Terrence W. Deacon
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Terrence W. Deacon
Terrence William Deacon (born 1950) is an American neuroanthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University 1984). He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Anthropology and member of the Cognitive Science Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. Theoretical interests Prof. Deacon's theoretical interests include the study of evolution-like processes at multiple levels, including their role in embryonic development, neural signal processing, language change, social processes, and focusing especially on how these different processes interact and depend on each other. He has long stated an interest in developing a scientific semiotics (particularly biosemiotics) that would contribute to both linguistic theory and cognitive neuroscience.http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/users/terrence-w-deacon UC Berkeley faculty profile Fields of research Deacon's research combines human evolutionary biolo ...
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Neuroanthropology
Neuroanthropology is the study of the relationship between culture and the brain. Overview Neuroanthropology explores how the brain gives rise to culture, how culture influences brain development, structure and function, and the pathways followed by the co-evolution of brain and culture. Moreover, neuroanthropologists consider how new findings in the brain sciences help us understand the interactive effects of culture and biology on human development and behavior. In one way or another, neuroanthropologists ground their research and explanations in how the human brain develops, how it is structured and how it functions within the genetic and cultural limits of its biology (see Biogenetic structuralism anrelated website. "Neuroanthropology" is a broad term, intended to embrace all dimensions of human neural activity, including emotion, perception, cognition, motor control, skill acquisition, and a range of other issues. Interests include the evolution of the hominid brain, cultu ...
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Incomplete Nature
''Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter'' is a 2011 book by biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon. The book covers topics in biosemiotics, philosophy of mind, and the origins of life. Broadly, the book seeks to naturalistically explain "aboutness", that is, concepts like intentionality, meaning, normativity, purpose, and function; which Deacon groups together and labels as ententional phenomena. Core Ideas Deacon's first book, ''The Symbolic Species'' focused on the evolution of human language. In that book, Deacon notes that much of the mystery surrounding language origins comes from a profound confusion about the nature of semiotic processes themselves. Accordingly, the focus of ''Incomplete Nature'' shifts from human origins to the origin of life and semiosis. ''Incomplete Nature'' can be viewed as a sizable contribution to the growing body of work positing that the problem of consciousness and the problem of the origin of life are inexorably linked. De ...
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Human Evolution Theorists
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Its intelligence and its desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. Although some scientists equate the term ''humans'' with all members of the genus ''Homo'', in common usage, it generally refers to ''Homo sapiens'', the only extant member. Anatomically mode ...
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Theoretical Biologists
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be scientific, belong to a non-scientific discipline, or no discipline at all. Depending on the context, a theory's assertions might, for example, include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several related meanings. In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with the scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that scientific tests should be able to provide empirical support for it, or empirical contradiction ("falsify") of it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and compre ...
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Linguists From The United States
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (how social contex ...
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American Anthropologists
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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American Semioticians
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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Living People
Related categories * :Year of birth missing (living people) / :Year of birth unknown * :Date of birth missing (living people) / :Date of birth unknown * :Place of birth missing (living people) / :Place of birth unknown * :Year of death missing / :Year of death unknown * :Date of death missing / :Date of death unknown * :Place of death missing / :Place of death unknown * :Missing middle or first names See also * :Dead people * :Template:L, which generates this category or death years, and birth year and sort keys. : {{DEFAULTSORT:Living people 21st-century people People by status ...
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Entention
Entention is a neologism coined by biological anthropology, biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon in his 2011 book ''Incomplete Nature''. The term is deliberately similar to the term intention, which has a long history of use in philosophy of mind, but was designed to have a broader scope. "Ententional" is an adjective that applies to the class of objects and phenomena that refer to or are in some other way "about" something not present. This Wikipedia page is ententional because it refers to and is explicitly about an abstract concept which is not physically present in the page itself. Other paradigm examples of ententional objects are books, DNA strands, and tools. In contrast, rocks, stars, and electromagnetic radiation are not ententional. Jeremy Sherman writes on ententionality, "Deacon coins the term 'ententional,' to encompass the entire range of phenomena that must be explained, everything from the first evolvable function, to human social processes, everything tra ...
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Jesper Hoffmeyer
Jesper Hoffmeyer (21 February 1942 – 25 September 2019) was a professor at the University of Copenhagen Institute of Biology, and a leading figure in the emerging field of biosemiotics. He was the President of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS) from 2005 to 2015, co-editor of the journal ''Biosemiotics'' and thSpringer Book series in Biosemiotics He authored the books ''Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs'' and ''Signs of Meaning in the Universe'' and edited ''A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics''. Biography Jesper Hoffmeyer was born in Slangerup, Denmark in 1942. He received his Cand. Scient. in biochemistry from the University of Copenhagen in 1967, and from 1967-1968 he was Science Fellow at the Institut de Biochemie Génerale et Comparée of the Collège de France, Paris. He began his teaching career in 1968 as an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen's Instit ...
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Claus Emmeche
Claus Emmeche (born 1956) is a Danish theoretical biologist and philosopher, one of founders of contemporary biosemiotics. He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, and is head of the Center for the Philosophy of Nature and Science Studies at the Faculty of Science (CPNSS, hosted by the Niels Bohr Institute). His research interests are in philosophy of science, especially philosophy of biology, theoretical biology (especially morphogenesis and evolution, developmental systems, complex systems), artificial life, biosemiotics, and other areas within philosophy. He has made pioneering studies in the field of semiotics of friendship. Activism Claus Emmeche was one of the organizers of a petition directed at Helge Sander's education reforms, which the petition claimed undermined academic freedom by granting a broad majority of the management of universities to people from outside the academic community. As of August, 2008, 35% of Danish academics had signed the ...
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Kalevi Kull
Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms of species coexistence in species-rich communities and developed mathematical modelling in ecophysiology. Since 1975, he has been the main organiser of annual meetings of theoretical biology in Estonia. In 1992, he became a Professor of Ecophysiology in the University of Tartu. In 1997, he joined the Department of Semiotics, and became a Professor in Biosemiotics. From 2006 to 2018, he was the Head of the Department of Semiotics in the University of Tartu, Estonia. His field of interests include biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, general semiotics, theoretical biology, theory of evolution, history and philosophy of semiotics and life science. He was the president of the Estonian Naturalists' Society in 1991–1994. He is the president of the Inte ...
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