Support Then & Now: www.patreon.com/thenandnow Sign up to the newsletter: lewwaller.com/newsletter/ Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/lewlewwaller

Damasio is great. Great to see him recognized by an even broader audience.

Extraordinaire Dr. Antonio Damasio! unique Universal Science, Philosopher, Resercher, writer an polyglotte.. i discover him 30 years ago with the book " L'Erreur de Decartes" and has veen my favorit book since.. so he understand the Great Spinoza Pholisopher and disagree with only racionality.. Thank you for your the clear explanation❤

Such a valuable video. I'm only sad this knowledge isn't more widespread. Thanks for doing your part.

Excellent as always! Thank you for everything you do!

Great video. I recently learned about Damasio and somatic markers in behavioral economics course and it was fun to learn a bit about the philosophical side of these.

The videos that you make while sitting in your room/home looks better and pleasing to the eye

Descartes was not talking about body-brain duality, he talked about body-mind duality where mind doesn't equal brain. Brain is part of the body.

@sebastiaankampers6651

3 жыл бұрын

enter.the.void.II yes, descartes dualism is about consciousness and the body not about thinking and emotions. (The latter are both part of consiousness.)

This was great. Thank you!

This also gives credence to Hume’s view of reason being a slave to the passions.

@slighter

2 жыл бұрын

Not really, as Hume does not account for the integrated nature of both.

Nice lecture. I'd be interested in a follow-up on the possible impacts of Somatic Marker Hypothesis for discussions about free will.

“Descartes Error” is an amazing book. Check it out if you haven’t.

Great video as always. Would also love to see videos on Max Stirner or Philipp Mainlander.

@colonelweird

3 жыл бұрын

I just heard an article about Stirner read aloud on the audible anarchist channel. I always assumed he was just a nuttier version of Ayn Rand, but I discovered I was very much mistaken.

@emilio_mlx

3 жыл бұрын

I think Cuck Philosophy might have a video on Mainlander.

@gotterdammerung6088

3 жыл бұрын

@@emilio_mlx he does

We love you Then and Now, your youtubers audience and It's time to show support rather than just words..

Upload more such videos . We really don't have a good channel for philosophy of mind.

12:17 Alan Watts’s *The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are* comes to mind

I wonder if the gendered implications of the division between mind/reason and body/emotion (traditionally connoting masculine and feminine) is something you are thinking of touching on. Great stuff as always! Your videos have gotten me through 2020 in no small way.

do a video on how spinoza solves the mind-body issue!

It seems like somatic marker would play a role in replaying traumas. If I'm understanding them they are sort of pre learnings that are used as reference points for later decision making. I was watching another video on trauma and they were saying that to clear the impact the trauma you have to see it in context which is in some ways like going back and rewriting the somatic marker. 🤷‍♂️

@denzali

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I agree with this. Earliest experiences imprint reactions, then the mind joins the dance more so as we develop. You can put work in to re program this foundation with time. Emotions are just like muscular response, you can train then out. - I speak from experience.

@katharineofarrogant7805

3 жыл бұрын

Very interesting point

@stiofanmacamhalghaidhau765

Жыл бұрын

yes very much, however this is exectly why things like cbt approaches to trauma generally fail when attempted as a means to address cPTSD... there is often no single past event to recontextualise (there's no 'it' to see in context), only an ongoing experience of retraumatisation... and when the underlying ongoing external cause goes unaddressed, and retraumatisation recurs, that in itself can add to the harm by making therapy 'another thing I've failed to succeed at'. Messy.

Great video as always. I haven't read the book but Damasio's arguments, it seems to me, have a lot to do with the physiological approach of Burke in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. I only wonder what Damasio would have to say about the capacity of the mind to idealize things of abstract nature that can't be experienced, such as infinity or eternity -- as is the argument of Kant's Reason -- or maybe even practices such as fasting, where the mind actively goes against the urges of the body. And lastly, -- and this is an honest doubt -- can we even compare the concept of the mind in Descartes with the study of the brain? The mind, I believe, is an almost ethereal entity that surpasses the brain, "merely" an organ.

