We all woke up this morning and we had with it the amazing return of our conscious mind. We recovered minds with a complete sense of self and a complete sense of our own existence, yet we hardly ever pause to consider this wonder. Antonio Damasio More Quotes by Antonio Damasio More Quotes From Antonio Damasio We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think. Antonio Damasio machines feelings thinking A conscious mind is a mind with a self in it. Antonio Damasio self mind brain There is no such thing as a disembodied mind. The mind is implanted in the brain, and the brain is implanted in the body. Antonio Damasio body mind brain I continue to be fascinated by the fact that feelings are not just the shady side of reason but that they help us to reach decisions as well. Antonio Damasio decision sides feelings Emotions are enmeshed in the neural networks of reason. Antonio Damasio emotion leadership reason The self is a perpetually recreated neurobiological state. Antonio Damasio states self So, you can define emotions very simply as the process of perceiving what is going on in the organs when you are in the throws of an emotion, and that is achieved by a collection of structures, some of which are in the brain stem, and some of which are in the cerebral cortex, namely the insular cortex, which I like to mention not because I think it's the most important, it's not. Antonio Damasio important brain thinking Consciousness begins when brains acquire the power, the simple power I must add, of telling a story. Antonio Damasio simple brain add When you experience the emotion of sadness, there will be changes in facial expression, and your body will be closed in, withdrawn. There are also changes in your heart, your guts: they slow down. And there are hormonal changes. Antonio Damasio sadness expression heart Emotion consists of a very well orchestrated set of alterations in the body that has, as a general purpose, making life more survivable by taking care of a danger, of taking care of an opportunity, either/or, or something in between. Antonio Damasio body purpose opportunity Imagine, for example, birds. When they look out at the world, they have a sense that they are alive. If they are in pain, they can do something about it. If they have hunger or thirst, they can satisfy that. It's this basic feeling that there is life ticking away inside of you. Antonio Damasio pain feelings bird The problem that we, as living organisms, face - and not we only, humans, but any living organism faces - is the management of life. Antonio Damasio problem management faces Consciousness permits us to develop the instruments of culture - morality and justice, religion, art, economics and politics, science and technology. Those instruments allow us some measure of freedom in the confrontation with nature. Antonio Damasio technology justice art A mind is so closely shaped by the body and destined to serve it that only one mind could possibly arise in it. No body, never mind. Antonio Damasio arise body mind Emotion is set in our genome and that we all have with a certain programmed nature that is modified by our experience so individually we have variations on the pattern. But in essence, your emotion of joy and mine are going to be extremely similar. Antonio Damasio variation essence joy Some of us, for better or worse, develop very stable, consistent, and largely predictable machineries of self. But in others, the self machinery is more flexible and more open to unexpected turns. Antonio Damasio machinery unexpected self More may have been learned about the brain and the mind in the 1990s - the so-called decade of the brain - than during the entire previous history of psychology and neuroscience. Antonio Damasio psychology mind brain Rather than being a luxury, emotions are a very intelligent way of driving an organism toward certain outcomes. Antonio Damasio luxury outcomes intelligent The autobiographical self has prompted extended memory, reasoning, imagination, creativity and language. And out of that came the instruments of culture - religions, justice, trade, the arts, science, technology. Antonio Damasio creativity memories art The mechanism of primary emotions does not describe the full range of emotional behaviors. They are, to be sure, the basic mechanism. However, I believe that in terms of an individual's development they are followed by mechanisms of secondary emotions, which occur once we begin experiencing feelings and forming systematic connections between categories of objects and situations, on the one hand, and primary emotions, on the other. Antonio Damasio emotional believe hands
