{"title":"Terrence W Deacon","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"symbolic-species-book-terrence-w-deacon-9780393317541","title":"The Symbolic Species","description":"This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions.    Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49507030040849,"sku":"CIN0393317544VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49529139953937,"sku":"GOR002409369","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50304375882001,"sku":"GOR012832869","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002017382673,"sku":"NIN9780393317541","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52103683801361,"sku":"CIN0393317544G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52414364451089,"sku":"NLS9780393317541","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0393317544.jpg?v=1751102884"},{"product_id":"symbolic-species-book-terrence-w-deacon-9780713991888","title":"The Symbolic Species","description":"Human language is one of the most distinctive behavioural adaptations on the planet. Languages evolved in only one species, in only one way, without precedent, and without parallel. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution have produced hundreds of thousands of species with brains, and tens of thousands with complex learning abilities. Only one of these has ever wondered about its place in the whole scheme, because only one - through its language - evolved with the ability to do so. This book aims to alter the understanding of what it means to be human: \"the universe isn't a soulless, blindly spinning clockwork, but instead nascent hear and mind\".","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49518508081425,"sku":"GOR001688316","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50494376116497,"sku":"GOR006857662","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53068370051345,"sku":"GOR002693525","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0713991887.jpg?v=1751074071"},{"product_id":"incomplete-nature-book-terrence-w-deacon-9780393343908","title":"Incomplete Nature","description":"As scientists study the minutiae of subatomic particles, neural connections, and molecular compounds, their attempts at a “theory of everything” harbor a glaring omission: they still cannot explain us, the thoughts and perceptions that truly make us what we are. A masterwork that brings together science and philosophy, Incomplete Nature offers a revolutionary, captivating account of how life and consciousness emerged, revealing how our desires, feelings, and intentions can be understood in terms of the physical world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49746243944721,"sku":"GOR009932727","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002066272529,"sku":"NIN9780393343908","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51354989429009,"sku":"CIN0393343901G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51538783568145,"sku":"GOR014320610","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51693943161105,"sku":"CIN0393343901VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52406331932945,"sku":"NLS9780393343908","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0393343901.jpg?v=1763117936"},{"product_id":"symbolic-species-book-terrence-w-deacon-9780393038385","title":"The Symbolic Species","description":"A fascinating new theory traces the origin of language back to the development of the human pair bond and shows how language propelled human brain evolution. The greatest mystery of evolution is the development of human language, a form of communication different from anything else in nature. This exciting book advances Terrence Deacon's entirely new explanation of the most remarkable accident in the history of life. Departing from conventional theories of language as arising, somehow, once the human brain became large and complex enough, Deacon shows how the human brain and language developed in concert, explains the process by which this occurred, and draws out the compelling implications of this new view of human origins. The most intriguing of these implications is a new explanation of language's adaptive purpose. Delivering a knockout blow to the traditional idea that language evolved to meet the needs of hunting males, Deacon argues that the seeds of language grew and developed in pair bonding between proto- and early-human males and femalesin other words, because of the special needs of the human family. Drawing on the author's own breakthroughs in human and comparative neuroscience (including why other intelligent animals are incapable of language) and in evolutionary anthropology, and on the latest findings of research on artificial life and artificial intelligence, this is science writing at its best, a book that will profoundly alter our understanding of what it means to be human.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49755387822353,"sku":"CIN0393038386G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49898493116689,"sku":"CIN0393038386VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50918579339537,"sku":"GOR014122949","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51440946872593,"sku":"CIN0393038386A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51861171339537,"sku":"GOR004888229","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53606334693649,"sku":"GOR007533412","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0393038386.jpg?v=1751325360"},{"product_id":"incomplete-nature-book-terrence-w-deacon-9780393049916","title":"Incomplete Nature","description":"As physicists work toward completing a theory of the universe and biologists unravel the molecular complexity of life, a glaring incompleteness in this scientific vision becomes apparent. The \"Theory of Everything\" that appears to be emerging includes everything but us: the feelings, meanings, consciousness, and purposes that make us (and many of our animal cousins) what we are. These most immediate and incontrovertible phenomena are left unexplained by the natural sciences because they lack the physical properties—such as mass, momentum, charge, and location—that are assumed to be necessary for something to have physical consequences in the world. This is an unacceptable omission. We need a \"theory of everything\" that does not leave it absurd that we exist.    Incomplete Nature begins by accepting what other theories try to deny: that, although mental contents do indeed lack these material-energetic properties, they are still entirely products of physical processes and have an unprecedented kind of causal power that is unlike anything that physics and chemistry alone have so far explained. Paradoxically, it is the intrinsic incompleteness of these semiotic and teleological phenomena that is the source of their unique form of physical influence in the world. Incomplete Nature meticulously traces the emergence of this special causal capacity from simple thermodynamics to self-organizing dynamics to living and mental dynamics, and it demonstrates how specific absences (or constraints) play the critical causal role in the organization of physical processes that generate these properties.    The book's radically challenging conclusion is that we are made of these specific absenses—such stuff as dreams are made on—and that what is not immediately present can be as physically potent as that which is. It offers a figure\/background shift that shows how even meanings and values can be understood as legitimate components of the physical world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50093817233681,"sku":"GOR006373579","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51481542328593,"sku":"CIN0393049914VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51592546943249,"sku":"CIN0393049914G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52474812432657,"sku":"GOR008061434","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0393049914.jpg?v=1750975411"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-terrence-w-deacon.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}