The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio

Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
by Antonio Damasio
Harvest, 1999
Review by Mary Hodgson, M.A. on May 9th 2003

Antonio Damasio is a best-selling author, and it is not hard to see why.  This is a work of pop science, valuable in its own right.  While it is not particularly ground breaking it is an accessible and attention-grabbing work about how we come to know that a feeling occurs within the boundaries of our own organism.  That is, how feelings and emotions bring about a sense of Self and, therefore, consciousness.

David Chalmers coined the term the ‘Hard Problem’ of consciousness to refer to this issue of experience, the subjective aspect of sight, touch, smell, taste and sound, to attempt to account not for the experience, but for what it is to have the experience. To explain the sense of Self that is integral to sensory input, what it is for me to see, for example.  This is commonly referred to as qualia and according to Damasio is part of the problem of how we have mental images of objects (which might include reactions, feelings, intentions or memories of whatever that ‘object’ might be).  This is the first of the two ‘Problems of Consciousness’ which Damasio sets as the central target of his investigation. The second problem being how we know that we have a mental image of an object.

The solution of the first problem requires an insight into how the brain turns neural patterns and chemical signals into mental representations of the object of our attention.  Philosophically speaking the solution requires an explanation of qualia.  What it is for me to have a mental representation of the object of my attention.

Solving the second problem requires that we understand how a mental representation is sensed as being held or entertained within the boundaries of our organism.  That is, how we recognise our own mental property.  Biologically, the problem is how the brain entertains an image while concurrently entertaining the sense of a Self who is engaged in that entertaining.

It is the second problem that Damasio tackles head on, claiming that any biological processes that enable us to know that we are entertaining mental representations will also play a role in the process by which we come to have those representations.  As such Damasio side-steps the ‘Hard Problem’ of Consciousness by looking at how we recognise a state rather than how we come to have the state.

Damasio uses investigations into neural anatomy and in particular the effects of damage to different regions of the brain, to determine which parts of the brain have particular significance for consciousness.  By determining which areas of the brain are responsible for consciousness a neural anatomy of consciousness can be developed which will indicate the areas in which to investigate how the brain entertains images of an object in correspondence with a sense of Self.

The case studies used to illustrate and investigate these issues are taken from previously published works and as such will not reveal anything new to anyone studying the psychology of consciousness.  They do, however, help the non-specialist reader by providing fairly detailed examples of disorders, and offer an opportunity for terminology to be explained in context.  Damasio’s neural experimentation generates a number of claims about consciousness. The most significant for the course of the book is that consciousness itself can be split into two.  Damasio identifies two levels of consciousness, Core and Extended.  Core consciousness involves an awareness of Self but only in the here and now.  With Core Consciousness there is no link between the Self in the present and the Self in the past.  Nor are there any intentions for the future.  Extended Consciousness on the other hand involves the idea of an Autobiographical Self with a sense of identity over time and the associated memories and intentions.

Damasio also claims that Consciousness (here and elsewhere the use of ‘Consciousness’ refers to Extended Consciousness) has survived on an evolutionary scale because the ability to entertain objects of thought, both in their own right and in relation and concurrently with ideas of self, helps the organism maintain itself. 

Another discovery unearthed by the neurological investigation is the inseparability of consciousness and emotion.  Damasio considers emotion to be bodily changes and the feeling of an emotion as the experience of those changes.  The importance of emotion and Consciousness for bodily maintenance is based in the idea that Consciousness involves having an idea of the Self and an (external) object and feeling an emotion involves experiencing the change that object produces in the organism.  If this change is positive or pleasurable then there is no problem. However, the usefulness of the combination of these faculties becomes evident when we consider the negative or unpleasant changes and subsequent emotions which make the organism aware of the need for stability and safety, and if necessary may cause the organism to change its relationship to the object. 

Consciousness is therefore the ‘Feeling of What Happens‘ when we interact with something, which is then represented within the organism by the brain.

This is an interesting and entertaining work.  It is written in a slightly conflicted style, with use of both potentially throwaway sound-byte and technical neurological jargon.  The frequency and number of case studies keeps the tone light, and certainly adds some real life interest to what could be fairly complicated subject matter.

© 2003 Mary Hodson

Mary Hodgson has just finished an MA in philosophy at the University of Bristol.  Her dissertation discussed the interdependent nature of emotion and perception in relation to art.