Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars | 225 ratings

Price: 11.81

Last update: 09-10-2024


About this item

From one of the world’s leading neuroscientists: a succinct, illuminating, wholly engaging investigation of how biology, neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence have given us the tools to unlock the mysteries of human consciousness

“One thrilling insight after another ... Damasio has succeeded brilliantly in narrowing the gap between body and mind.” —The New York Times Book Review

In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life.

In the forty-eight brief chapters of Feeling & Knowing, and in writing that remains faithful to our intuitive sense of what feeling and experiencing are about, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large. He combines the latest discoveries in various sciences with philosophy and discusses his original research, which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behavior.

Here is an indispensable guide to understand­ing how we experience the world within and around us and find our place in the universe.


Top reviews from the United States

Joel Bennett
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful Simple and Cutting Edge
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2022
It is all about feelings and their role in the evolution of our nervous system. I recommend this book for "neurophiles" or anyone interested in applying brain science to understanding what it means to be a human being. Damasio offers mini-essays like energy packets jumping from one neuron to another. We have become so "over-cognitivized" in our understanding of the brain that we have forgotten about the essential role of feelings. I keep this book by the living room table and peer into it for a few minutes at a time. You can randomly open to a page and be left wondering about where our species is headed next.
Fritz Tegularius
4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening read
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2023
There are many excellent books about the scientific study of mind and consciousness. Many are far more detailed than this book. The genius of this book is its clarity: how well it puts complex science and philosophy into a comprehensible framework of thought. I've had a couple of "aha!" moments as I read it.
I rated 4, rather than 5 stars since the Kindle version didn't seem to have gotten the same attention to quality as the print version. For example, at least a couple of the footnote links go to the wrong footnotes.
thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars Quite good!
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2022
The man can write. I loved his early trilogy. His willingness to speculate and apply his experience genrously is what I enjoy most I suppose.
This one was a bit of a departure though compared to those early texts. There is a richness and depth to his perspective that to my experience is rare among scientists and is always present. Bottom line, he is a thinker to be trusted. A quick read that bears a second or third visit.
Oakali
5.0 out of 5 stars Minimalistic—and I love it
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2022
In each (very short) section, DaMasio produces what can only be described as an ode to his art: describing how intelligence, consciousness, and aspect are interrelated, but discrete aspects of mental processing. The fluff is removed, leaving the meat of his ideas. I enjoyed this pared-down exploration very much.
K. in Texas
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful introduction to neuroscience
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2022
The author states in the introduction that he wanted to "chip away at the nonessential and then chip some more." He has succeeded in this endeavor, giving us an easy-to-read book that describes not only the fundamental concepts of neuroscience, but also covers the intricate ways they are connected. The book even provides an overview how all of this came about.
Some readers have commented that the author does not really provide an explanation for consciousness. It would be a wonder if he did. But he points out aspects that may well become part of the eventual solution.
Denver Dilettante
4.0 out of 5 stars A mercifully brief précis of neuroscience/consciousness
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2022
This adds to the current literature on the subject by describing how and why bodily experience is essential to consciousness. (And, parenthetically, why AI based on the mind alone is doomed, a point noted by many.) Those who believe that higher states of consciousness are based in the mind AND the body will find scientific evidence here.

However, regarding the "hard problem of consciousness," which he does not think is that hard, he rests his argument on a weasel word that dismisses the "problem." Ownership. He accurately describes how consciousness is built on shifting memories and cultural influence etc., but ultimately holds that all of these processes rest, in our egoic identification of them as vital to our sense of self, as resting on our "ownership" of these various constructions. He does not delve into what ownership means, so does not solve the "hard problem."

Nice, however, that he inadvertently supports the fact that enlightenment is a whole-body experience.
F. Hewett
3.0 out of 5 stars A rough sketch
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2021
Stimulating, but ultimately unsatisfying. Feels like the first 200 pages of a 500-page book. Too many ideas are left undeveloped, and the reader is left hungry for detail. There are oblique references to the concept of self, but it’s never explained. If you’re looking for an explanation of how subjectivity arises, you will be disappointed.
AJP
1.0 out of 5 stars Yazbut ....
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2021
Yazbut, he never actually addresses the "hard question," i.e., the actual mechanisms whereby consciousness arises. Instead, there's some mushy philosophical stuff, which one might expect from the likes of Aristotle, or even Freud. Everyyhing is a "black box" - "And then a miracle happens." He only mentions the "Hard Problem" once, but then ignores it completely. In the preface, he states that he wanted to achieve "brevity" and in that he's successful. There are a couple of small brain pictures, and he says the parts are connected. That's as far as he goes regarding explanations. It's a short book, at 186 pages, 20% of which are footnotes. But there's absolutely nothing of any value addressing the issue of the mechanisms. I'm a retired endocrinologist, not a neurologist, but I felt insulted, after hoping, page after page that he'd somehow get to the punchline and explain it all, or at least partially. He doesn't even try. This book is a real disappointment.

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