Genealogy Books - Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Damasio is wonderful to read!
Comment: While some parts of this book are repetitive, it is worth reading over and over.

Customer Rating:

Summary: The Three Amigos - Brain, Body and Mind
Comment: If you are curious about how connected the brain, body and mind are without all the scientific and
clinical gargon this book is it. Dr. Damasio has researched the workings of the frontal area of the
brain for over 30 years and the talent to explain it well, plain and simple. Beware, this book will
possibly enhance interest and knowledge of the brain to impress in casual conversations. The brain
continues mystify researchers and scientist. A very good read.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Hard to maintain interest
Comment: I bought this book thinking it would be a good read about exploring the mind, emotions, and
reasoning (hence the title). The first chapter starts out interesting but it goes downhill after
that. I don't mind the author's ideas but I found his writing very obtuse and hard to follow at
times. He could have made this book more interesting to the average reader.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Fun at times, but not the greatest writing
Comment: I enjoyed reading this book. It sheds light to a layperson about some of the inner workings of the
human mind and how it functions in our every day decision-making and "background" feeling state. It
also presents a compelling case for emotions and body-states being intimately tied to rationality.

Damasio clearly cares for his lay-public and I do not get the sense that he is talking down
to anyone. However, the book is a slow read if you want to comprehend everything and I believe this
is not because of the subject matter but because of the unclear writing style. Also, Damasio makes
frequent references to other authors and researchers without elaboration. While this may be fine for
readers who are well-versed in this field, a layperson is not very likely to go and seek out all of
the references that pop up throughout the text; some brief summaries would be helpful.
I also
got the sense that Damasio was repeating things and that the text could have been reduced
significantly. If that was combined with clearer writing, this could have been a fantastic book. />Overall, it was a decent and thought-provoking, if sometimes frustrating, read.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Descartes was wrong to separate body and mind, Damasio explains why
Comment: We have heard a lot about railway worker Phineas P. Gage
by in recent years. His misfortune
apparently the gain of science.

In the summer of 1848 Gage was blasting away rock in
Vermont,
in order for the railway to have straigther and more level path.
Unfortunately,
one days he lits the explosive powder
by accident, and an iron bar blows upward in his
face.
The iron enters Gages left cheek and traverses the front of his
brain. />However, Miraculously he doesn't die. And even weirder, he can
still function, sort of. />But, as it turns out, he is not the same man anymore.
With his frontal lobes damaged, he
could no longer make good
choices. His decisions were not reserved or slight
decisions
of someone who whose mind is diminished and who is
afraid to act. No, his decisions were very
poor, actively
disadvantageous.

And of the story goes. The mind is situated in
the brain.
Brain damage is mind damage.

Surely, Damasio makes it clear that his
account of the working
of the mind is a limited one: "I am skeptical of sciences />presumption of objectivity and definitiveness.
I have a difficult time seeing scientific
results,
especially in neurobiology, as anything but provisional
approximations, to be
enjoyed for a while,
and descarded as better accounts become available."
- But then of
course he sets sail for what appears
to be a pretty impressive definitive account of />what a mind in a brain in body - really means.

Based on Gages case (and the damage to
his frontal lobes)
decision making is explored.
His somatic-marker hypothesis is
explained.
I.e. you need feelings for decision making, and
if none is present (as in the
robot or in
a frontal lobe damage patient) you only have infinite
decisions trees that
doesn't help you much actually
coming up with a decision.
The body turns out to take
part in this. Emotions are send
out to the body. And the body then performs some complex />calculations, which your mind then read back as a feeling.
(you walk along at night and is
followed, your brain
set your heart racing, and your mind then read your
heart racing
away, which introduces feelings of terror and so on).

Descartes error was that he
imagined thinking
as an activity quite separate from the body.
The thinking thing away
from the nonthinking body.
According to descartes: You think - you are.
But not so
according to Damasio.
Here we go back to the dawn of humanity, where
beings were beings.
In the beginning there was
being, only later came elementary consciousness
and later
still thinking.
Descartes error was the separation between body and mind,
between the
mechanically operated body stuff on
one hand and the mind stuff on the other.
According
to Damasio physical pain,
emotional upheavel etc. cannot exist separately from the body. />So, if you really think you can simulate a mind,
you can only do so, by simulating a body
also.

Sounds reasonable to me! A brilliant book.
Now some years old, but still a
thought provoking
read.

-Simon

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