Teotonio wrote: > >I wish to know what Santosh has to say about some recent western >thinkers about the limits of "scientific" logic and validation. >Harvard-based Portuguese neuro-scientist has come out in recent >times with questionings of Descartes' foundations of scientific >knowledge! Curiously, his first book that made waves was entitled >the "Error of Descartes". His contention is that scientific approach >is only one way of understanding nature adequately. >
Hi Teotonio: I think you have misunderstood the import of Damasio's "Descartes' Error". This book does not address the "limits of scientific logic and validation". It contains descriptions of a series of patients with astounding neurological deficits, through which Damasio argues that emotion and reason go hand in hand � that feeling and thinking are inseparable � and that they are dependent on the proper functioning of shared areas of the brain. If these brain areas die or get damaged, there are no thoughts, there is no reason, and there are no emotions. There is no mind. Therefore, the error of Descartes that Damasio is referring to is the error of believing in substance dualism, more commonly known in Philosophy as Cartesian Dualism. Descartes famously exclaimed, "Cogito ergo sum" or "I think therefore I am" (Actually, he said to himself, "Je pense donc je suis"). Hanv chinta, mhontokuch hanv aasa. He declared that the mind (res cogitans) and body (res extensa) are separate. They are two distinct substances that can exist independently of each other. Damasio's scientific work and that of hundreds of brain scientists all over the world, over the past 50 years, have shown that this Cartesian idea is false. The mind is not separate from the brain. It is entirely dependent on the activity of the brain. There is no soul that survives the death of the body. That is why Damasio's book is called Descartes' Error. It would be best to restate this in Damasio's own words: "This is Descartes' error: the abyssal separation between body and mind, between the sizable, dimensioned, mechanically operated, infinitely divisible body stuff, on the one hand, and the unsizable, undimensioned, un-pushpullable, nondivisible mind stuff; the suggestion that reasoning, moral judgment, and the suffering that comes from physical pain or emotional upheaval might exist separately from the body." > >Damasio gives equal importance to neural functionings and emotions >in the acquisition of all knowledge. > No. What he actually says is that both emotions and reason are dependent on neural functioning. > >To what extent "personal/group interest" is not the starting point >of scientific process? > Damasio says nothing about this explicitly in his book. But if you are asking whether emotions, being an integral component of reason, are involved in the conduct of science, the answer is yes. > >And what about the ethical implications and damning consequences of >such "interest" based science? > Again, Damasio says nothing about this explicitly in his book. But if you are talking about scientific fraud, there are regulatory and legal procedures to deal with it. If you are talking about a worldwide scientific conspiracy, as some Goanetters and alternative medical practitioners have claimed in the past, then we are doomed. > >To what extent the "science"-based modernity and rationality have >fulfilled or made a mockery of their "promises" of a better world >for the great majority of the humankind after five centuries of its >promises of boon? > If you want my opinion, I think science has served humanity well. I find some irony in announcing this fact, not to 50 sleepy students across a lectern (which was the best I could do a mere 15 years ago, not five centuries) but to more than 3000 mostly disinterested folk across entire oceans. Cheers, Santosh ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
