaration that humans are unique in being a symbolic species, and that this also potentially affords us some kind of ethical consideration above other species. It was definitely meant to be a strong statement, but I didn't find any justification that humans being symbolic is unique OR that that gives our lives more value than other life. This stood out to me even more because pages before, he refers to Cartesian thought as a "wound" on science (which I agree with!). Why doesn't he take that to the logical conclusion? He spends the entire book asserting that anything alive, even in the most rudimentary sense, is a self. Maybe this is me not understanding again. Also, probably some of the ultra-abstract philosophy could have been better grounded with more specific scientific examples or applications (neuroscience, cell biology, etc). This is a book I definitely want to re-read when I'm smarter, preferably also with a copy I can write in. It did agree with some of my most fundamental beliefs, which while rooted in materialism, I consider to also be spiritual. I certainly haven't shut up about it.
May 6, 2019
The things I got from this book are 1) reductionism is problematic. 2) a selfish gene view of evolution is too simplistic. 3) there may be emergent constraints that could account for the way molecules behave on larger scales. 4) it may be the case that emergent regularization and self-regeneration are processes needed to explain life.
However, I think that the details of the actual theory from Terrence Deacon are not plausible to me. I could be wrong. I would want to see way more debates and research on hiscclaims befdoe taking themt oo seriously. This book has some interesting ideas in it. There might be some important questions for biologists to keep in mind when researching the origin of life. Nevertheless. At this stage, it's all really speculative and I want to see what scientists come up with over more time. I liked this book at first, but I kind of felt cheated after going through a ton of exposition and philosophy only to find that the theory itself isn't one I find very compelling.
However, I think that the details of the actual theory from Terrence Deacon are not plausible to me. I could be wrong. I would want to see way more debates and research on hiscclaims befdoe taking themt oo seriously. This book has some interesting ideas in it. There might be some important questions for biologists to keep in mind when researching the origin of life. Nevertheless. At this stage, it's all really speculative and I want to see what scientists come up with over more time. I liked this book at first, but I kind of felt cheated after going through a ton of exposition and philosophy only to find that the theory itself isn't one I find very compelling.
June 14, 2023
Three stars for the commitment to trying to clarify Deacon's long and impenetrable book on the subject. But this still has some of Deacon's same faults. One spends the bulk of the book having various scientific concepts explained at what becomes tedious length and thinking, "right, yes, AND..." waiting for the part where this new theory is actually explained, giving one something to maybe agree or disagree with. Eventually it feels like a lot of smoke being blown to hide the lack of anything behind it. As for that theory, it's not one. It's a philisophical notion. It's interesting, but it's no more "real" than any other philosophical notion. That it can be wrapped up in the science of what is known is smart. But it's still just an idea. One that as it happens I found unconvincing.
September 24, 2023
Brilliant ideas, mind-numbingly repetitious. Need an abridged edition.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews