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Since I haven’t
read this and remember little of my college exposure to Spinoza, I was mostly
interested in the remarks about species adaption to joy, pain, well-being and
sorrow as they contribute to survival of the species, whether that’s far in the
future or as we try to adapt and absorb what we are accepting and rejecting in
current world events. – Karen The Neurologist and the
Philosopher
A prominent neurologist traces
much of what modern neuroscience is learning back to a 17th-century philosopher By Erica Goode in Scientific American, February 10, 2003 Returning to his hotel in the Hague on a wet, wind-battered
day in 1999, Antonio Damasio could not resist telling the doorman that he had
just come from a visit to Spinoza's house. "You mean ... the
philosopher?" the doorman responded after a pause. "They don't speak
much of him, these days." In
fact, for most people, the author of The
Ethics and other tracts is little more than a dimly remembered
figure from a college textbook. Damasio, a prominent neurologist and the author
of two previous popular books on emotions and the brain, sets out to redress
this state of affairs in Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. Specifically, he would like to show that
the philosopher, who took an active interest in the physics, astronomy and
mathematics of his time, anticipated much of what neuroscientists are now
learning about the human brain and, in particular, about the biological
underpinnings of feelings and even consciousness itself. The
result is a volume that is by turns engaging and abstruse, elegant and
disorganized, and that may prove daunting in some places to those without a
passing acquaintance with neurophysiology. Blending the findings of recent
studies and the case histories of brain-damaged patients, Damasio presents his
own vision of how the thousands of small puzzle pieces that brain scientists
are busily gathering might fit together. He speculates, for example, that feelings--joy, pain,
well-being, sorrow--not only contribute to the survival of the species but
impel humans toward ethical behavior and cooperative social organization. At the same time, in passages that
deconstruct Spinoza's writings and discuss his life, he presses the
philosopher's case. It
is no coincidence, Damasio believes, that Albert Einstein and other luminaries
of the scientific world felt a kinship with Spinoza, a Dutch-born Jew of
Portuguese descent, whose writings were deemed heretical and banned throughout
Europe for almost a century after his death. The philosopher may have written
mostly about religion and political structure, but he thought like a scientist.
For
example, Damasio argues, in asserting that mind and body were inseparable, made
"of the very same substance," Spinoza sensed that mental
processes--thoughts, memories, emotions--were dependent on the neurophysiology
of the brain, although he could know nothing of the chattering of neurons or
the flow of neurotransmitters. Nevertheless, the philosopher, Damasio contends,
intuited the role of feelings in paving the way for a conscious self. That role, in the neurologist's view, is
gradually being supported by studies suggesting that certain brain areas are
responsible for a constant monitoring of the body's overall state, registering the impact of events both
external (an absence of food, the death of a loved one, a potential mugger on a
street corner) and internal (an infection, the memory of a pleasant afternoon,
embarrassment over a social misstep). What emerges from this global temperature
reading are feelings, mental activity that stands apart from the raw data on
which the reading itself is based. Spinoza, who stated that the "human
mind is the very idea or knowledge of the human body," hinted at this
concept, Damasio believes. "I
am convinced that mental processes are grounded in the brain's mappings of the
body, collections of neural patterns that portray responses to events that
cause emotions and feelings," he writes. The push to maximize a sense of well-being and to
avoid pain and other feelings may have evolved as a strategy to help the
organism survive.
Spinoza certainly endorses the notion that the best way to combat a negative
feeling is to overpower it with a positive feeling based in reason, a recipe
for well-being that the author spends the last part of the book considering. Scientists
who write books come in two varieties: those who are cautious, reluctant to
stray beyond the data before them, and those who are bold and synthetic, using
what is known as a springboard for journeys into unproved theory. Damasio, whom some have accused of
leaping ahead of what scientists actually know in order to construct convincing
narratives, obviously belongs to the latter group. Some readers will fault him
for it; others will see it as a strength. It is through such speculative leaps,
after all, that understanding often advances. Those
who have read Damasio's popular works Descartes'
Error and The Feeling of What
Happens will find much that is already familiar. Still, Looking for Spinoza is compelling, in part
because it so strongly conveys the feel of a personal expedition: the
neurologist sifts through what is known about the philosopher's life as if
pursuing a lost relative. How did he live? What did he read? Was he content
during his exile from family and community? Damasio
finds some answers and imagines others. Spinoza, in the author's view, was
admirable in his bravery, kind in his later years, and likable in many ways but
unyielding and strange in others. He was remarkable in his ability to adapt his
life to the consequences of his exile. "In his own terms he
succeeded," Damasio writes. The neurologist clearly hopes to do the same. Erica Goode writes about human behavior for the New York Times Scientificamerican.com |
