Antonio Damasio Argues Consciousness Emerged from Homeostatic Feelings, Not Higher Cognition

In his new book, "Natural Intelligence & The Logic of Consciousness," neuroscientist Antonio Damasio presents a theory that consciousness arose from homeostatic feelings rather than from high-level brain function. He contends that the conventional view—that consciousness stems from cognition and then adapts to basic feelings—has it backwards. Instead, Damasio argues that evolution first developed homeostatic feelings, which enable organisms to sense their internal states and respond to imbalances, and these feelings eventually gave rise to the Feeling Mind, a two-way conversation between body and brain. This Feeling Mind, along with the Perceptual Mind and Reflective/Linguistic Mind, integrates into the Integrated Mind. Damasio asserts that consciousness must have developed very early in life and has assisted evolution ever since. He explores implications, including that plants, trees, and bacteria are sensing but not conscious because they lack homeostatic feelings. The most urgent implication concerns artificial intelligence: Damasio argues AI cannot achieve consciousness because it lacks a body and thus has nothing to lose. He suggests that giving AI vulnerability could mitigate worst-case scenarios. The book, published by [Publisher], has faced criticism for repetition and lack of grounding examples, but ultimately serves as a reminder of the marvel of self-aware existence. Damasio shared with Publisher's Weekly that he only recently had the guts to present this argument.