Tip for Reading

As a suggestion for the reading in the coming few weeks I have found a book I was tipped on by my supervisor, Charles van der Mast, back home in The Netherlands. It is called The Feeling of What Happens - Body and Emotion in the Making of Consiousness and is written by Antonio Damasio, a renowned neurologist. It is a about the separation of body and mind (if any) from a neurological perspective. The following is a review by for Nature on October 28 1999 by Raymond J. Dolan:

Antonio Damasio's stunning book provides us not only with an account of the embodiment of feeling states, but also with a related proposal for understanding two important questions in neuroscience, the nature of the self and the nature of consciousness. To think, imagine, and feel are the very stuff of mind and in Damasio's account they are deeply rooted in a sense of body. The exposition of this relatedness in The Feeling of What Happens constitutes a remarkable work of intellectual daring. The challenge posed is a radical redefinition of what constitutes the central concerns for a comprehensive account of consciousness. Indeed, by placing human emotion and feeling at center stage, Damasio ensures their rehabilitation into mainstream neuroscience... Any of the above achievements would make this book recommended reading; combined it becomes compulsive and compulsory.

This book could be a useful extension of the chapters we have read by Paul Dourish. While Dourish relates the mind and human action to technological objectives, Damasio takes a closer look at how this mind is actually connected to the body. The book is available at St. Lucia libraries.