November 1, 2017
1. Toward the end of both Chapters 2 and 3, Damasio uses Spinoza's concept ofconatusin his discussion of emotions and feelings. What point is he trying to make by his references to conatus? Why does he come back multiple times in a book on psychological and biological processes to this 17th century philosophical concept?
2. Explain what Damasio means by a body state and by a body map. What is the fundamental difference between the two. Describe the basic role that each plays in the production of feelings.
3. List as many body processes as you can that might be mapped and thereby contribute to one's feeling of a particular emotional state.
4. Explain in more detail Damasio's hypothesis about what a feeling is (p. 86) - for example elaborate the hypothesis with examples of what is meant by "perception", "certain state of the body", "certain mode of thinking", etc.
5. Damasio wrote a great deal in the first few chapters about homeostasis. How is this concept relevant to his idea about what feelings are?
6. Feeling is no doubt a psychological concept, but does Damasio’s approach seem to eliminate any need to talk about feelings in a psychological way. Is he saying that feelings are just biological processes. Does he leave any room anywhere for non-biological psychological processes in his explanation of feelings?
7. What does Damasio mean by a "false body map", and how is this idea important in his conception of feelings? What are some examples of situations that might lead to a false body map?
8. Damasio describes several studies which he claims support his conception of the biology of feelings. Summarize one of these studies. Be sure to include whether or not the study has an introspective component.
9. Summarize your sense of why Damasio thinks it valuable to make a distinction between emotions (Ch 2) and feelings (Ch 3). Has he convinced you that emotion comes before feeling? Explain. What do you think he means when he says (p 111) that feeling is not a passive process?
10. Review the basic requirements that Damasio suggests an organism must meet in order to experience feelings. Briefly explain each of these. How do these requirements illustrate Damasio's connection between feelings and the process of evolution?
11. One piece of research that Damasio describes involves 40 people attempting to recreate a previous deeply felt emotional experience. In their laboratory recreation, what were the key links in the biological chain that led to their renewed feelings? What is the special significance of Damasio's observation that skin conductance changed for these people before they raised their hand to say that they were beginning to experience the emotion?
12. Explain what you think Damasio means when he writes, "feelings are based on composite representations of the state of life in the process of being adjusted for survival in a state of optimal operations. The representations range from the myriad components of an organism to the level of the whole organism" (p 130). How do the concepts of homeostasis and conatus relate to the ideas in this quotation?