I Am, Therefore I Think and Feel

Anthony Demasio’s book “Descartes’ Error” has three important takeaways:

1. Emotion and reason are inseparable
2. Mind is not separate from brain
3. Brain is not separate from body

Photo by Samuel Austin on Unsplash

1. Emotion and reason are inseparable

Emotion is quick-and-dirty background “thinking” developed by our evolutionary history that helps to set context and aids conscious cognitive processes. The seemingly coldest of rational thought or statements are still colored and biased by emotion. For example, a simple statement like 1+1=3 elicits some surprise or a feeling of disbelief. The practical usage is to acknowledge the importance of emotion, and to try to cultivate it, when making decisions ranging from the small to the huge.

2. Mind is not separate from brain

I view the mind as an emergent phenomenon from the computations in the brain, and hence the mind as completely and fundamentally physical in nature. Consciousness is what computations in the brain “feel” like.

For example, Demasio talks about how localized “physical” damage in the visual cortex could produce a condition of Achromatopsia, where you not only lose color perception, but you lose the ability “imagine” color in your mind!