Explain Damasio's theory of consciousness based on The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the making of consciousness

Damasio investigates “how we step into the light of consciousness” when the knowing mind mentally creates a sense of self. He describes a transition from innocence and ignorance, to knowingness and selfness (Damasio, 2000 : 4), as he asks “by which additional mechanism do each of us know that a feeling is occurring within the bounds of our own organism?” (Damasio, 2000 : 8). As a neuroscientist, he is investigating the biological circumstances that permit this transition. Accordingly, consciousness is an organism’s awareness of its own self and surroundings (Damasio, 2000 : 4) and allows us to know sorrow, joy, suffering or pleasure and also to develop a concern for other selves and improve the art of life (Damasio, 2000 : 5). “A sense of self is needed to make the signals that constitute the feeling of emotion known to the organism having the emotion” (Damasio, 2000 : 8) and so there is an investigation into the connection between emotion, consciousness and body, to see if it is possible to neuro-biologically explain how this sense of self evolved. Firstly, I will explain Damasio’s problem of consciousness. Then, I will go on to examine how consciousness and emotion are closely linked, followed by the argument for core consciousness, extended consciousness and the proto-self that determine our sense of self. These concepts of consciousness are explained via neuro-anatomy and how the body is mapped in the brain. As a contrast within philosophy of emotion, I will discuss Brogaard’s view of love as a complex emotion and her support of Damasio in saying that some emotions are unconscious. Lastly, I’ll conclude that “consciousness is valuable because it centres knowledge on the life of an individual organism” (Damasio, 2000 : 304) that, according to Damasio aligns with Spinoza’s much earlier view that “the effort to preserve oneself is the first and unique foundation of virtue. Consciousness enables that effort” (Damasio, 2000 : 25).

Damasio sets out two problems of consciousness. The first is how we get a ‘movie in the brain’ of what he calls an object, such as a person, a toothache or a state of bliss (Damasio, 2000 : 9). From the perspective of neurobiology, we need to know how the brain makes neural patterns and then changes them in to mental patterns that Damasio calls images. This addresses the philosophical issue of qualia or raw feels. Qualia are the sensory qualities in the redness of red or the particular sound of a voice. And so the images of the movie in the brain are made of qualia. At the moment the neuro-biological account of qualia is incomplete, although Damasio believes in time it will be explained. The second problem is, once mental patterns of an object have been formed, how does the brain create a sense of self that knows that it knows? This aware self is “a presence of you in a particular relationship with some object” or a subtle feeling of presence that puts the subjective individual as the observer, perceiver, knower, or the actor of reality. There is, “the feeling of what happens when your being is modified by the acts of apprehending something” (Damasio, 2000 : 10) that relates to the relationship between organism and object and defines humans as beings who respond and change according to the environment. To sum up, consciousness is “the unified mental pattern that brings together the object and the self” (Damasio, 2000 : 11) and the two interwoven problems are how the brain creates the movie in the brain and how the brain creates the observer of that movie. Damasio focuses on the second problem of sense of self from a biological perspective but doesn't minimise the importance of the first problem and he argues that the two are integrated.

Sense of self is found in consciousness, and consciousness and emotion are not separable (as found through neurological observations and neuro-psychological experiments). Essentially, “emotion is devoted to an organism’s survival, and so is consciousness” and “emotion was probably set in evolution before the dawn of consciousness (Damasio, 2000 : 37) as felt in ‘gut instincts’ and ‘inner knowing’. Damasio found in his patients that “when consciousness is suspended…emotion is usually suspended as well, suggesting…their underpinnings may be connected” (Damasio, 2000 : 37). Emotion plays another crucial role in that they are “part and parcel of the regulation we call homeostasis”, that ensures the bodily systems are in balance such as temperature, oxygen saturation and pH levels and “is a key to the biology of consciousness” (Damasio, 2000 : 40). It was found in patients that emotion is integral for decision-making and processes of reasoning and this shows the reality of a human life as a complex whole, with body-brain-emotions and rationality all working together for survival (Damasio, 2000 : 41). As emotions come before a feeling and can be unconscious, they are often unknown to the mind and he refers to background emotions as led by biological machinery…not dependent on consciousness (Damasio, 2000 : 43). These background emotions are always visible in some way as “the body is the main stage for emotions”, by noticing eye movements or pace of body movement, people are unable to completely hide their feelings, as the body expresses them naturally (Damasio, 2000 : 287). “Background feelings help define our mental state and colour our lives” (Damasio, 2000 : 286) and they arise from background emotions that are internal but observable by others. We can understand the brain’s processes to experience an emotion but this doesn’t explain how an organism knows it is feeling the emotion. Consciousness is required to feel a feeling and Damasio explores core consciousness (a sense of self) and extended consciousness (self with an awareness of past, present and future).

