TPF : Incomplete Nature

[Gnomon]

In Chapter one Deacon affirms his desire to hold to a materialist approach, which he seems to be defining as nonmagical. — frank

Ironically, Deacon's notion of Purposeful or "Causal Absence" sounds a lot like the ancient notion of "Invisible Spirits" (Animism), which caused real-world effects that could not be explained by pointing to a physical agent. So, I suspect that his detractors will interpret such "absence" as Metaphysical, if not outright Spiritual & Magical.

The Power of Absence : “I will refer to this [something-that-is-not-a-thing”; elusive character of incompleteness] as an absential feature
. . . A causal role for absence seems to be absent from the natural sciences.” ___Terrence Deacon
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page17.html

[Gnomon]

I was going to say that there's overkill squared in his efforts to put aside the idea of the magically unexplainable, but maybe that's why: the shadow of Descartes. — frank

Yes. Deacon is trying to maintain his credentials as a scientist, even as he crosses the Cartesian line between Soul & Body. But the Matter/Mind "line" is arbitrary, and fair game for Philosophers. That's why, in my Enformationism thesis, "magical" explanations are not necessary. All it takes is a change of perspective, from Physics to Metaphysics.

Special Metaphysics : The philosophical science of Metaphysics is essential to my worldview, because, unlike Physics, it allows us to study the immaterial aspects of our reality, such as Qualia (properties) and Ideas (meanings). Such non-things have no objective manifestation, but they do have subjective significance. The name for this kind of deep thinking originated, fortuitously, from Aristotle's encyclopedia of knowledge published in 4th century BC. He didn't distinguish the intangible topics from science-in-general, but he did separate his treatments on the objective natural world of the senses from those of the subjective artificial world of the mind. The Physics volume dealt primarily with hard-science topics that today we call Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, etc. In the second volume, he dealt with miscellaneous topics that now fall under the generic heading of Philosophy, but also include Psychology, Sociology, History, Ethics, Logic, and so forth.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page74.html