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Book Review: Descarte's Error by Antonio Demasio

Descarte's Error by Neurologist Antonio R. Damasio delves deeply into the workings of the brain and the use of emotion to make decisions. He moves through concepts such as biological ethics, social norms, rational thinking, pre-frontal lobe damage, and finally into Descartes error. He digs into cognitive science to understand how the separation of body and mind was an error by one of the most famous philosophers of yesteryear. " I think, therefore I am " is an important saying of Descartes as he philosophized the nature of human life. Yet many seem to have forgotten his clarification a few lines below: " From that I knew that I was a substance, the whole essence or nature of which is to think, and that for its existence there is no need of any place, nor does it depend on any material thing; so that this "me", that is to say, the soul by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from body, and is even more easy to know than is the latter; and even if