Feeling and Knowing
Making Minds Conscious
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- € 6,99
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- € 6,99
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'A truly awe-inspiring piece of writing' David Robson, author of The Intelligence Trap
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the question of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings in neuroscience, psychology and artificial intelligence have given us the necessary tools to solve its mystery.
In Feeling & Knowing, Damasio elucidates the myriad aspects of consciousness and presents his analysis and new insights in a way that is faithful to our own intuitive sense of the experience.
In forty-eight brief chapters, Damasio helps us understand the relation between consciousness and the mind; why being conscious is not the same as either being awake or sensing; the central role of feeling; and why the brain is essential for the development of consciousness. He synthesises the recent findings of various sciences with the philosophy of consciousness, and, most significantly, presents his original research which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behaviour.
Here is an indispensable guide to understanding the fundamental human capacity for informing and transforming our experience of the world around us and our perception of our place in it.
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Neuroscientist Damasio (Descartes' Error) sets out to demystify the nature of consciousness in this erudite yet accessible study. He proposes that human consciousness is built upon a series of developments that evolved to ensure homeostasis, the conditions necessary to continue an organism's life. Homeostasis applies to even the simplest life forms, and Damasio argues accordingly that consciousness is not an exclusively human trait; he grants a type of consciousness to ants and bees, and debunks the exceptionalist view of humankind that "diminishes nonhumans," which he characterizes as "deeply flawed." Damasio also explores what consciousness does: in his view, it is the mechanism that allows humans to adapt to threats to their homeostasis, and therefore ensures a greater chance of overcoming those threats. Among the many asides are references to myth and literature (a close reading of Emily Dickinson's "Poem XLIII" reveals it as "making penetrating observations on the human mind," for example), an investigation of artificial intelligence and its limitations, and a mention of the Jerome Kern song "I Won't Dance" (to prove that feelings are "hybrids of mind and body"). Damasio's investigation of the "hard problem" of consciousness successfully produces a credible theory—one that's worth checking out.
