This episode of Books and Ideas is sponsored by Audible.com.

If you aren't already a member of Audible, you can get a free audio book download by going to

audible podcast.com forward slash books and ideas.

Hi, I'm Dr. Ginger Campbell and and you're listening to episode 47 of Books and Ideas.

Since this episode is also being released into the Brain Science Podcast Feed, I want to take a moment

to tell you about Books and ideas. Because the Brain Science

focuses on neuroscience books and ideas is the place where I talk to people from a

wide variety of other fields. But every so often I will put an episode of Books and Ideas into the Brain Science

Podcast feed, just to remind regular listeners that I actually do two shows.

Today's guest is Terence Deacon, who is the head of the Department of Anthropology at the University

of California at Berkeley.

We will be talking about his new book, In Complete Nature, How Mind Emerged from Matter. From that title you might think that this is an obvious

brain science podcast topic, but actually our conversation focuses on a concept from complexity

theory called emergence.

Long-term listeners may recall that I introduced emergence back in Brain Science Podcast

53 when I discussed the book, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It.

In his book Incomplete Nature, Dr. Deacon sets out to explain how the emergence of both life

and mind occurred completely within the known laws of physics without the need for anything

supernatural.

Before I play the interview, I need to mention a few things.

First, if you are a new listener, don't be intimidated by the topic.

All you need to know is within this episode,

...