Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio on Why Feeling is the Key to Consciousness episode artwork

EPISODE · Sep 15, 2026 · 54 MIN

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio on Why Feeling is the Key to Consciousness

from KQED's Forum · host KQED

In his new book, “Natural Intelligence and the Logic of Consciousness,” pioneering neuroscientist Antonio Damasio synthesizes his decades of research in neurobiology and philosophy of mind into a central idea: we are  conscious because we feel. “It is traditionally said that we are able to feel our feelings because we are conscious,” he writes, but instead, “we must be able to feel in order to become conscious.”  We talk to Damasio about his lifetime of research into the mind and his thoughts on the possibility of conscious AI. Guests: Antonio Damasio, psychology, philosophy and neurology professor and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California; author, “Natural Intelligence and the Logic of Consciousness” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio on Why Feeling is the Key to Consciousness

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