How the Brain Creates the Mind; The Hidden Mind; Special Editions; by Antonio R. Damasio; 6 Page(s)

At the start of the new millennium, it is apparent that one question towers above all others in life sciences: How does the set of processes we call mind emerge from the activity of the organ we call brain? The question is hardly new. It has been formulated in one way or another for centuries. Once it became possible to pose the question and not be burned at the stake, it has been asked openly and insistently. Recently the question has preoccupied both the experts—neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and philosophers—and others who wonder about the origin of the mind, specifically the conscious mind.

The question of consciousness now occupies center stage because biology in general and neuroscience in particular have been so remarkably successful at unraveling a great many of life's secrets. More may have been learned about the brain and the mind in the 1990s—the so-called decade of the brain—than during the entire previous history of psychology and neuroscience. Elucidating the neurobiological basis of the conscious mind—a version of the classic mind-body problem—has become almost a residual challenge.