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 known for his research on the relationships between the brain’s two-hemispheres–and his work with “split-brain” patients. He has also written a couple of books on questions about free will. You may remember Damasio discussing his work.

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 components of the brain, their functions and how they might relate to consciousness with fair examples. Very early in Self Comes to Mind however, Damasio admits he has no working definition of Consciousness:

• To better understand Demasio’s Framework what do you believe his definition would be of consciousness? What is yours?

We read some children are born without major components of their brains not functioning, in which their attitudes resemble that of infants where they exhibit simple pleasures and pains but aren’t capable higher order brain functions:

• If a child’s brain is largely developed at birth what gives it an autobiographical self and when? Are there limits to the levels of self of a disabled individual with neurological illness? What might be the ethical or moral consequences of defining these levels as Demasio has in his framwork?

Demasio and Hustvedt both offer examples of their personal experiments, experience and theory as well as those of others to determine what it means to be who we are.

• What are the differences and similarities between their two approaches? What aspects of each do you agree/disagree with?

Damasio’s anecdote in “Stepping into the Light” involving the patient who was “bodily present but personally unaccounted for, absent without leave” made me wonder about other situations in which our consciousness if affected while in a waking state. In my experience of witnessing panic attacks, there seems to be some parallels in that certain functions work but others are absent. The panic attack leaves motor functions present but seems to paralyze the conscious and awaken the subconscious. I say this because the person I have observed while experiencing a panic attack seemed to lose her sense of self and completely lose her capacities to the overwhelming fear that enveloped her. At times she is unable to describe the fear (after the fact) but it comes on anyway. Very frequently she would experience anxiety attacks and have absolutely no understanding of what had inspired them. Back to the panic attacks though, it seemed that she could possibly hurt herself and others because she was so absent from her very functional body. While the same as the patient having an absence seizure, there definitely seems to be levels of consciousness that are affected by different stimuli.

Reading through the Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain is leaving me without a lot of general questions and also whimsical pondering. I thought I could include them here to see if anyone else shared my questions or had responses to them. I will go through my comments and questions in order.

On page 5, Damasio describes, with fear, the possibility that evolution could have possibly not led humans down the road to consciousness. He rightfully points out that, as unconscious beings, we would be unaware of our plight and loss which leads me to think that blissfully ignorant would not have been so terrible either. My pessimistic thoughts have two origins: first, the earth would probably have been in a much better state had we not had the capability to invent so many objects that cause it harm. Secondly, consciousness allows us to experience both pleasure and pain and to understand the differences between them, a juxtaposition I respect. However, consciousness is also what allows human cruelty to run rampant and for people to inflict untold suffering on one another. There is much to delight in, as demonstrated by his personal attraction to Bach piano paritas and Venice’s Grand Canal, however, where does the scale tip between the positives of the beauty humans have created and the horrors we constantly perpetuate?

Page 25 and page 61, as well as the reading from last week all discussed the idea that our conscious is a step behind our bodies’ stimuli to create a physical motion. The significance of our consciousness being behind is the possibility that free will does not exist. The article was the only reference to explicitly state this but Damasio seems to insinuate the idea when he writes “the oddest thing about the upper reaches of consciousness performance is the conspicuous absence of a conductor before the performance begins, although, as the performance unfolds, a conductor comes into being” (25). I may have misinterpreted this line, in which case, I welcome the explanations of others. The other instance is his description of the C. elegens, a worm. Damasio describes their survival habits but informs us “they do not really know what they are doing, let alone why” (61). The worms’ ability to respond to its environment and respond without self or outside awareness intrigues me because it does beg the question of whether free will exists or if we are just programmed. The way Damasio describes the evolution of the self is that we are able to make our own plans, “permit offline planning and deliberative thinking,” however, how much control do we really have? (62).

The last idea (I have many comments throughout the margins but this getting rather lengthy) that I will talk about is the measurement of human intelligence. My interest comes from Damasio’s statement that “It turns out that living creatures without any brain at all, down to single cells, exhibit seemingly intelligent and purposeful behavior as well” (34). The western world often puts very specific and quantifiable measurements to determine intelligence as if intelligence measurements are based upon a specific function or can be limited to a few skill tests. I think his statement is incredibly significant in its potential implications for how we interpret intelligence. Sheer extreme survival skills are an important form of intelligence that is often ignored, belittled, or as he said, underappreciated. How do others interpret this Damasio’s short statement on intelligence in brainless beings?

OK, I’m done. I apologize for writing so much.

Antonio Damasio’s theories of consciousness and the self are complicated and can get bewildering on a first reading. This is partly because he builds the theory through the explanation of relationships among a pretty large number of parts. The good news is that he’s careful to define his key terms–which give names to these various parts. A good way to get a handle on Damasio is to keep track of his key terms as you read and to revisit them. First, be sure that you understand his definition of each term. Then, do your best to understand the relationships among the terms. If you understand these relationships, you’ll understand the nuances of the theories he proposes.

Here’s a list of terms to look out for:

• organism, object, and image
• core consciousness and extended consciousness
• primordial self, prot0 self, core self, autobiographical self
• self-as-subject and self-as-object
• qualia, emotion, and feeling
• image, neural pattern, neural representation, maps
• internal milieu and homeostasis
• body loop and “as if body loop”

You’ll find these terms scattered throughout the two texts we’re reading. Just look out for them at first and mark them when you come across them. Revisit them later and see if you think you’ve understood his point with regard to each.

We’ll talk about all this in class, but your reading will be easier and more productive if you focus on the terms from the outset.