Self Comes to Mind Construire le cerveau conscient

Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years researching and revealing how the brain works. Here, in his most ambitious and stunning work yet, he rejects the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, and presents compelling new scientific evidence that posits an evolutionary perspective. His view entails a radical change in the way the history of the conscious mind is viewed and told, suggesting that the brain's development of a human self is a challenge to nature's indifference, which helps open the way for the appearance of culture, perhaps one of our most defining characteristics as thinking and self-aware beings.

Praise:
"[Damasio] writes with such flair and confidence that it is almost as if he makes the mystery dissolve into knowledge before our eyes...a compelling picture, once one sets aside the power of the unconscious, and of grasping, other-hating, defensive, anxious, ideologically-motivated consciousness...what one has to applaud is the imaginative vision Damasio brings to the task." -Barnes and Noble Review

"Intriguing...introduces some novel ideas." -New Scientist

"A thoughtful work." -Scientific American Book Club

"A very interesting book...cogent, painstaking, imaginative, knowledgeable, honest, and persuasive...Damasio's quest is both thorough and comprehensive" -New York Journal of Books

"Awareness may be mostly mystery, but Damasio shapes its hints and glimmerings into an imaginative, informed narrative." -Kirkus

"Exquisite...Readers fascinated from both a philosophical and scientific perspective with the question of the relationship among brain, mind, and self will be rewarded." -Publishers Weekly