Damasio, Self and Consciousness

Abstract

Antonio Damasio’s notion of “core consciousness” suffers from serious defects. It cannot account for phenomena such as dreaming or locked-in-syndrome, which a proper theory of consciousness should explain, because it requires that the organism’s self-representation be affected by the organism’s processing of an object. This requirement cannot be met in those two states. Moreover, in many states in which the organism does take into account the effect of, say, the perception of an external object, that account is unconscious. And lastly, the close connection Damasio makes between consciousness and the self leads to a theoretically untenable division of the self: evolutionary considerations demand that even a primitive self (e.g., a proto-self) exhibit features of an “autobiographical self”.