I’m very curious if this could be applied to treating addiction, SUDs, PTST, OCD, BPD, etc., specifically in regard to the body-environment interaction. From an ecological psych perspective, we tend to discount the affect of the person while emphasizing the role of the somatic experience immersed in one’s total environment. In terms of perception, the thought-image cuts new territory if the body-environment (which is for the most part unconscious, below awareness) is in direct relationship with the creation/generation/or form of thought. William James said, “Thought becomes perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.” It likely goes both ways. The body-environment might be useful in understanding addiction’s role in mediating an unhealthy body-environment exchange, which would also be engaged in a thought process as well. I’m just thinking out loud at this point.

It is interesting to relate Damasio's theory with Kahneman's division of decision making into system 1 (rational) and system 2 (more intuitive). It seems that Damasio's ideas apply especially to system 2 thinking yet may affect system one thinking as well. What do you think?

@slighter

2 жыл бұрын

It seems that Damasios approach overcomes this division in favor of a more integrated approach to decision making.

I think the last two items in your source list are probably meant to be The Cambridge Companion to Descartes and The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism.

I'd love videos on Foucault and you could produce a series on him IFF he is your thing!

@RobertMunro

3 жыл бұрын

There are a few there already

Does anyone know if the book is available online for free anywhere? I would like to reference it for my Uni proposal however I'm struggling to find it

I always thought it was the other way around where what we think was influencing what we feel.

@AlonsoUnoPuntoCinco

3 жыл бұрын

Feeling is a part of thinking

@baidawibai

3 жыл бұрын

@@AlonsoUnoPuntoCinco expanding my understanding of thinking and seeing how they are inextricable.

Is this not the same as what Gilbert Ryle argued for so well in his Concept of Mind? There is no dualism; the mind can't exist apart from the body; can't perceive without the body's interaction with the world.

@Dazbog373

3 жыл бұрын

@@thotslayer9914 don't be trolling :D

@forbesbeckum4209

3 жыл бұрын

I think Damasio is sort of in the camp of embodied cognition theory/enactivism and isn’t explicitly relating himself to Ryle; but one does notice the obvious overlaps.

I kept thinking of The Body Keeps the Score, about the bodily effects of trauma, as I watched this. I would also be very interested to find out more about how this theory affects our understanding of people who adopt far right ideologies and conspiracy theories. My ex changed her worldview radically many times during the years we were together, but it was her embrace of the alt-right that destroyed our relationship. I found it all baffling, but now I'm wondering if these changes had something to do with her extreme bodily experiences of illness and trauma.

@matthewsheeran

3 жыл бұрын

That's a very interesting observation: perhaps hard life experiences of almost laissez faire capitalism can make those individuals turn even more right wing. That would be a real political problem if true and might explain some of the populist trumpism and tea party trends etc. Truly fascinating!

@matthewsheeran

3 жыл бұрын

If true then western democracy is truly f*cked as fascists like the CCP would inevitably come to rule.

@colonelweird

3 жыл бұрын

@@matthewsheeran I didn't mean to suggest there's a direct correlation between capitalism and right-wing ideology via trauma. I think it's probably subtler than that. For example maybe the experience of trauma tends to shape people's emotions in ways that make them more susceptible to manipulation by demagogues. And the demagogues train themselves to be sensitive to people's emotional vulnerabilities, which they exploit. Capitalism provides fertile soil for this kind of interaction - in contrast to a socialist society where solidarity is the norm, so that experiences of pain would be cushioned by relationships. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud. It'll be interesting to see where this video series goes next.

@alexanderleuchte5132

3 жыл бұрын

@@colonelweird Qanon comes to mind with their #savethechildren bait that is probably drawing in a lot of well meaning people who have expirienced trauma in their childhood themselfes

@fatpotatoe6039

3 жыл бұрын

I am a libertarian. I’m not a Trumptard or alt-right idiot though. If you have any preconceived ideas or assumptions, I am willing to discuss openly and without offence. I have talked over the Internet with genuine fascists and communists in the past without being attracted to them. What theories do you have about the right?

