Feeling & Knowing
Making Minds Conscious
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- € 10,99
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- € 10,99
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From one of the world’s leading neuroscientists: a succinct, illuminating, wholly engaging investigation of how biology, neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence have given us the tools to unlock the mysteries of human consciousness
“One thrilling insight after another ... Damasio has succeeded brilliantly in narrowing the gap between body and mind.” —The New York Times Book Review
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life.
In the forty-eight brief chapters of Feeling & Knowing, and in writing that remains faithful to our intuitive sense of what feeling and experiencing are about, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large. He combines the latest discoveries in various sciences with philosophy and discusses his original research, which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behavior.
Here is an indispensable guide to understanding how we experience the world within and around us and find our place in the universe.
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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.
