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

A leading expert of the neurophysiology of emotions, Damasio shows how our consciousness arose out of the development of emotion. At its core human consciousness is consciousness of the feeling and experiencing self. "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 leading expert of the neurophysiology of emotions, the author aims to show how our consciousness arose out of the development of emotion, at its core human consciousness is consciousness of the feeling and experiencing self. It presents a view of the facility that makes us most profoundly human. 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