Self Of Damasio And Descartes Essay, Research Paper

1. Explain Damasio?s view as to what Descartes? error is, and why he thinks

Descartes is ?in error?? How do Descartes and Damasio differ as to what the

?self? is? Damasio and Descartes differ greatly as to what the ?self? is

all about. They have different answers to the philosophical question of what

makes up the self, and determines who a person is. A person?s identity is more

than just the body they both agree, but have different reasons why. Descartes is

also known as ? the founder of modern philosophy? he is most known for his

cogito argument of ?I think therefore I am?. He thinks that one cannot doubt

their own existence because something must be doing the doubting. Although, that

statement was refuted later by some, who said the fact that you think

pre-assumes existence. Descartes also refutes skeptics by saying that they

cannot deny they are thinking and something must be undergoing that thinking, so

one cannot deny that they exist. Descartes starts his arguments by saying that

God is the guaranteed, and uses his existence to prove other things. First

though, he says he will not believe anything until he proves that God exists.

Once he does this using the circular argument, he proceeds to talk about the

separation of mind and body and his beliefs. The circular argument simply states

that if you believe in the light of nature, you believe in God, and if you

believe the causality principles you believe in the other two. He believes that

the mind and body are two entirely separate entities, the soul is independent

from the body, and the mind is for reason and rationality. The emotions of the

body are what interfere with reason, and the body is used for all of the sensory

things such as sound, sight, and pain. Based on this, he thinks that a person

cannot know a substance. The way a person can ?know? a substance is only

through its qualities. For example, one cannot know soap; they can only

associate its qualities such as scent, shape, and color. ?How does one know

the notion of color?? he speculates. One can only know a substance through

experience. Descartes argument with the wax shows his idea of how one does not

experience the thing itself, but its properties. These physical characteristics

are the only way to relate to the body, which one cannot know. One can only

experience or ?know? the mind. This leads to his discussion of complex and

primitive ideas. Primitive ideas require experience, and complex ideas do not. A

complex idea is something like the notion of infinity, or language. Descartes

believed there was no definition of infinity, and would not accept a negative

definition to resolve his problem. He believed that God was the infinite thing.

The only widely accepted belief at that time was that mathematics were

undeniable, and ever present in the world. Essentially the world is composed of

mathematics, which gave a lot of merit to his proof of the existence of God.

Another two principles Descartes used to further his arguments were that of

formal and objective reality. The idea of formal reality is that formal reality

is what is actually out there in the world, kind of the ultimate truth.

