The Primordial Emotions
The dawning of consciousness
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 8 June 2006
- ISBN 9780199203147
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages292 pages
- Size 243x162x22 mm
- Weight 612 g
- Language English
- Illustrations numerous black & white photographs, line illustrations and a colour plate section 0
Categories
Short description:
This book presents an accessible and groundbreaking new look at the evolution of consciousness. It traces its origins back to early man's primordial emotions - those elicited from basic needs such as hunger and thirst.
MoreLong description:
To understand what is happening in the brain in the moment you decide, at will, to summon to consciousness a passage of Mozart's music, or decide to take a deep breath, is like trying to "catch a phantom by the tail". Consciousness remains that most elusive of all human phenomena - one so mysterious, one that even our highly developed knowledge of brain function can only partly explain. This book is unique in tracing the origins of consciousness. It takes the investigation back many years in an attempt to uncover just how consciousness might have first emerged.
Consciousness did not develop suddenly in humans - it evolved gradually. In 'The Primordial Emotions', Derek Denton, a world renowned expert on animal instinct and a leader in integrative physiology, investigates the evolution of consciousness. Central to the book is the idea that the primal emotions - elements of instinctive behaviour - were the first dawning of consciousness. Throughout he examines instinctive behaviours, such as hunger for air, hunger for minerals, thirst, and pain, arguing that the emotions elicited from these behaviours and desire for gratification culminated in the first conscious states. To develop the theory he looks at behaviour at different levels of the evolutionary tree, for example of octopuses, fish, snakes, birds, and elephants. Coupled with findings from neuroimaging studies, and the viewpoints on consciousness from some of the key figures in philosophy and neuroscience, the book presents an accessible and groundbreaking new look at the problem of consciousness.
...this book deseves to influence the discourse on consciousness, making it more physiological (not just neurophysiological) and more focused on the major question - the emergence of feelings. Its explicitly evolutionary approach is important, since without such an approach little progress can be made...[it] is also valuable in providing a good review of present-day biological and psychological approaches to consciousness, together with illuminating examples of primordial feelings in animals.
Table of Contents:
Part I - The Hypothesis
Introduction: the idea and context
The definition of consciousness and self-awareness
What some distinguished scientists have proposed on the nature of consciousness: John Searle, HOmer Smith, Vernon Mountcastle and Roger Sperry
Consciousness in animals
The appetite for salt and the mind - intention in salt mining elephants
Part II - Experimental Analysis
The phylogenetic tree
An interoceptor driven theory of origin of primary consciousness
The physiology of the primordial emotion of thirst
The neuroimaging of thirst by PET (Positron Emission Tomography)
Neuroimaging of other primordial emotions and also the second level distance receptor evoked emotions
Part III - Higher Cognition and Emotion
Anatomical structure and physiological functions subserving higher order consciousness
The biology of emotion
