in his section in chapter 4 - feelings in the brain -
new evidence
Damasio - gets subjects to think of emotional episodes
in their lives - and then the measurement -
'All the body sensing areas under scrutiny -......showed
a statistically significant pattern of activation and
deactivation.......The results told us in no uncertain
terms that some of the mysteries of the physiology of
feelings could be solved in the neural circuitry of body
sensing brain regions and in the physiological and chemical
operation of those circuitries.'
OK what do we have here?
let's begin with Damasio's idea of feeling - seeing as
we can't get rid of it
a feeling of sadness e.g. -
OK I feel sad
I may identify certain physical and mental reactions
i.e. - the feeling - leads me to think - let us say
negatively about a certain circumstance - these negative
thoughts are the mental dimension of this feeling
this feeling also expresses itself physically -
let us say I weep
so the feeling is these reactions
what I know is these reactions
if someone says what's the matter
do I say 'I think negatively about.....and I weep' -
no I describe these reactions - events as sadness
I give the experience a name - commonly associated
with such reactions
and if I am further asked - what do you mean by sadness?
I say 'well you know - it's a feeling'
feeling is more general category
used to explain the term 'sadness'
but what is real here?
are these feelings - some sort of state - actual state -
underlying these reactions?
or are feelings - and feeling - just labels for reactions?
Damasio thinks that because - you can observe a change
in brain chemistry when someone says they are feeling
sadness - you have found feeling in the brain
what you have is in fact is not the discovery of feeling
rather physical reactions in the brain
that are associated with reports of - in this case -
sadness
no different really to tears
you see what's interesting here is how you interpret
the brain activity
Damasio wants to say it is the state of sadness
such and such a reaction - just is sadness - under these
circumstances with this subject
that's what it is
he thinks he's found feeling in the brain
all we can say experimentally is these actions / reactions -
(brain activity) is happening - is observed
(and that it corresponds to certain reports of emotional
states)
is the activity - the source of the tears and the negative
thoughts?
or is it just what is observed?
putting it bluntly - is brain activity the cause of the
experience - or just an expression of it (whatever it is)?
in Damasio's terms - is the brain activity the feeling -
or is it rather an expression of the feeling (again whatever
this means)?
Damasio would have to say the former wouldn't he -
because if he didn't - what is this thing called feeling?
what is feeling - if not finally brain activity?
and of course the brain must be running the show -
or else - what's going on?
surely you are not saying brain activity is just an effect
- an expression?
an effect of what?
it is in fact what I am suggesting - and my reason
is as follows
what happens in this world - from a Spinozistic point
of view - is expressed and can be understood in physical
and mental terms
what happens is so expressed
thought - and here - brain activity - are expressions
of modes of being
what we know is not the cause of things - only the
expression of the cause
or we can as it were - only approach cause through
expression
expression of what - you ask?
fair enough
what I say is this - we don't know
for Spinoza it is substance
and if you think of substance - in itself as it were -
without it's expressions - independent of it's attributes
what do you have?
well I don't think Spinoza would wish to go there -
or say that you can
but if you do you will be face to face with the unknown
