Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. Antonio Damasio

Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain



Download Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain



Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain Antonio Damasio ebook epub
Publisher: Pantheon
Language: English
Page: 384
ISBN: 0307378756, 9780307378750

From Publishers Weekly

As he has done previously, USC neuroscientist Damasio (Descartes' Error) explores the process that leads to consciousness. And as he has also done previously, he alternates between some exquisite passages that represent the best popular science has to offer and some technical verbiage that few will be able to follow. He draws meaningful distinctions among points on the continuum from brain to mind, consciousness to self, constantly attempting to understand the evolutionary reasons why each arose and attempting to tie each to an underlying physical reality. Damasio goes to great lengths to explain that many species, such as social insects, have minds, but humans are distinguished by the "autobiographical self," which adds flexibility and creativity, and has led to the development of culture, a "radical novelty" in natural history. Damasio ends with a speculative chapter on the evolutionary process by which mind developed and then gave rise to self. In the Pleistocene, he suggests, humans developed emotive responses to shapes and sounds that helped lead to the development of the arts. Readers fascinated from both a philosophical and scientific perspective with the question of the relationships among brain, mind, and self will be rewarded for making the effort to follow Damasio's arguments. (Nov.) (c)
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Review

"Exquisite…Readers fascinated from both a philosophical and scientific perspective with the question of the relationship among brain, mind, and self will be rewarded."
—Publishers Weekly

"The marvel of reading Damasio's book is to be convinced one can follow the brain at work as it makes the private reality that is the deepest self."
—V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Laureate and author of A Bend in the River and the Enigma of Arrival

“Damasio makes a grand transition from higher-brain views of emotions to deeply evolutionary, lower-brain contributions to emotional, sensory and homeostatic experiences. He affirms that the roots of consciousness are affective and shared by our fellow animals. Damasio's creative vision leads relentlessly toward a natural understanding of the very font of being.”
—Jaak Panksepp, author of Affective Neuroscience and Baily Endowed Professor of Animal Well-Being Science, Washington State University 

 “I was totally captivated by Self Comes to Mind.  In this work Antonio Damasio presents his seminal discoveries in the field of neuroscience in the broader contexts of evolutionary biology and cultural development. This trailblazing book gives us a new way of thinking about ourselves, our history, and the importance of culture in shaping our common future.”
—Yo-Yo Ma, musician

“The epicenter of Self Comes to Mind concerns the neurological basis for cognition and the issue of the superposition of a “self’ onto the construct which we address as reality. In very characteristic style, Antonio is both eloquent and scholarly. His command of the themes he approaches is impressive, as is the vigor with which he tackles such recondite issues as the elusive “self,” inside the head. A wonderful read, and a recommended one!”
—Rodolfo R. Llinás, Chair and Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience, New York University

“In this astonishing work, Antonio Damasio puts his years of investigation into the processes of the brain to open the impenetrable mysteries of self and mind, where all the contradictions of human experience unite in the ultimate unknown, consciousness.”
—Peter Brook, theater and film director and author of The Empty Space and Threads of Time

“Awareness may be mostly mystery, but Damasio shapes its hints and glimmerings into an imaginative, informed narrative.”
—Kirkus  

“A thoughtful work.”
—Scientific American Book Club
 
“A very interesting book…cogent, painstaking, imaginative, knowledgeable, honest, and persuasive…Damasio’s quest is both thorough and comprehensive”
—New York Journal of Books

“Ambitious…a lucid and important work.” –Wired.com

“Self Comes to Mind is a Big Idea book penned by a luminous thinker…The result is this beautifully sprawling and marvelous work.” –The Dallas Morning News

“[Damasio] writes with such flair and confidence that it is almost as if he makes the mystery dissolve into knowledge before our eyes…a compelling picture, once one sets aside the power of the unconscious, and of grasping, other-hating, defensive, anxious, ideologically-motivated consciousness…what one has to applaud is the imaginative vision Damasio brings to the task.” –Barnes and Noble Review
 
“Intriguing…introduces some novel ideas.” –New Scientist

“An important and impressive study.” –The Magonia Blog and Magonia Review of Books

“I found Self Comes to Mind a delight…an intellectual journey well worth the effort.” –Wilson Quarterly

“Breathtakingly original.” –Financial Times



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