Books And Ideas With Dr. Ginger Campbell

Several years ago I interviewed Terrence Deacon about his fascinating book Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. His goal was to propose a theory of how purpose evolved in a universe without purpose. His argument was persuasive, but highly technical. In this month’s episode of Books and Ideas I interview his longtime colleague Jeremy Sherman. His book Neither Ghost nor Machine: The Emergence and Nature of Selves makes Deacon’s ideas highly accessible to a wider audience. Join us as we explore the question: How did purpose arise from a purposeless universe? (Hint: the answer is not supernatural!) Links and References: Neither Ghost nor Machine: The Emergence and Nature of Selves by Jeremy Sherman Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter by Terrence W. Deacon The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain by Terrence W. Deacon Books and Ideas 47 with Terrence Deacon Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker by Richard