Interview with Damasio about his new book by Kevin Berger @ Nautilus, Jan. 18

Following Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio may be the neuroscientist whose popular books have done the most to inform readers about the biological machinery in our heads [....]

The Strange Order of Things offers a sharp and uncommon focus on feelings, on how their biological evolution fueled our prosperity as a species, spurred science and medicine, religion and art. “When I look back on Descartes’ Error, it was completely timid compared to what I’m saying now,” Damasio says. He knows his new book may rile believers in the brain as emperor of all. “I was entirely open with my ideas,” he says. “If people don’t like it, they don’t like it. They can criticize it, of course, which is fair, but I want to tell them, because it’s so interesting, this is why you have feelings.”

In this interview with Nautilus, Damasio, in high spirits, explains why feelings deserve a starring role in human culture, what the real problem with consciousness studies are, and why Shakespeare is the finest cognitive scientist of them all [....]