Another set of long book excerpts with minimal commentary.

Continuing the exploration of rationality and emotion, I read Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio.

Damasio begins with the case of Phineas Gage, a 19th-century man man whose personality fundamentally shifted after his brain was damaged. “Gage lost something completely human, the ability to plan his future as a social being” (p. 19).

He presents an overwhelming litany of case studies culled from his experience as a neuroscientist. One method of evaluating patients rates them according to moral development; I had no idea that such a determination had been articulated. “The Standard Issue Moral Judgment Interview score . . . preconventional levels (stage 1, obedience and punishment orientation; stage 2, instrumental purpose and exchange); conventional levels (stage 3, interpersonal accord and conformity; stage 4, social accord and system maintenance); and a postconventional level (stage 5, social contract, utility, individual rights)” (p. 48).

One patient scores well on many of these tests, but the irrational decisions that he makes are directly correlated to the brain lesions that have eliminated his emotions. “I began to think that the cold-bloodedness of Elliot’s reasoning prevented him from assigning different values to different options, and made his decision-making landscape hopelessly flat” (p. 51). The emotions prove to be an essential element of rational decision-making.

Damasio’s basic idea: “When I say that the body and brain form an indissociable organism, I am not exaggerating. . . . The organism constituted by the brain-body partnership interacts with the environment as an ensemble . . . [C]omplex organisms such as ours . . . generate internal responses, some of which constitute images (visual, auditory, somatosensory, and so on), which I postulate as the basis for mind” (p. 88-89).

We do not think in words or symbols initially; our primary processing format is imagery. “[B]oth words and arbitrary symbols are based on topographically organized representations and can become images” (p. 106).

Damasio resists complete genetic determinism, positing a complex nature/nurture interaction. “Neither our brains nor our minds are tabulae rasae when we are born. Yet neither are they fully determined genetically. The genetic shadow looms large but is not complete. . . . The unpredictable profile of experiences of each individual does have a say in circuit design” (p. 112).

“For most ethical rules and social conventions . . . one can envision a meaningful link to simpler goals and to drives and instincts. . . . Perhaps I would be more eligible for praise if I arrived at such sentiments by means of pure intellectual effort and willpower, but what if I have not, what if my current nature helps me get there faster, and be nice and honest without even trying?” (p. 125). But he contends that this does not debase emotion, altruism, or free will. “[T]hose governing biological drives . . . require the intervention of society to become whatever they become, and thus are related as much to a given culture as to general neurobiology. Moreover, out of that dual constraint, suprainstinctual survival strategies generate something probably unique to humans: a moral point of view that, on occasion, can transcend the interests of the immediate group and even the species” (p. 126).

He differentiates between “primary emotions,” those experienced fundamentally across cultures and by individuals of all ages, and “secondary emotions,” which are built upon the primary ones, associated mainly with adults, and are often socially constructed (p. 131). These are processed through the same cognitive channels (p. 139).

Universal emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust (p. 149). Background feelings constitute the bulk of emotional experience—in between major emotions, like mood or general sense (p. 150). “The brain probably cannot predict the exact landscapes the body will assume . . . Anosognosia suggests that the normal mind requires a steady flow of updated information from body states” (p. 158).

Damasio’s pivotal point is his somatic-marker hypothesis: “The automated signal protects you against future losses, without further ado, and then allows you to choose from among fewer alternatives. There is still room for using a cost/benefit analysis and proper deductive competence, but only after the automated step drastically reduces the number of options” (p. 173). The somatic markers aid in decision-making by eliminating sterile choices and reducing deliberation time. They have biological roots, but are also culturally constructed. “If we assume that the brain is normal and the culture in which it develops is healthy, the device has been made rational relative to social conventions and ethics” (p. 200).

He admits that occasionally emotions can lead to poor decisions, but continues to affirm that they are essential for an overall rationality. “Biological drives and the automated somatic-marker mechanism that relies on them are essential for some rational behaviors, especially in the personal and social domains, although they can be pernicious to rational decision-making in certain circumstances by creating an overriding bias against objective facts” (p. 192).

The organism perceives in itself “a nonverbal narrative document of what is happening to those protagonists. . . . Humans have second-order narrative capacities, provided by language, which can engender verbal narratives out of nonverbal ones. The refined form of subjectivity that is ours would emerge from the latter process. Language may not be the source of the self, but it certainly is the source of the ‘I’” (p. 243).