I have a question. At the beginning you explain what rationalism is, I haven’t heard the full explanation yet but, a few sentences in, I realise you sound a lot like you are also explaining the neoliberal concept of causality along a linear time progression. Which made me wonder, can the concept of rationalism be culturally ambiguous? Would a tribe member in Papua Guinea understand logic, rationale, along the same parameters we do? By weighing advantages vs disadvantages on a individual level? Or does the collective culture of other groups maybe affect their concept of rationalism, logic, linearity? Perhaps tribe members think more along collective lines so the logic of rationalism is preformed less at an “I” level but at a “we” level and if so, they’re logical problems would be answered with different solutions from us... It makes me wonder if our concept of rationalism is itself a ‘relative’ absolute-truth rather than a universal imperative.

@Heyu7her3

Жыл бұрын

Yeah he has an earlier video on Descartes that discusses this

@stiofanmacamhalghaidhau765

Жыл бұрын

tbh at this stage in history the idea that rationality represents some sort of universal or absolute 'truth' is pretty much dead as a notion.

Sounds like there is a good amount of overlap between Damasio's hypothesis and the concept of Dasein

@growingmelancholy8374

3 жыл бұрын

Wrong Phenomenologist. Look more toward Merleau-Ponty. There's nothing really unique in Damasio's work.

@DaseinClimbs

3 жыл бұрын

@@growingmelancholy8374 I'll give him a look, thanks.

So I've been told this is a great book (by a golf coach), how do you think this would benefit a golfer? Just interested in your thoughts

@slighter

2 жыл бұрын

You can probably train your gut feeling for making proper golfing decisions.

This is where I was hit in the head at work

The gut-brain comes to mind, we are not simply a body-machine controlled by the brain-computer

@slighter

2 жыл бұрын

The computer metaphor is flawed in many regards anyway. There is a reason why symbolism is such a contested notion in computer science and philosophy.

@stiofanmacamhalghaidhau765

Жыл бұрын

yes polyvagal theory and similar approaches go a long way to meet damasio's perspective, though that hyperfocus on the vagus nerve, important as it is, tends to result in other elements of the nervous system outside the CNS that are just as vital - you are not going to get anything for that gut-brain to react to without inputs - how we see, feel, hear, our balance, temperature, pain... hyper-sensitivity or hypo-sensitivity or other sensory variations paint a different picture of 'the world', and it is that picture, not the world itself, that all those internal systems respond to, and make decisions about.

Most likely descarte cogito derived to some extent from Avicena 'flying man ' and his doubts from Augustine and Al Gazali doubts about faith. Both distanced themselves from knowing and knowledge via reason, which brings us back to knowledge or knowing about the world via emotional and subconscious routes ,which is De Masio 's argument. Knowledge or knowing of what happens subconsciously before being aware of our conscious thoughts. Anxiety, somtic markers and affect distort reality, they alter reality, which may influence our decision making, which is a form of distorting objective knowledge and knowing of how to act in the world. Kant priori comes to mind, and how the somtic markers may become one of Kant priori knowledge or a form of priori knowing. What we bring to being of priori experience or prepardness may alter our objective subjective experience or what kirkagard call ' habits are memory brought forward ' We think we think 'reason' when we make decisions, but we ignore our memory and habits which already determine what we choose.

I'm sympathetic to some of this, but I'd be interested to know what Damasio made of people training to be actors or proficient athletes or similar - people who regularly have to push through the "gut-reaction" to not attempt the gymnastic spin or performance in front of a full theatre or whatever. If the gut-reaction is bodily emotion to close down the choices of reason, it would seem to do the opposite in these people. More so in particularly adventurous people - the types always trying new scary tasks like sky-diving or bungee-jumping. Adrenalin points to both fight OR flight, after all. So which does the mind pick and how? I'd also be interested to know how Damasio's thinking applies to mental illnesses - which can (though not always) result in particularly extreme emotions *even without physical bodily symptoms* (e.g. you can't always tell just by looking at someone if they have depression).

