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.

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 on 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. Deacon tackles these two linked problems by going back to basics. The book expands upon the classical conceptions of work and information in order to give an account of ententionality that is consistent with eliminative materialism and yet does not seek to explain away or pass off as epiphenominal the non-physical properties of life.