5 phrases from Antonio Damasio to better understand our emotions

The importance of affections and emotions for the development of people is always evident in Antonio Damasio’s phrases. Few neurologists have contributed as much to the understanding of this fascinating world of human feelings and motivations as this professor, who is considered the “wizard of the brain.”

Vilayanur Ramachandran, another well-known prestigious neurologist from the University of California, once said that homo sapiens is that fascinating creature who, at one point, was able to look into his own mind and see the cosmos reflected in it. This poetic simile, while revealing, contains an almost obvious reality. The moment we began to reflect on ourselves, we took a huge step as a species.

On the other hand, we cannot deny that the human brain contains almost the same mysteries as the universe itself. Looking at that unfathomable immensity inhabited by celestial bodies that surrounds us every night produces almost the same vertigo as looking inside ourselves. However, and According to Antonio Damasio, today we know many more things about the brain than about the universe.

Excellent scientist, curious passionate and exceptional disseminator, Damasio is that neurophilosopher capable of giving us the simplest answers to those questions that we have always asked ourselves. After all, Everything we are, everything we feel and have created as a society and civilization resides in that wonderful organ: the human brain.

Phrases from Antonio Damasio to get to know each other better

Human beings are basically characterized by one thing: their sophisticated intelligence.. We have a great memory and, in turn, something that defines us and distinguishes us from the rest of the species on this planet, namely our language. Damasio points out that beyond all this, there is an aspect that we cannot neglect.

Everything we are and have achieved comes from our feelings. They are the ones who have given us enough motivation to find solutions to problems, alternatives to our doubts and new paths when we found walls to our difficulties. However, Another crucial aspect in the theories of this University of California professor is the clear distinction he establishes between emotions and feelings..

Because beyond what we may think, they are not the same thing. And this is something that we can often see in those phrases by Antonio Damasio that nourish many of his interesting books, such as Descartes’ error, The strange order of things or The brain created man.

1. Feelings are mental experiences

When we see danger, when we encounter a person who worries us or makes us uncomfortable, our body reacts with an emotion.. Our heart races, we feel a chill, our stomach turns…

However, The mental representation we have of that fear and the associated thoughts constitute the feeling.. This is undoubtedly one of Antonio Damasio’s best-known phrases. Emotions precede feelings, they are chemical and organic alterations. However, it is the latter (feelings) that are the guides that will ultimately allow us to make a decision, such as running away from that person who scares us.

2. Consciousness in the human being

Antonio Damasio makes it clear to us: consciousness is present in a large part of living beings. The moment a brain, whether of a primate, a dolphin, a dog, or even a reptile, creates a sense of self, consciousness appears. Because this entity is not located in any corner of our brain, it is simply a process.

However, What differentiates us from other species is the fact that evolution has expanded our consciousness much further. It contains creativity, memory, logical reasoning…

3. Emotions drive life

This is another of Antonio Damasio’s most important phrases to understand his work. His hypothesis is based on the following principle: An emotion is a set of chemical and neural responses that form a distinctive pattern. When we encounter a certain stimulus, a type of reaction is generated. This is because our brain is the result of an evolution of learned behavioral repertoires.

Now, after that emotional response, comes the mental process, comes the feeling. With it, we regulate emotion and we can guide it towards a specific behavior, towards a motivation and a more or less effective type of response. Therefore, we can say that Emotions are basically like the spark of life, that which induces us towards action.

4. The importance of compassion

Damasio is always very sensitive to the social crisis that humanity is experiencing. It is common to hear in his lectures how he delves into the idea of ​​violence, inequality, and conflicts between countries. For this famous neurophilosopher, we have lost the capacity for compassion, and often, we allow ourselves to be carried away only by negative emotions such as anger, rage or resentment.

We must be able to create closer environments where more positive emotions can be generated. Only in this way can we prosper, understand each other better.

5. Artificial intelligence can never be similar to human intelligence

This is another of Antonio Damasio’s best-known phrases. It is common to hear their skepticism regarding artificial intelligence and its future among us. For him, as he explains to us in his latest book “The Order of Things”, this type of entity can never be compared to human consciousness. We must remember first of all that our brain is the result of sophisticated evolution.

These computational processes based on coding and silicon lack all of our past experience, they lack emotions, fears, vulnerability and of course consciousness. Thus, and because of that rule of three, they will never have feelings. They can help us in many matters, but they will never be emotionally intelligent.

In conclusion. As we have seen in these phrases by Antonio Damasio, the human being is undoubtedly the result of a brain development guided by self-awareness, language and, above all, by emotions. Thus, and although this organ may seem at first sight to be a mystery within another and made up of 100,000 million neurons, With scientists of Damasio’s stature, every day we gain more light and knowledge of who we are.

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