Quotessence
Home / Books / Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

Book by Antonio Damasio · 2 quotes · Emotions, Mind, Self

Filter quotes by topic

AllEmotionsMindSelfAutobiographicalBehaviorBelieveBodyBrainCategoriesCharacterCharacter FlawsChoices And ConsequencesConnectionConnectionsDecision MakingDecisionsDevelopmentDoeDrugsEmbodied Cognition

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain Quotes

“The neural basis for the self, as I see it, resides with the continuous reactivation of at least two sets of representations. One set concerns representations of key events in an individual's autobiography, on the basis of which a notion of identity can be reconstructed repeatedly, by partial activation in topologically organized sensory maps. ... In brief, the endless reactivation of updated images about our identity (a combination of memories of the past and of the planned future) constitutes a sizable part of the state of self as I understand it. The second set of representations underlying the neural self consists of the primordial representations of an individual's body ... Of necessity, this encompasses background body states and emotional states. The collective representation of the body constitute the basis for a "concept" of self, much as a collection of representations of shape, size, color, texture, and taste can constitute the basis for the concept of orange.”

MindSelfBodyIdentitySensesConnectionMind Body ConnectionAutobiographical
Book:Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
Create image

“In using the notion of self, I am in no way suggesting that all the contents of our minds are inspected by a single central knower and owner, and even less that such an entity would reside in a single brain place. I am saying, though, that our experiences tend to have a consistent perspective, as if there were indeed an owner and knower for most, though not all, contents. I imagine this perspective to be rooted in a relatively stable, endlessly repeated biological state. The source of the stability is the predominantly invariant structure and operation of the organism, and the slowly evolving elements of autobiographical data.”

SelfEmbodied Cognition
Book:Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain
Create image