@stiofanmacamhalghaidhau765

Жыл бұрын

how you act on a stage is a decision. the options remain, you simply choose one. just as in any other scenario... and practice makes selecting a certain response easier. as regards your depression example... again decisions are made, and, as any diplomat, negotiator (or actor, to link back to your earlier example) can attest, external signs of an internal emotion or motive can, with practice, be disguised through what could be seen as intentional low-level dissociation. that gets wasier with practice, but also easier when there's an imbalance of things like dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin... something that tends to be part of depression... and also your impulsive thrill-seeker sky-diver. the process is the same, the tools are calibrated differently, so the outcome, the finished product, differs.

"We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind's own destruction ... This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and true essence of National Socialist thought." - Ernst Lehmann, 1934

Somatic markers, to an extent depend on the environment. However, if the environment is artificially created and devoid of certain cues, then decision making(turning up the voltage on Mailgrams electrocution machine or pressing the button on the remote which fires the missile) seems to depend on calculations. When Humans become like Robots.

@stiofanmacamhalghaidhau765

Жыл бұрын

this is pretty much exactly how cults draw people in - disconnect them from social context, disconnect them from ideas, disconnect them from as many points of reference as possible... and present a clear, simple, 'secret truth' - we are very vulnerable to manipulation when separated from context, or to put it otherwise, we are very reliant on context to provide feedback and balance in our decisionmaking

Is "interact" the right word? If they are two aspects of one phenomenon, then they don't interact.

See Aristotle’s De Anima

great book that. Wish it got as much attention as the Selfish Gene did. It funny to look back on this book and see how simple its argument was considering the complexity of this topic now.

'des cartes' literally means 'some maps' coincidence? YOU TELL ME

isn’t this just what hume said?

The principle of error: science is not 100% accurate, the principle of error are the principles of science, by error we progress find discern & discover. No harm done as long as we can recover.

This is not a refutation of Descartes, in fact it aligns with his theory as shown in Passions of the soul. For Descartes mind is not merely reason, it is perception, sensation, assertion and decision.

@HxH2011DRA

3 жыл бұрын

Decision is enactedby, comes from, and is inseparable from a body of some kind that moves through time. You can't quarter it off as a separate substance.

@AlonsoUnoPuntoCinco

3 жыл бұрын

@@HxH2011DRA a decision is not an action, it is the agreement to an action. When I decide to do something, I do it BEFORE I actually set out to do it. A body BY ITSELF can not decide anything. There is no action without a body, but there is no decision without mind. A mindless body can act upon another, but it does so by virtue of natural necessity, a living human body is able to regulate their movement at will, in accordance to their own potency. Which is not possible to a celestial body, whose movement is completely predictable and determinate.

@growingmelancholy8374

3 жыл бұрын

@@AlonsoUnoPuntoCinco The way in which you are articulating and understanding this maintains the mind/body split and does not allow you to actually understand what is being articulated. The mind is part of the body. There is no such thing as a mindless body, just as there is no such thing as a bodiless mind.

@AlonsoUnoPuntoCinco

3 жыл бұрын

@@growingmelancholy8374 no bodies without mind? Do you know what a corpse is? Have you ever seen a rock, a piece of wood? All of those are bodies and do not have minds.

@growingmelancholy8374

3 жыл бұрын

@@AlonsoUnoPuntoCinco So, you define a human body only in the material sense, as a physical object and separate the mind as defined as being a non-physical entity? A piece of wood is not a human body. A human body does not exist without a mind. A corpse is a dead human and therefore does not exist anymore by its very definition. Maybe you can view it in this way if it makes you more comfortable: the body plays an undeniable and fundamental/foundational role in our experience of the world. In fact, we are only ever situated in the world through our embodiment. You seem to want to discuss, by privilege of being human, a consciousness that is somehow separate from or detached from it's embodiment. However, no such consciousness exists. I am my body.

Pantheism?

Materialism ftw

Fascia and fascism?

Language is problematic and can (has) lead us astray. We have a body comprised of organs and other things. And those organs produce things. That a brain produces mind is no more fantastic than a pancreas producing insulin. It's not body AND mind. It's not body AND insulin. The proper verbiage is "body, including mind" (body including insulin, body including [all bodily things and their byproducts]). The use of "AND" is duplicitous. It allows for a kind of sleight of hand. An ability to smuggle in a preference (dualism) unchecked. It elevates mind as special without establishing any grounds for doing so. Never fall for that.