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Self Comes to Mind is a nuanced and original chronicle of the evolution of the human brain. It reveals how the brain's development of a self becomes a challenge to nature's indifference and opens the way for the appearance of culture, a radical break in the course of evolution.
Damasio views brain development through the lens of biological evolution - starting with the simplest organisms that exhibit elaborate life regulation devices but do not require brains. The arrival of neurons, possessed of the unique ability to transmit and receive messages, allows neurons to organize themselves in complex circuits and networks, networks that serve to represent events occurring in the body, influence the function of other cells, even their own function. In this framework, the distinction between body and brain is blurred - the neurons that make up the brain and eventually generate the mind are body cells and are perpetually connected to the body.
Neurons are the producers of mind states. And in the increasing complexity of the patterns in which neurons organize themselves is to be found at once the mystery and the clues to the myriad ways in which the brain operates.
The systems of neurons that govern life in the interior of a body - the process of homeostasis - are first assisted by reflex-like dispositions, and eventually by images, the basic ingredient of minds. But the flexibility and creativity of the human mind do not emerge from images alone. They require images to create a protagonist, a self capable of reflection. Once self comes to mind, the devices of reward and punishment, drives and motivations, and emotions can be controlled by an autobiographical self, capable of personal reflection and deliberation. The reflective self becomes a rebellious apprentice to nature's indifferent sorcerer. It uses expanded memory, language, and reasoning to create the very possibility of culture.
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- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 11 hours and 29 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Brilliance Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: November 9, 2010
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004BDJ0HQ
Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain Free Download
The deep enigma of consciousness has been explored from many directions, including contributions by neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers and a few physicists (both quantum and complex systems scientists). An important study area consists of injuries or diseases that destroy specific brain structures; these clinical events are often closely correlated to nuanced effects on selective aspects of consciousness. Professor Damasio's book makes good use of these data to describe many known neural correlates of consciousness. For purposes of this book, he adopts the working hypothesis that mental states and brain states are essentially equivalent. While many (including this reviewer) find this idea questionable, such tentative hypothesis is quite appropriate for a book of this kind. In science we often adopt useful, if highly oversimplified, models in the early stages of our studies with no illusions that they are perfectly accurate. In this manner "Truth" is (hopefully) approached in a series of successive approximations. Thankfully, Damasio does not claim to "explain" consciousness.
The book's title is based on Damasio's suggestion that our evolutionary history reveals many simple creatures with active "minds" (defined broadly), but only much later did self (awareness) develop; in other words the human self is built in steps grounded in the so-called "protoself." An essential step is the development of homeostatis (life regulation needed to survive) in single cell creatures like bacteria, followed by progressively more complex "societies of cells" in more complex creatures like insects, reptiles, and mammals. Thus consciousness, rooted in our evolutionary past, helps to optimize our responses to the environment so that we may continue our existence.
Dr. Damasio says that, "This book is dedicated to addressing two questions. First: how does the brain construct a mind? Second: how does the brain make that mind conscious?" Do I think he does an exceptional job of tackling these two questions? Yes, I do.
I believe the greatest strength of this book lies in Dr. Damasio's capacity to take account of vast amounts of information and viewpoints related to mind and consciousness. He has included large swaths of issues that are usually books in and of themselves (Body Maps - The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better, Extended/Embodied Cognition - The Extended Mind (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology), Efficient Computational Theory of Mind - Your Brain Is (Almost) Perfect: How We Make Decisions, Selfhood - The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, Free Will - Distributed Cognition and the Will: Individual Volition and Social Context (Bradford Books), Neuroeconomics -
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