Antonio Damasio does an admirable job in hypothesizing neural/biological connections to the seemingly immeasurable existence of self and consciousness. I appreciated how he worked from the ground up, beginning with the development of a single cell organism and relating its basic properties to its more complex manifestations in the modern human. I was also fascinated by the concept of single cells exhibiting a “will to live”—a need for survival and adaptation that possibly became the foundation for consciousness. I thought that was such a profound and creative idea—that a stepping stone to human consciousness was the neuron’s imitation of a body cell’s inherent will to survive.

Damasio also tackles emotions and their effect on memory and identity. He relates cultural development and creativity with a sort of social homeostasis, a way that our creative impulses correct imbalances in our constant search for well-being, which was an interesting thought. All of these ingredients came together in an intriguing hypothesis about the unique emergence of the self and consciousness, things we know are there but are still trying to explain.