From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life
- ISBN-10
- 0262358034
- ISBN-13
- 9780262358033
- Category
- Technology & Engineering
- Pages
- 512
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-03-31
- Publisher
- MIT Press
- Author
- David Haig
Description
How the meaningless process of natural selection produces purposeful beings who find meaning in the world. In From Darwin to Derrida, evolutionary biologist David Haig explains how a physical world of matter in motion gave rise to a living world of purpose and meaning. Natural selection, a process without purpose, gives rise to purposeful beings who find meaning in the world. The key to this, Haig proposes, is the origin of mutable “texts”—genes—that preserve a record of what has worked in the world. These texts become the specifications for the intricate mechanisms of living beings. Haig draws on a wide range of sources—from Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy to Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment to the work of Jacques Derrida to the latest findings on gene transmission, duplication, and expression—to make his argument. Genes and their effects, he explains, are like eggs and chickens. Eggs exist for the sake of becoming chickens and chickens for the sake of laying eggs. A gene's effects have a causal role in determining which genes are copied. A gene (considered as a lineage of material copies) persists if its lineage has been consistently associated with survival and reproduction. Organisms can be understood as interpreters that link information from the environment to meaningful action in the environment. Meaning, Haig argues, is the output of a process of interpretation; there is a continuum from the very simplest forms of interpretation, instantiated in single RNA molecules near the origins of life, to the most sophisticated. Life is interpretation—the use of information in choice.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2020-03-31
- 512 pages
- Paperback
- MIT Press
Similar books
-
Animal Sciences: The Biology, Care, and Production of Domestic Animals, Fourth Edition
By John R. Campbell, M. Douglas Kenealy, Karen L. CampbellTimberlake claimed in 1980 that a fundamental problem with Singer's work is the lack of an adequate definition of suffering ...
-
Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate
By Laura Lengnick3. D. Layne. 2013. Tree Fruit: Protecting Your Investment. American/Western Fruit Grower, September/October. 4. R. Snyder and J. Melu-Abreu. 2005. Frost ...
-
Biodesign: The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies
By Stefanos Zenios, Josh Makower, Paul YockAt that time, these were in the low $10s of millions. ... be a good partner going forward, even though it takes longer to get the deal done," offered Chess.
-
Advanced Signal Processing: A Concise Guide
By Amir-Homayoon Najmi, Todd Moon[ 59 ] S. Kotz , T. J. Kozubowski , and K. Podgorski , The Laplace ... valued signal processing : The proper way to deal with impropriety , ” IEEE Trans .
-
Resources for Technical Communication
By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, David P Pearson EducationSome documents are annotated; some are left without annotations to provide more flexibility for instructors. This booklet can be packaged at no additional cost with any Longman title in technical communication.
-
Chemistry: An Introduction to General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry; Chemistry Study Pack Version 2.0 CD-ROM; The Chemistry of Life CD-ROM;...
By Karen C. TimberlakeChemistry: An Introduction to General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry; Chemistry Study Pack Version 2.0 CD-ROM; The Chemistry of Life CD-ROM;...
-
Poultry Science: Fifth Edition
By Colin G. Scanes, Karen D. ChristensenThe emission rates for ammonia (Casey et al., 2006): • Layers: 116 g NH3 per AU (AU or animal unit or 500 kg). • Broilers: 135 g NH3 per AU (AU or animal unit or 500 kg). Emission rates in different reports vary from less than either 10 ...
-
Solid State Materials Chemistry
By Patrick M. Woodward, Pavel Karen, John S. O. Evans[45] B.F. Hoskins, R. Robson, “Design and construction of a new class of scaffolding-like materials comprising infinite polymeric frameworks of 3D-linked molecular rods. A reappraisal of the zinc cyanide and cadmium cyanide structures ...
-
Abbreviations Dictionary
By Dean A. Stahl, Karen Landen... Tallest Mountain Mount Robson—12,972 feet or 3,954 meters—in the Canadian Rockies Canada's Westernmost City Dawson, Yukon Canada's Westernmost Point in Yukon Territory just east of Alaska's Demarcation Point Canary Islands' Largest ...
-
Agriculture: A Very Short Introduction
By Paul Brassley, Richard SoffeACCOUNTING Christopher Nobes ADVERTISING Winston Fletcher AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION Eddie S. Glaude Jr AFRICAN HISTORY ... Hugh Bowden ALGEBRA Peter M. Higgins AMERICAN HISTORY Paul S. Boyer AMERICAN IMMIGRATION David A. Gerber AMERICAN ...