The Feeling of What Happens

by Antonio Damasio

Review by Jared C. Miller

Antonio Damasio does not claim to have solved the mystery of consciousness in his
most recent bestseller, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of
Consciousness. This is fortunate, because in many senses Damasio?s book does not provide
much new information about consciousness and why its highest forms occur only in
humans. Instead, Damasio combines a vast range of existing knowledge about the inner
workings of the incredibly specialized human brain along with a fascinating look at cases of
consciousness disorders due to brain damage he has witnessed in his laboratory to provide a
new perspective on consciousness. The Feeling of What Happens is neither a survey of
established knowledge in the field of consciousness nor a breakthrough discovery as to
what really leads to the wonders of consciousness. However, Damasio?s book is valuable in
its creative approaches to developing a new framework under which to examine
consciousness.
Much of the reason we know so little about consciousness in comparison to other
biological phenomena is that it is an intensely private event. Damasio admits that we cannot
directly observe consciousness at work. However, his approach is to use the strong
correlation between consciousness and behavior to glean insights into the biological
foundation of consciousness. With our current scientific knowledge, the best way to
examine how a particular section of the brain affects consciousness is to observe the
behavioral defects that people with damage to that section of the brain suffer. This is why
Damasio spends a large portion of his book discussing the unfortunate plights of his
patients. Simply put, the mysteries of the specialized human brain force us to work
backwards: only when a particular part of the brain ceases to work can we learn its
biological purpose.
However, an even larger problem arises when we discover how particular types of
brain damage result in behavioral and memory defects: what exactly does the vague term of
consciousness refer to? This is where Damasio brings his original interpretations to the
forefront. Deviating from the traditional views of Daniel Dennett and others, Damasio
offers a much more inclusive definition of consciousness that goes beyond the view that
only includes normal humans. Damasio breaks down the concept of consciousness ? the
relationship of an organism to the objects in its environment ? into what he calls "core
consciousness" and "extended consciousness." Core consciousness consists of the level of
the individual?s alertness in interactions of the here and now. Damasio explains that this
type of awareness about the environment is present in infants and nearly all nonhuman
primates. By examining consciousness in this new light, Damasio has made the radical
claim that animals are conscious beings, a view that has traditionally received little support.
By contrast, extended consciousness, the type of awareness we normally attribute to
humans, requires both memory of the past and anticipation of the future. Thus, according to
Damasio, extended consciousness is the result of continued core consciousness and cannot
exist without it. Damasio?s studies have shown that whereas core consciousness requires
very little of the brain, full-blown extended consciousness employs a majority of the brain.
Damasio?s argument that consciousness can be separated into simple and complex
forms may seem arbitrary at first. However, his case presentations support the merits of the
new foundation that he has developed to evaluate consciousness. He offers three types of
examples from various patients that help the reader to understand when consciousness is
present and when it is not. On one extreme, Damasio presents people in deep sleep (without
REM) or in comas as examples of individuals with neither consciousness nor wakefulness.
Next, and more interestingly, Damasio offers the case of epileptic automatism seizures as
an occurrence in which the patient is awake but is without even core consciousness.
Although the patient is clearly awake during the seizure, the individual?s actions seem
completely random and unrelated to any aspect of the surrounding environment. Damasio
explains that this behavior does not constitute consciousness. Last, Damasio describes the
case of David, a patient with one of the most severe cases of global amnesia ever recorded.
The damage to David?s brain is so extreme that he is not able to remember any new fact for
more than a few seconds. From David?s point of view, every interaction with the
environment takes place in a completely unfamiliar setting with unknown people. However,
David is still able to interact with the here and now. According to Damasio, David has core
consciousness but not extended consciousness. Although it is clear that David does not
possess the type of consciousness of normal individuals, it is also obvious that David
should still be considered a conscious being and is quite different from a person
experiencing an epileptic automatism. The example of global amnesia makes Damasio?s
distinction between core and extended consciousness much more clear-cut. Rather than
simply providing an arbitrary judgement of consciousness as so many philosophers and
neuroscientists have been prone to do, Damasio provides a set of tangible guidelines by
which consciousness can be judged.
The Feeling of What Happens ultimately manages to clarify a subject that has long
been a scientific mystery plaguing even the most serious thinkers. However, this book is
not a light read. Although Damasio?s anecdotes about his patients are fascinating, he often
gets bogged down in technical descriptions of his theories that could be much more
succinct than they are. Damasio often bases his explanations around very specific sections
of the brain and obscure neurological concepts without giving an adequate background.
However, the reader who is able to make his way through these difficult sections will be
rewarded with a new perspective on consciousness. Although The Feeling of What
Happens may not be the best choice as a reader?s first exploration into the study of
consciousness, Damasio?s original approach provides an extremely clear way of examining
this extraordinary biological phenomenon.