Portuguese - Scientist | February 25, 1944 -
In 'Self Comes to Mind' I pay a lot of attention to simple creatures without brains or minds, because those 'cartooned abstractions of who we are' operate on precisely the same principles that we do.
Antonio Damasio
SimpleMindSelfAttentionMinds
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.
NatureTechnologyFreedomScience
Interestingly enough, not all feelings result from the body's reaction to external stimuli. Sometimes changes are purely simulated in the brain maps.
BrainEnoughResultBodyFeelings
To me, body and mind are different aspects of specific biological processes.
MindMeBodyProcessesDifferent
Having a self, even a simple self, allows you to look into the world and put a mark over what is more important and less important. It's a way of classifying the world in terms of your own needs.
SimpleWorldSelfYouLookWay
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.
LifePainBirdsWorldYouLook
The problem that we, as living organisms, face - and not we only, humans, but any living organism faces - is the management of life.
LifeManagementFaceProblemLiving
Of necessity, the autobiographical self is not just about one individual but about all the others that an individual interacts with. Of necessity, it incorporates the culture in which the interactions took place.
CultureSelfPlaceOthersIndividual
When we talk about emotion, we really talk about a collection of behaviors that are produced by the brain. You can look at a person in the throes of an emotion and observe changes in the face, in the body posture, in the coloration of the skin and so on.
BrainFaceYouBodyLookSkin
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you experience the emotion of sadness, there will be changes in facial expression, and your body will be closed in, withdrawn.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.
HeartExperienceSadnessSlowBody
I cannot listen to Beethoven or Mahler or Chopin or Bach when I write because those composers require you stop what you are doing and listen.
DoingYouStopListenWriteBecause
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