Emotion As Described And Theorized By Antonio Damasio

In this essay I will discuss the particulars of emotion as described and theorized by Antonio Damasio. First, I will explain Damasio’s three-stage definition of emotion, and then apply this definition to an evolutionary perspective of emotion; more specifically, the evolutionary and biological benefits of an organism possessing emotion. Next, I dive deeper into Demasio theory of emotion, by distinguishing between his idea of primary and secondary emotions. By way of Damasio’s three-stage definition of emotion and an experiment he conducts on brain damaged patient, I will then discuss whether or not humans are always aware of how their emotions influence their behavior. Next, I will temporarily suspend my focus on Damasio’s work to explain how Block and Chalmers distinguish between conscious awareness and conscious experience. Subsequently, I will resume my focus on Damasio’s work, by evaluating how the aforesaid experiment applies to Damasio’s brain damaged patient. Finally, I will conclude by reflecting on the overall picture of emotion and emotional experience, and use it to discuss the prospects and motivations of building emotional machines. Antonio Damasio considers the phenomena of emotion and feeling on a continuum that consists of three discrete stages that distinguish different types of emotional processing: state of emotion, state of feeling, state of feeling made conscious. The first stage, state of emotion, is the body and brain’s automatic and nonconscious