Monthly Archives: February 2015

Noe, Damasio and Stelarc

Damasio believes consciousness can be found in the brain stem and therefore that the outside world is largely determined by the brain. Noe believes consciousness is largely found outside of the brain (holistic and action-based) and is determined by our … Continue reading

Posted in Mind and Brain | 3 Comments

In The Times

I thought you might be interested to see philosopher Ned Block’s review of Damasio’s Self Comes to Mind in The New York Times, along with Siri Hustvedt’s response. Did they read the same book?

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Sacks nyt op-ed

Don’t mean to be a total downer, but Oliver Sacks wrote an op-ed today on learning he has terminal cancer. In a short space, he mentions Hume, doing/seeing in the present, and detaching from future experience. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html?_r=0

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Dolphin Bioacoustics

In class on Tuesday, we talked a little about species-specific perception and consciousness. Heather Spence, a Ph.D. student in Psychology at the GC, has done some interesting research on “dolphin bioacoustics.” She’s working with the New Media Lab to create and … Continue reading

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Let’s try this again, I’m working from my iPad, and this will just not post! First, as a neuroscientist, I am not accustomed to using these beautiful, poetic terms to describe consciousness—I relate to a line in his introduction in … Continue reading

Posted in Assignments, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Michael Gazzaniga on the Radio

Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga was on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer show today. He called “the explanatory gap”–between neural physiology and subjective experience–“the scientific question of our time.” The show just finished, but it should go online here shortly. Gazzaniga is well … Continue reading

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Things To Think About

Damasio attempts to describe a framework in which we may hope to better understand what it is that makes us conscious, able to feel, and aware of our bodies while feeling and emulating others. He does so by describing different … Continue reading

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Questions regarding Damasio’s Self Comes to Mind

1. Having now read Damasio and Hustverdt…Do you have a clearer idea of the differences between emotions and feelings? 2. Damasio theory is biological explanation of consciousness. He basically say that this is not a linear process but in some … Continue reading

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A Mind on its Own

In the first few chapters of the books The Feeling of What Happens and Self Comes to Mind, Antonio Damasio takes on the mystery of consciousness by grounding his answers to the biological foundation of the mind. Of particular interest … Continue reading

Posted in Assignments, Damasio | 3 Comments

Consciousness v. Mind

I am interested in parsing out a distinction between consciousness and mind. Early on in “Stepping Into The Light,” Damasio describes loss of consciousness as “dissolv[ing] into unsolicited unknowingness.” I thought about this in relation to meditation, which describes the meditative … Continue reading

Posted in Damasio, Mind and Brain | 4 Comments