Mystery Of Consciousness

Even so, Damasio doesn't regard any one region of the brain--or the brain as a whole--as the seat of consciousness. Instead he sees the brain as an interconnected system with cognition (language, memory, reason and emotion) and sensory processes (vision, hearing, touch and taste) centered in different areas. Consciousness, he says, is similarly dispersed.

For example, stroke patients with damage to the brain's language centers remain, in Damasio's view, perfectly conscious. But while language allows us to express consciousness, explaining our interior state to others, he doesn't regard language as the wellspring of consciousness, as some have claimed it is. Much closer to the wellspring, he says, are our emotions. Indeed, to him, consciousness "is the feeling of knowing that we have feelings."

In the end, though, Damasio admits he hasn't explained consciousness completely either. Perhaps, he muses, so-called mysterians like Rutgers' McGinn have it right, and a full understanding of consciousness and its origins--like that of life itself--will always elude us. But, he insists, "it's not justified to say we'll never understand consciousness just because there is an explanatory gap right now." Rather, he sees the quest as a beginning. The brain, he firmly believes, holds answers to questions that we have not yet even thought of asking.