Humans

The Strange Order of Things: How we feel our way to being human

Antonio Damasio’s pioneering account of the origin of feelings shows how central they are to life, consciousness and human culture

By Alun Anderson

7 March 2018

forest — Reframing your past may make your future wonderful
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WE ARE still struggling with the question of how it is that our brains not only produce images of the sights, sounds and smells around us but also accompany them with private feelings and a sense of “being there”.

Antonio Damasio is a professor of neuroscience, psychology and philosophy at the University of Southern California, and he has a profound answer to this so-called hard problem of consciousness. In The Strange Order of Things, he argues that brains don’t produce consciousness on their own. Rather, brains and bodies work…