Consciousness happens internally but its manifestation is public. When in a normal state of consciousness, one is awake, appropriately responsive to the context of the environment and with focused attention, specific emotions, specific actions and a verbal report related to mental images. Background emotions are running as well as specific emotions attuned to the moment (Damasio, 2000 : 88). Wakefulness isn’t the same as consciousness where eyes can be open and muscle tone maintained, but the agent is not acting appropriately in the context. For example, a patient who has a momentary seizure may appear vacant, as if their sense of self has been suspended, whilst still able to carry out motor functions like holding a coffee cup. Core consciousness creates a core self and is described as having a sense of self that knows that it knows, and includes a brief, short term memory capacity. Extended consciousness creates an autobiographical self that has extensive memory, working memory (stored in the hippocampus) and has knowledge of past, present and future. Both core and autobiographical self function conjointly to provide an agent with a sense of self with memories and extension into the future. With reasoning capabilities and intelligence, plans can be made, and a life constructed with a sense of purpose, meaning and awareness of a self. “Core consciousness is the foundation for extended consciousness,” (Damasio, 2000 : 125) and extended consciousness isn’t possible without core consciousness, although core self is possible without an autobiographical self as in the case of those with damaged memory functioning. When core consciousness is missing, so are background and specific emotions as in the example of those with Alzheimer’s (Damasio, 2000 : 104). “Individual perspective, individual ownership of thought, and individual agency are the critical riches that core consciousness contributes to the mental process now unfolding in your organism” and without this sense of self “the very feeling of you” disappears (Damasio, 2000 : 127). Below the core self, Damasio argues for a proto-self, that is, “a preconscious biological precedent” (Damasio, 2000 : 153) that was an early form of consciousness. The proto-self is unconscious, without perception or knowledge. Certain brain structures are necessary to implement the proto-self, and monitor the body state. Damasio argues that the unconscious proto-self is the basis for core and extended consciousness as it governs the bodily processes.

The somatosensory systems are “a coherent collection of neural patterns which map, moment by moment, the state of the physical structure of the organism in its many dimensions” (Damasio, 2000 : 154). The three divisions are:

1.    Internal milieu (the internal bodily environment) and visceral division (internal organs / skin)

2.    The vestibular (maps the coordinates of the body in space) and musculoskeletal division (muscle fibres / skeletal movement)

3.    The fine-touch division.

Accordingly, the brain knows where the body is in space and constantly attains homeostasis through chemical signalling putting all bodily systems in touch as one organism with the goal to survive in its environment in the best possible way. Damasio believes “that minds and consciousness, when they eventually appeared in evolution, were first and foremost about life and the life urge within a boundary” (Damasio, 2000 : 137) that is the body. This is a strong argument for consciousness, as brains allow the organism to preserve itself and to adapt by becoming aware of emotions and the feeling of knowing. Consequently, it is more likely humans could survive, with enhanced awareness of the relationship between organism and object.

