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Varela (1999) describes the self as âempty of self-natureâ (p. 36). Damasio (quoted in Manier 1999) has another view: âThe fact that the self exists, illusory or not, requires an explanation. If it is illusory, everything is illusoryâ (p. 3). Damasio (1999a) describes the sense of self as âthe sense that the images in my mind are mine and formed in my perspectiveâ (p. 76) and proposes that the self is first and foremost a feeling: âthe presence of you is the feeling of what happens when your being is modified by the acts of apprehending somethingâ (p. 10). He also concludes that knowledge is a feeling: âThe simplest form in which the wordless knowledge emerges mentally is the feeling of knowingâthe feeling of what happens when an organism is engaged with the processing of an objectâand that only thereafter can inferences and interpretations begin to occur regarding the feeling of knowing. In a curious way, consciousness begins as the feeling of what happens when we see or hear or touch. Phrased in slightly more precise words, it is a feeling that accompanies the making of any kind of imageâvisual, auditory, tactile, visceralâwithin our living organisms. Placed in the appropriate context, the feeling marks those images as ours and allows us to say, in the proper sense of the terms, that we see or hear or touchâ (p. 26). But Damasio adds that the question of the exact nature of feeling is ânot entirely answerable at the momentâ (p. 314). The quote in the main text is from McGinn (1999, p. 165).

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P. 135: DIFFICULTY OF REDUCING MIND TO BRAIN

Shanon (2002) writes: âI totally reject the possibility that biological accountsâdetailed as they may beâcan offer viable psychological explanations. Obviously, without a brain, nervous system, and body physiology, we human beings could not accomplish all that we do as cognitive agents. This trivial technical truth, however, should not be confused with theoretical cognitive-psychological claimsâ¦The situation is analogous to that encountered in music. Admittedly, without a piano, piano music cannot come into existence. However, if one is to understand whatever is pertinent to the understanding of a piano sonata, it is senseless to study only the physics of the piano chords and their acoustics. Rather, one would make use of musically meaningful terms, such as those developed in the theories of melodic progression and musical harmonyâ (p. 34). Nurse (1997) writes: âThe proper study of mental processes requires consideration of the products of minds and of the interactions between minds. These processes are not easily reducible to cellular and molecular behaviors. For instance, it could be imagined that the recognition of âmotherâ by a chick may result in the stimulation of a specific set of ten particular neurons. If these neurons are cultured in a Petri dish and then treated in a way that mimics mother recognition, would these cells in any way be experiencing the concept of mother? This seems particularly absurd. In a similar vein, can the concept of being in love be made explicable in terms of neuronal activity? It is evident that appropriate understanding needs explanation at the appropriate levelâ (p. 657).

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P. 135: CURRENT LIMITS OF NEUROSCIENCE

Vaadia (2000, p. 524) compares the current advances of neuroscience to the first flights of the Wright brothers. Stix (2003) writes: âWe are still nowhere near an understanding of the nature of consciousness. Getting there might require another century, and some neuroscientists and philosophers believe that comprehension of what makes you you may always remain unknownâ (p.26). Fuster (2003) writes: âThe more facts about the brain that we know, the less we feel we know about the cerebral substrate of the mind, which seems to be disappearing in a downward spiral of reductionismâ (p. vii).

CHAPTER 11

P. 137: ORGANIC SIGNS AND BIO-SEMIOTICS

Kampis (1998) writes: âA sign is something that stands for something else. It is this property of signs, the property of standing for something else, which is responsible for why it seems, at first sight,