Philosophical Investigations for Applied Linguistics: Damasio (2018) "The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures”

I enjoyed reading Antonio Damasio's new book, "The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures.”

Below are my summary of the main argument of the book and explanations of some of the key terms in it. Italicized words in the summary are explicated in the explanations.

*****

The Strange Order of Things:
Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures

by Antonio Damasio (2018)

A SUMMARY OF THE MAIN ARGUMENT

Feelings inform us of the current state of the life regulation in our body, which is called homeostasis. Homeostasis operates not just for the current survival of the body but also for its future flourishment, and drives evolution, both biological and cultural. Biological and cultural evolutions constitute the human condition, the foundation upon which we make what (and who) we are. Feelings are realized in the interplay between the body and the nervous system, and accompany images that the nervous system creates in the neural circuits. Images are elements of consciousness in which we have the sense of subjectivity. We subjectively use memories, or recalled images, to think, judge and use symbols. Symbols are grammatically combined to make languages, and languages are the major means of narrating and communicating. Narrative and communication enable us to socially share with other individuals the knowledge and wisdom an individual has subjectively acquired, thus starting the creative processes of cultures and civilizations. We should not forget that underneath the activities of the mind(s) such as cultures, civilizations, narratives, communication, languages, thinking, consciousness, subjectivity, memories and images among other things, are feelings that are based on homeostasis of the body.

EXPLANATIONS OF KEY TERMS

HOMEOSTASIS

Homeostasis is a nonconscious physiological control that automatically maintains the dynamic stability of the bodily functions. It maintains, for example, body temperature, fluid balance or blood sugar level, within a certain range. It is the fundamental set of operations at the core of life to make the life not just survive but also flourish. It drives biological evolution through natural selection and cultural evolution through cultural selection.

NERVOUS SYSTEM

The nervous system coordinates the whole body by signaling to and from various parts of the body. It includes the brain, the spinal cord, and nerves among other things. Although unicellular organisms do not need any nervous systems to maintain homeostasis, multicellular organisms need them to manage the complexity of their lives. Nervous systems emerged as servants to the rest of the organisms, and to a certain extent remain as such today as well. This point is missing from the traditional brain-centric accounts.

There are two directions of signaling in the nervous system. One is from the central nervous system (CNS) to the peripheral nervous system (PNS) through motor or efferent nerves, which, for example, contract muscles or secret chemical molecules. The other signaling is from the PNS to the CNS through sensory or afferent nerves, which informs the brain of the states of the body. Signaling in these two directions in the nervous systems form the basis of the mind.

It is recently recognized that the enteric nervous system in the gastrointestinal tract is a significant nervous system that communicates with the CNS, although the flow of information is mostly to the CNS, that is recognized as ‘gut feelings.’

IMAGE

Images are the mental representations of objects and events in both the exterior world (the world around the body) and the interior world (the world inside the body). For example, sitting in a garden, you may have a clear image of a cat approaching to you and recognize some images arising within you that are associated with warmth and tenderness. Images in consciousness are accompanied by feelings. Images are the elements of the mind.

Images improves homeostasis and movements of the body by letting consciousness know more about the interior and exterior world. Image recall opens additional possibilities for the life because recalled images can assist reasoning or thinking. For example, a cat that flees from a man who once abused it should be using image recall. In humans, images can be further converted into various kinds of symbols and languages, which make communication among different individuals highly sophisticated.

FEELING

Feelings are the subjective experience of the state of life. In other words, they are mental deputies of homeostasis. Feelings work as monitors of the life process and as motives (drives and motivations). They are the result of a cooperative partnership of the brain and the body, not an independent fabrication of the brain. They are neither purely neural nor purely bodily.

Feelings are imbued with valence, the value of the condition of life from good to bad. Feelings announce the valence to its owner. Unlike non-feeling representations that are only sensed or perceived, feelings are representations that are felt by us and affect us.

Feelings are categorized into two: spontaneous feelings and provoked feelings. Spontaneous feelings originate the conditions of visceral components in the body (visceroception). Provoked feelings arise from musculoskeletal frames of the body (interoception other than visceroception) and/or from the perception of objects and events outside the body (exteroception).

CONSCIOUSNESS

Consciousness is the process of experiencing various images imbued with feelings in an integrated way from one's own private perspective. What makes consciousness more than collection of images is that it has subjectivity (with its unique perspective and feelings) and is an integrated experience. Images in my consciousness are different from images stored on a hard disk drive in that they are united as my private experience with my own meaningful feelings; they are not impersonal pixels with no feelings or meaning attached.

SUBJECTIVITY

Subjectivity is a process that are based on the unique perspective and feelings of its own. Subjectivity is established by the relationship between particular images in focus and the images in background that we experience in consciousness. All conspicuous images emerge in consciousness accompanying provoked feelings against the background images accompanying spontaneous feelings. This contrast constitutes the framework of our conscious experience.

MEMORY

Memories, or recalled images in consciousness, are not just concerned with the past but also with the anticipated future, as they help us to envision the future.

CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION

Culture and civilization, which are accumulated collection of social practices, are means to educate people to have better homeostasis in the long run. They develop and spread by the positive feelings that they produce in humans. They are under the pressure of cultural selection driven by feelings that people share.

HUMAN CONDITIONS

Human conditions, or the basis upon which we live as humans, are created by natural selection and cultural selection. Both selections are ultimately affected by feelings, the subjective experience of homeostasis. Humans first evolved through natural selection, not necessarily conscious, and then turbo-charged the evolution through sharing cultures and civilizations consciously.

However, feelings are basically functions within a single organism and are not often shared by fragmented heterogeneous groups that do not communication with each other. In order for heterogeneous groups to share cultures and civilizations, they need to be educated to feel the positive valence of cultures and civilizations. They need to learn to feel more or less the same way through communication. In other words, spontaneous feelings of homeostasis are not sufficient to spread cultures and civilizations. People need provoked feelings from communication to learn the virtue of cultures and civilizations.