In terms of neuro-anatomy, Damasio explains in great depth how the brain creates ‘first and second order maps’ to achieve homeostasis within the body, and furthermore for the organism to become self-aware. In summary, within the body state, the ‘body loop’ uses chemical signals via the bloodstream called ‘humoral signals’ and electrochemical messages via nerve pathways called ‘neural signals’. The body landscape is changed via these two signals and represented in somatosensory structures of the central nervous system, brain stem upwards (Damasio, 2000 : 281). First order maps are created within the brain’s sensory and motor structures, and contain maps of the body that function to constantly achieve maintain homeostasis for the organism. The object, (a person, a toothache, or a state of bliss) the organism is interacting with is mapped, as the organism is in relationship with the object. Accordingly, both organism and object are mapped as neural patterns called first order maps. The relationship here is between proto-self and object. The layer on top of first order maps, are second order maps and this is where core consciousness enters. The changes as represented in first order maps are re-represented in second order maps that reveal the relationship of between object and organism. This is where we begin to experience the feeling that feeling of having an emotion - “only after we build the second-order representations necessary for core consciousness” (Damasio, 2000 : 280). When these neural patterns become mental images, there is a non-verbal account of what’s happening: “that of the organism caught in the act of representing its own changing state as it goes about representing something else” (Damasio, 2000 : 170) and Damasio proposes this as “the foundation of consciousness” (Damasio, 2000 : 186). 

In support of Damasio’s prior mentioned unconscious emotions, Brogaard explores a completely different area of research within philosophy of emotion -  that is love. Brogaard has described love as a complex emotion that includes “joy, anger, sadness, surprise, fear, and numerous other emotional elements, bodily sensations, and cognitive factors, including care, concern, and sexual desire” (Brogaard, 2015 : 45). Brogaard argues that “love does not always manifest itself as a conscious experience” (Brogaard, 2015 : 143). Instead it will be stored within memory or nerve signals, that when otherwise occupied, people are not necessarily aware of, yet the emotion of love continues to exist albeit unconsciously. As these unconscious thoughts and emotions “guide your behavioural patterns and form your personality” (Brogaard, 2015 : 144) others may bear witness through observation of what is underlying, such as when friends notice how you feel before it may have arisen consciously for you; or a good therapist who can get to the nub of an issue where we lack insight. Although Brogaard believes emotions can be unconscious (as does Damasio) she highlights that many philosophers and psychologists such as Freud disagree. He would call Brogaard’s unconscious emotions instincts or drives instead. In support of hers and Damasio’s view, neuroscientist Beatrice de Gelder discovered that individuals with blindsight due to damage in the primary visual cortex, would still respond when shown threatening faces through increased activity in the amygdala (the emotional brain) showing how much activity goes on in the brain below the level of consciousness (Brogaard, 2015 : 148).

In conclusion, Damasio argues, consciousness begins after an “organism that is responding beautifully to its environment begins to discover that it is responding beautifully to its environment”. Emotion, feeling and consciousness all depend on representations of the organism and “their shared essence is the body”. “The process of feeling begins to alert the organism to the problem that emotion has begun to solve” (Damasio, 2000 : 284) allowing a self-reflective being to improve their life through greater co-operation with others, advances in technology and greater forward planning to promote longevity and adaptive response. Ultimately, “consciousness feels like some kind of pattern built with the non-verbal signs of body states” (Damasio, 2000 : 312) and consciousness arises when the organism interacts with an object in the environment and subsequently changes. So, this explanation of how the owner of the movie in the brain emerges through first and second order mapping, and the feeling of consciousness, is coherent because it ties together emotion, body and consciousness in evolutionary terms. He states, “nature did it for us” (Damasio, 2000 : 316) through making us aware of ourselves in the process of living. Accordingly, Damasio argues that the light of consciousness can be used alongside fact and skill memory, working memory, reasoning, intelligence and language to improve our civilisation, if we should choose to direct it in such a way.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Damasio, A., 2000, The Feeling of What Happens, body, emotion and the making of consciousness, Vintage, UK

Scarantino, Andrea and de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/emotion/>.

Brogaard, Berit. On Romantic Love : Simple Truths about a Complex Emotion, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/anglia/detail.action?docID=1865700.