Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain [Paperback]

'The marvel of reading Damasio's book is to be convinced one can follow the brain at work as it makes the private reality that is the deepest self.' --V. S. Naipaul, Nobel Laureate and author of A BEND IN THE RIVER and THE ENIGMA OF ARRIVAL

'Damasio makes a grand transition from higher-brain views of emotions to deeply evolutionary, lower-brain contributions to emotional, sensory and homeostatic experiences. He affirms that the roots of consciousness are affective and shared by our fellow animals. Damasio's creative vision leads relentlessly toward a natural understanding of the very font of being.' --Jaak Panksepp, author of AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE and Baily Endowed Professor of Animal Well-Being Science, Washington State University

'I was totally captivated by SELF COMES TO MIND. In this work Antonio Damasio presents his seminal discoveries in the field of neuroscience in the broader contexts of evolutionary biology and cultural development. This trailblazing book gives us a new way of thinking about ourselves, our history, and the importance of culture in shaping our common future.' --Yo-Yo Ma, musician

'The epicenter of SELF COMES TO MIND concerns the neurological basis for cognition and the issue of the superposition of a "self' onto the construct which we address as reality. Damasio is both eloquent and scholarly. His command of the themes he approaches is impressive, as is the vigor with which he tackles such recondite issues as the elusive "self," inside the head. A wonderful read, and a recommended one!'
--Rodolfo R. Llinás, Chair and Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience, New York University

'In this astonishing work, Antonio Damasio puts his years of investigation into the processes of the brain to open the impenetrable mysteries of self and mind, where all the contradictions of human experience unite in the ultimate unknown, consciousness.'
--Peter Brook, theater and film director and author of THE EMPTY SPACE and THREADS OF TIME

'Breathtakingly original ... Damasio pushes the idea of homoeostasis further and harder than any previous author has dared, arguing that improved homoeostatic control has driven the evolution of the brain and then the emergence of consciousness.' --Financial Times

'SELF COMES TO MIND is [Damasio's] most ambitious work yet. It is a lucid and important work, and scrambles all the conventional categories of the brain. It turns out that the "higher" parts of the cortex are inseparable from the "lower" parts, and that "you" - the "you" reading these words - emerge in large part from the brain stem, the nub of tissue just above the spinal cord. We arise, in other words, from the place were brain and body meet, where flesh and feeling are emulsified together.' --Wired

'Damasio's continental European training sensitizes him to the reductionist traps that ensnare so many of his colleagues. His is the only one of the many consciousness books weighing down my shelves that feels it necessary to mention Freud's, as opposed to an anaesthetist's, use of the term unconscious.' --The Guardian (Book of the Week)

'Damasio gives a plausible account of the way our sense of self might emerge from neural processes. The book ranges readably from brain anatomy to evolutionary biology.' --Financial Times, Best Books of the Year

'Damasio makes a grand transition from higher-brain views of emotions to deeply evolutionary, lower-brain contributions to emotional, sensory and homeostatic experiences. He affirms that the roots of consciousness are affective and shared by our fellow animals. Damasio's creative vision leads relentlessly toward a natural understanding of the very font of being.' --Jaak Panksepp, Washington State University

'In SELF COMES TO MIND, Antonio Damasio, one of the world's great neuroscientists, addresses the questions fundamental to every one of us. Who are we? What does it mean to have a sense of self? ... This is an exciting book by a wonderful thinker.' --Siri Hustvedt, author of What I loved and The Shaking Woman

'Damasio's DESCARTES' ERROR was widely considered to revolutionize the understanding of the critical role emotion plays in human rationality and decision-making. His latest, SELF COMES TO MIND, explores the way humans ̶ and some animals ̶ develop a sense of self, and examines what this tells us about the nature of consciousness.' --Time Magazine

'A captivating read that demonstrates that we remain a mystery for ourselves.'
--Psychologies (Book of the Month Selection) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

A profound and groundbreaking new book telling the story of consciousness and the human mind, from one of the world's leading neuroscientists.

Winner of the CORINE International Book Award 2011

From one of the most important neuroscientists at work today, a path-breaking investigation of a question that has confounded neurologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists and psychologists for centuries: how is consciousness created?

Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years studying and writing about how the brain operates, and his work has garnered acclaim for its singular melding of the scientific and the humanistic. In Self Comes to Mind, he goes against the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, presenting compelling new scientific evidence that consciousness - what we think of as a mind with a self - is in fact a biological process created by a living organism.

The result is a groundbreaking investigative journey into the neurobiological foundations of mind and self.

From one of the most important neuroscientists at work today, a path-breaking investigation of a question that has confounded neurologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists and psychologists for centuries: how is consciousness created?

Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years studying and writing about how the brain operates, and his work has garnered acclaim for its singular melding of the scientific and the humanistic. In Self Comes to Mind, he goes against the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, presenting compelling new scientific evidence that consciousness - what we think of as a mind with a self - is in fact a biological process created by a living organism. Besides the three traditional perspectives used to study the mind (the introspective, the behavioural, and the neurological), Damasio introduces an evolutionary perspective which entails a radical change in the way the history of conscious minds is viewed and told. Damasio also advances a radical hypothesis regarding the origins and varieties of feelings, which is central to his framework for the biological construction of consciousness: feelings are grounded in a near fusion of body and brain networks, and first emerge from the historically old and humble brain stem rather than from the modern cerebral cortex.

Damasio suggests that the brain's development of a human self becomes a challenge to nature's indifference and opens the way for the appearance of culture, a radical break in the course of evolution and the source of a new level of life regulation - sociocultural homeostasis. He leaves no doubt that the blueprint for the work-in-progress he calls sociocultural homeostasis is the genetically well-established basic homeostasis, the curator of value that has been present in simple life forms for billions of years. Self Comes to Mind is a groundbreaking investigative journey into the neurobiological foundations of mind and self.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

'Breathtakingly original' Financial Times

From one of the most important neuroscientists at work today, a path-breaking investigation of a question that has confounded neurologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists and psychologists for centuries: how is consciousness created?

Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years studying and writing about how the brain operates, and his work has garnered acclaim for its singular melding of the scientific and the humanistic. In Self Comes to Mind, he goes against the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, presenting compelling new scientific evidence that consciousness - what we think of as a mind with a self - is in fact a biological process created by a living organism. The result is a groundbreaking investigative journey into the neurobiological foundations of mind and self.

'Intriguing...introduces some novel ideas' New Scientist

'The marvel of reading Damasio's book is to be convinced one can follow the brain at work as it makes the private reality that is the deepest self' V. S. Naipaul

'Lucid, elegantly written, and punctuated by humor... This is an exciting book by a wonderful thinker' Siri Hustvedt

ANTONIO DAMASIO is University Professor, David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Neurology, and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. Damasio's other books include Descartes' Error; The Feeling of What Happens; and Looking for Spinoza. He has received the Honda Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, and, shared with his wife Hanna, the Pessoa, Signoret, and Cozzarelli prizes. Damasio is a fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He lives in Los Angeles.