The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures

mind-and-cognition

• Feelings became motives for new forms of response, engendered by the uniquely rich creative intellect and motor ability of humans.

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• Feelings are a natural and abundant accompaniment of the images held in the manifest component of consciousness, providing an ever-present background sense of being.

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embodiment

• As the brain constructs representations of the altered organism geometries, we can sense the alteration and make images of it — the source of provoked feelings.

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• The enteric nervous system comprises an estimated 100–600 million neurons, comparable to the entire spinal cord — central rather than peripheral.

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mortality

• The human condition has often resembled a tragedy; we can call this the burden of consciousness — once subjectively felt, we could not stop caring.

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• Fear, dread, and anger would compromise homeostasis, but cooperative group support and attempts to comprehend disaster gave rise to religious practices.

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