Objective reality on the other hand is the ideas that are in our minds, what we

perceive to be true. Descartes comes to the conclusion that an idea must have at

least as much formal reality as objective reality. He also uses this notion to

further his proof of God?s existence. He wants to find an idea that has more

objective reality than formal reality. This, he deduces, is God. He also comes

to the conclusion that people cannot be the cause of an idea like God because it

doesn?t have as much formal reality as objective reality. This means that as

humans we cannot know for sure what the formal reality is, but what we do know

is objective reality. Unless God is a deceiving demon this must mean that he

exists, because why would he create a world of deception, when he is a perfect

being? In other words, God obviously exists because what we know to be true

about him must be true, because there is no truer formal reality in regards to

the idea of God. Eventually a problem arises for Descartes known as the

Mind-Body problem. He observes that one can fully understand their own mind,

thus understand their ?self? without knowing anything about the body. He

wonders how they are related, and how the mind connects to the body. He says

that the mind is non-spatial and the body is spatial. How they work together

though, is a mystery to him. He knows there must be some connection due to the

fact that certain thinking brings about certain physical reactions. Also, there

is the Ontological argument for God?s existence. The theory here is that God

is the most perfect being, and he exists, so he is not a deceiver because he is

the most perfect. This statement is what Descartes bases his hypotheses on to

prove other things. This is contrary to the beliefs of other philosophers like

Augustine who believe they are always being deceived. Descartes also follows the

notion of causality in his thoughts. Causality is the principle that nothing

exists without a cause, and the reality of the cause exceeds the reality of the

effect. Ideas have objective reality, which is caused by formal reality. This

shows how we, as humans, must have been created by something with a greater

reality than ourselves, which Descartes believes to be God. This follows suit

with his argument about how God is the being with more objective reality than

formal reality. With God, you don?t have ideas that you can?t completely

understand. If God isn?t a deceiver, when you are mislead it is due to your

own free will. Descartes argues that, what ?you? are is your ability to

think, and that you do not have direct access to yourself. All of your identity

comes from the mind, and the underlying self stays the same over time. He thinks

that your body undergoes many changes, but your mind stays the same. Now I will

move on to Damasio?s views and what influenced him to believe that the mind

and body weren?t separate after all. Damasio believes that for pain,

happiness, depression, sound, and pleasure, something happens in the brain. He

speculated, do the brain and body work together, or is it all a result of the

brain?s processes? He believes the brain just explains the emotions. He thinks

that pain is just an inbuilt mechanism for survival, and that all of the moral

principles in society were derived from survival techniques. He thinks that

reasoning involves immediate processes in the brain and that every single one of

our notions go back to some sort of biological basis. In Damasio?s work there

is a great focus on evolution and moral principles to explain the behavior of

the people. He got some insight from Freud, who had the idea of mind, soul, ego,

and super ego. You get ideas from your influences, which become internalized,

and these are the rules, which allow a person to live. He concluded that

reasoning is our only form of decision-making, and that certain markers in the

brain function in an automatic way. Reasoning, he deduces, is a conditioned

response in the ways and methods that the brain operates. Damasio thinks that

the mind is a condition of the body, and that there is no true ?self?.

Another philosopher, Hume, says, you can be aware of things or unaware, there

are different ways of experiencing things. If you want to think of a ?self?

you must construct it yourself. All the self could possibly be is a collection

of experiences tied to a certain body. You don?t find a true ?self?. One

can remember certain experiences which no one else can, and feelings too. These

experiences are all related in memory, there is no difference between the

conscious state and the neural state. This is very similar to Damasio?s views,

of not believing in a ?self? of any sort. There is also the notion of the

?amounculus? which is a body, holding a directing mind. The ?self? is a

reconstructed biological state. In reality, there is only the neural state

according to Damasio. All you know about an object you get from experiences,

moment by moment you are experiencing yourself. Animals cannot think and have no

notion of self; he uses that idea to support his arguments about humans. Since

we evolved from animals we must be very similar to them. The so-called

?self? we believe to experience is just a series of successive responses in

the brain, and the ability to think this way is only a result of the advanced

development of the brain. Experiences are just part of a neural state. An

example that is brought up is the example of the water and the H2O, where the

water is the experience and the H2O is the neural state. Damasio notices how

these are the same, and this relation just furthers his point of how the mind

and body are the same. The mind is just made up of the physical states of the

brain. Damasio also ponders that although your body grows and changes, you are

the same person. There is the ?Myth of the Self?, which also adds to

Damasio?s argument. It is a memory network, there is something behind these

experiences, and there is nothing that can be called ?the? self because in

relation there is no ?the? rose. So there is no ?self? he concludes. The

mind is the brain, and when you have experiences it is due to a physical

occurrence in the brain, such as neurons interacting. Once a complete

neurobiology is completed, Damasio believes one could know ?you?, simply due

to the patterns of neurons interacting in the brain or whatever processes are

discovered. He thinks that one could not have experiences without the actions of

the body, although the brain is continually generating mental experiences. The

sematic map: Pain is not in your knees, but in your mind, and the body

continually does things to regenerate the body image. Now, to compare the

thoughts of these two philosophers, one must recognize their most obvious

difference. Descartes believes that there is a distinct separation between mind

and body, and Damasio believes that the mind is the body. Damasio believes that

Descartes? error is the fact that he separates the two. He thinks that this is

the greatest error possible because he strongly believes that the mind and body

are one, that the mind is the body. One area where they agree is the fact that

the body changes over time. According to Descartes that shows that one would not

be the same person if the mind is the body, but Damasio thinks that it is

obvious that one undergoes changes in thought process over the years as they

acquire more experiences. Which to him is what the ?self? really is, simply

a collection of experiences linked to a body. Descartes believes the ?self?

to be all of your thoughts, and a sense of being, a ?soul? individual to

each person. He believes in the afterlife where you simply exist as a soul and

your soul is essentially your ?self?. Damasio thinks that when you die and

are brain-dead you cease to be a person. Once no more neurons are interacting

you don?t have any thoughts or experiences. These two philosophers have very

different notions about all of the major principles, which leads to their

complete disagreement. Mainly, Damasio disagrees with Descartes because he

doesn?t believe in the idea of a ?self? or a soul individual to each body.

Because of this, their views differ on almost everything else because without a

common foundation, it is impossible to agree on rational terms.

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