The Feeling of What Happens

As you read this, at some level you're aware that you're reading, thanks to a standard human feature commonly referred to as consciousness. What is it--a spiritual phenomenon, an evolutionary tool, a neurological side effect? The best scientists love to tackle big, meaningful questions like this and neuroscientist Antonio Damasio jumps right in with The Feeling of What Happens, a poetic examination of interior life through lenses of research, medical cases, philosophical analysis and unashamed introspection. Damasio's perspective is, fortunately, becoming increasingly common in the scientific community; despite all the protestations of old-guard behaviourists, subjective consciousness is a plain fact to most of us and the demand for new methods of inquiry is finally being met.

These new methods are not without rigour, though. Damasio and his colleagues examine patients with disruptions and interruptions in consciousness and take deep insights from these tragic lives while offering greater comfort and meaning to the sufferers. His thesis, that our sense of self arises from our need to map relations between self and others, is firmly rooted in medical and evolutionary research but stands up well to self-examination. His examples from the weird world of neurology are unsettling yet deeply humanising--real people with serious problems spring to life in the pages but they are never reduced to their deficits. The Feeling of What Happens captures the spirit of discovery as it plunges deeper than ever into the darkest waters yet. --Rob Lightner

View other editions of The Feeling of What Happens.
View books by Antonio R. Damasio.

A seminal work - Rated
I very seldom come across a book that is so groundbreaking in its content as to make me determined to fully understand what the author is trying to convey (even if it means rereading it three times!) Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens is an astonishing achievement and I believe that the science of consciousness has been vastly enriched with this contribution.

It may help you to know, however, that this is by no means light reading. Even with my medical background, I struggled to keep up, especially the first time round. It probably helps reading Descartes' Error first, but you also need oodles of persistence. But then no thoughtful person ever expected a serious text on the neural underpinnings of consciousness to read like pop psychology. That said, I do think that Damasio's style has eased the burden of understanding considerably. His text is rich with metaphors and examples and I don't believe that anything is beyond the grasp of the enthusiastic lay reader.

In a nutshell, if you put in the effort with this book, you will be richly rewarded. And, as the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine said: '... you will be ahead of the ruck by at least a decade.'

Interested in Conciousness - read this! - Rated
A fantastic book written by one of the mos intelligent writers I have ever read. If you are interested in the neurological basis of consciousness you should read this book.

Tony tumbles temples - Rated
Damasio is not one to let traditional concepts restrain expression of good research. This book overturns many long-held ideas, replacing them with fresh insights on how our minds and bodies interact. Not afraid to tackle the big questions, Damasio offers a rich, substantial analysis of how our brains and bodies interact. That interaction is called our "mind". It's not always easy to see how these two aspects of ourselves are so intimately merged, but Damasio makes it all clear in this book. Why does consciousness feel to us in the manner it does?

Essential to Damasio's analysis of consciousness is his division of it. "Core" consciousness is the brain's "automatic" processes - breathing, heartbeat and the countless other biological functions. "Extended" consciousness is the realm of memory, conception, "thinking" and other aspects we generally associate with the mind. The latter are those featured in most cognitive studies, which he argues are inadequate. Damasio stresses repeatedly that the "core" - "extended" distinction isn't absolute. The links between core and extended consciousness are multiple and varied. They occur in many places in the brain and its association with the rest of the body. He calls for further studies on those interactions as the foundation for a better understanding of full consciousness.

Damasio has particularly fine presentation skills. He puts us at ease in describing his patients, his theories and how they fit together. His patients, after all, are only us with some brain disturbance. Many are people we could encounter daily. They have, however, suffered some malady that disconnects essential parts of their brains' mechanism. Damasio explains in an intimate conversational style what they are suffering. Consciousness in these people has been impaired. The impairment is in the realm of emotion and feeling.

Those two terms are the core of Damasio's thesis. Unlike mainstream cognitive scientists, he separates them, with one being the "public" expression and the other private. Feelings belong to us, where emotions are shared with the world. He is breaking new ground in cognitive studies with his work. The result is a highly detailed book, with intense examination of brain operations. A reader unfamiliar with these topics may find the book increasingly challenging as you progress through the topics. The rewards for persistence, however, are rich. Damasio has provided an innovative scenario of how consciousness is structured. This book deserves serious attention and will remain fundamental for some time.[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The Feeling of Self - Rated
Beware! This book will change forever your idea about your self. Starting from the premise that selves begin in bodies, Damasio outlines how the brain's ability to build a map of the state of the body, using electrical and chemical mesages, forms the basis of the 'proto-self' and how 'second-order' maps of the changes which result in the body as a result of stimuli ( both external and internal) add a second-order of mapping which, by being repeatedly recreated over time emerge as the 'self'. It is, says Damasio, upon this self that higher orders of memory and intellect create the elaborate structure of the individual.When I first read it, I suspected the author of the usual slight of hand which gets us from biology to awareness, but I've read it three times now and am convinced. This is really the only biology of Self that I have encountered. Personally I'd like to add a little of Daniel Dennett's 'centre of narrative' to the mix (see 'Consciousness Explained'), despite his less convincing biology, but my neuroscience contacts tell me that Damasio's approach is now the most widely accepted, and I can well understand why. A stunning idea lucidly expounded. Read it!

First rate book - Rated
I am a doctor and I found this the best book on consciousness that I have read. I feel that Damasio in on the right lines to explaining this very difficult problem. His insights are mostly gained from studying brain damaged people, which has always been useful in the study of neurology (see Oliver Sachs' books). Well worth a read.