Damasio: The Strange Order of Things

The video below is of Damasio discussing his new book. Some samples:

Damasio talks about feelings as the mental expression of ongoing homeostatic states (23:30). He discusses feelings in physiological and biological terms here as critical to generating subjectivity. He then goes into emotional feelings, which expand on this basic homeostatic function. All of which is necessary to the phenomenological, qualitative aspects of self consciousness.

Starting around 38:00 he discusses the differences between automatic, nonconscious action programs and conscious, valenced feelings. Valenced feelings are part of evolutionary natural selection.

"Feelings open the way for a higher level of homeostatic regulation driven by conscious deliberation" (53:45).