The feeling of what happens : body and emotion in the making of consciousness

In The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, director of UCLA's Brain and Creativity Institute, presents the first truly compelling neurobiological account of the self...a remarkable work of intellectual daring (Nature).\ \ A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice\ \ Widley praised for his innovative scientific thinking and elegant writing, Antonio Damasio, the international bestselling author of Descartes' Error achieves an understanding of consciousness by asking and answering profound questions: How is it we know what we know? How is it that our conscious and private minds have a sense of self? \ \ In this groundbreaking book, Damasio -- a renowned and revered scientist and clinician who spent decades following amnesiacs down hospital corridors, waiting for comatose patients to awaken, and devising ingenious research using PET scans to piece together the great puzzle of consciousness -- explores the biological roots of sentient awareness and its role in survival. \ \ Consciousness is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience. Without our bodies there can be no consciousness, which is at heart a mechanism for survival that engages body, emotion, and mind in the glorious spiral of human life. Linking body and emotion in an arresting and original study of what it is to be human, The Feeling of What Happens will change your experience of yourself (The New York Times).\ \ Both Descartes Error and The Feeling of What Happens are essential reading. They are ground-breaking classics of psychology and neuroscience.--Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

The superb researcher, humanist, and author of Descartes' Error binds the body to the spirit in an exploration of consciousness The publication of this book is an event in the making. All over the world scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are waiting to read Antonio Damasio's new theory of the nature of consciousness and the construction of the self. A renowned and revered scientist and clinician, Damasio has spent decades following amnesiacs down hospital corridors, waiting for comatose patients to awaken, and devising ingenious research using PET scans to piece together the great puzzle of consciousness. In his bestselling Descartes' Error, Damasio revealed the critical importance of emotion in the making of reason. Building on this foundation, he now shows how consciousness is created. Consciousness is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience. Without our bodies there can be no consciousness, which is at heart a mechanism for survival that engages body, emotion, and mind in the glorious spiral of human life. A hymn to the possibilities of human existence, a magnificent work of ingenious science, a gorgeously written book, The Feeling of What Happens is already being hailed as a classic.

Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine - Bruce G. Charlton

If I were able to nominate one individual for the Noble prize it would be Damasio...both Descartes' Error and The Feeling of What Happens are essential reading. Although they masquerade as 'popular science' they are ground-breaking classics of psychology and neuroscience. These are books to buy, keep and ponder upon. Do so, and you will be ahead of the ruck by at least a decade

Focuses On The Body's Reaction To Its World, Postulating That A Complex Relationship Between Body, Emotion, And Mind Is Required To Configure The Self. Introduction. Stepping Into The Light -- Feeling And Knowing. Emotion And Feeling -- Core Consciousness -- The Hint Half Hinted -- A Biology For Knowing. The Organism And The Object -- The Making Of Core Consciousness -- Extended Consciousness -- The Neurology Of Consciousness -- Bound To Know. Feeling Feelings -- Using Consciousness -- Under The Light -- Appendix. Notes On Mind And Brain. Antonio Damasio. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 336-365) And Index. "In this book, neuroscientist and humanist Antonio R. Damasio brings a lifetime of research and a literary gift to the last frontier of brain research - the mystery of consciousness. How is it that we know that we know? How is it that our conscious and private minds have a sense of self? These are the questions he considers in The Feeling of What Happens."--BOOK JACKET. I have always been intrigued by the specific moment when, as we sit waiting in the audience, the door to the stage opens and a performer steps into the light; or, to take the other perspective, the moment when a performer who waits in semidarkness sees the same door open, revealing the lights, the stage, and the audience. A new theory of consciousness and the construction of identity focuses on the body's reaction to its world, postulating that a complex relationship between body, emotion, and mind is required to configure the self