Self Comes to Mind - Antonio Damasio Interview

Antonio Damasio on his new book Self Comes to Mind - here:

"LEHRER: You write: “Feelings are often ignored in accounts of consciousness. Can there be consciousness without feelings? The answer is no.” Why are feelings such an essential part of human experience? And why can’t we do without them?

DAMASIO: Feelings, especially the kind that I call primordial feelings, portray the state of the body in our own brain. They serve notice that there is life inside the organism and they inform the brain (and its mind, of course), of whether such life is in balance or not. That feeling is the foundation of the edifice we call conscious mind. When the machinery that builds that foundation is disrupted by disease, the whole edifice collapses. Imagine pulling out the ground floor of a high-rise building and you get the picture. That is, by the way, precisely what happens in certain cases of coma or vegetative state.

Now, where in the brain is that “feel-making” machinery? It is located in the brain stem and it enjoys a privileged situation. It is part of the brain, of course, but it is so closely interconnected with the body that it is best seen as fused with the body. I suspect that one reason why our thoughts are felt comes from that obligatory fusion of body and brain at brain stem level.

LEHRER: On the one hand, some might be worried that a theory of consciousness that posits the importance of homeostatic mechanisms, the brain stem and the fleshy body might see the conscious “will” as an inconsequential force, a puppet to its non-conscious masters. But you argue  the opposite, that “the presence of non-conscious processes…amplifies the reach of consciousness.” Could you explain?

DAMASIO: Conscious deliberation is in constant dialogue, often a conflicting dialogue, with non-conscious processing. Sometimes conscious deliberation prevails, sometimes not. But the reason why such conscious deliberations elevate human beings above the level of mere puppets of non-conscious forces, is that the instruments of culture to which I alluded above can provide liberating solutions to the problems we face. Sometimes those solutions go against what our unconscious forces would want us to do. Have you ever turned down the chocolate dessert, or, for that matter, the juicy steak with frittes? Of course, you have. You can thank conscious deliberation for that."

"But no one knew that minds existed, least of all the beings within whom minds had now emerged. Unannounced and undetected, minds had entered life. Once minds began blooming, nothing was ever the same. But who would know that the universe had changed. No one, nothing could yet be known."