emilia barile
Postdoc as A. von Humboldt visiting fellow at Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg (DE), at Berlin School of Mind and Brain, A. von Humboldt Universität - Berlin (DE), at Institut für Kognitionswissenschaft (IKW) - Osnabrueck (DE) and visiting scholar at CenSes (Centre for the Study of the Senses) - Institute of Philosophy, University of London (UK).
PhD in Cognitive Science at Uni-Siena (IT), Degree in Philosophy at Uni-Bari (IT). Research interests: Damasio and primordial feelings, interoception, bipolar depression, mood disorders, bodily feelings, embodied cognition and embodied consciousness. Last publications in English language: 'Minding Damsio', Ledizioni 2016 and 'Are ‘background feelings’ intentional?, «Open Journal of Philosophy», Vol.4, No. 4 (2014).
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Dr. T. Fuchs (1.9.2019 - 30.11.2019)
Address: via trento 6, 23900 lecco (LC) ITALY
PhD in Cognitive Science at Uni-Siena (IT), Degree in Philosophy at Uni-Bari (IT). Research interests: Damasio and primordial feelings, interoception, bipolar depression, mood disorders, bodily feelings, embodied cognition and embodied consciousness. Last publications in English language: 'Minding Damsio', Ledizioni 2016 and 'Are ‘background feelings’ intentional?, «Open Journal of Philosophy», Vol.4, No. 4 (2014).
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Dr. T. Fuchs (1.9.2019 - 30.11.2019)
Address: via trento 6, 23900 lecco (LC) ITALY
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Papers by emilia barile
Moreover, an analysis of an ‘unorthodox’ taxonomic level of affective life is provided in this paper. The ‘mirror concepts’ of ‘background feeling/emotions’, added in the existing affective classification by A. Damasio, underline the grounding dimension of body for ‘feeling’, mostly underestimated, or even completely ignored in standard cogni-tive approaches to feeling.
Connectionist models (Rumelhart–McClelland 1988), whereas, are more biologically grounded, following the brain–body–environment entanglement: They consider distributed processes and sub-simbolic representations, rather, that are thus intended as simulated ‘neural pattern’, computational complex configurations of interconnected nodes, re-built time by time. Nevertheless, know how much alternative this model is to standard cognitivism itself is still questionable (Marraffa 2003).
More radically, Gibson (1979) introduced the concept of “affordances”, i.e. the environmental features apt to let the organism itself interact with the environment, it is constitutively embedded to, so to avoid a conceptualization of representation as an internal, irreducibile ‘mental’ state. Supporting a structural connection in between action and perception, Gibson’s view seems to be quite anti-representationalist (Hutchins 1995), or, better, against a concept of ‘representation’ as a mental, internal state, with a propositional, language-based format (see also Noe 2004).
Against anti-representationalist view, A. Clark (1996) rather proposes a ‘minimal representationalism’, since, in his view, we cannot avoid a minimal meaning of representation. Following Hugeland (1991), he recognizes that, differently from simpler systems (ex. a plant reacting to the sunlight), showing an immediate causal relation in between the environment and the system itself, in complex systems we have to suppose the existence of ‘internal’ states, encoded always in the same way by a representational system.
In our view, what is questionable, is not that much the existence of ‘mental representations’ themselves, but what is the more adequate representational format.
The neuroscientific approaches intend a ‘representation’ as a ‘neural pattern’, with a specific content. However, what is ‘lost in translation’ is just the originary meaning of ‘mental’ representation itself, so that the neuroscientifical meaning of ‘representation’ results commonsensical at least, when not really oxymoronic.
We will take in consideration here particularly Damasio’s concept of ‘dispositions’, that might be one of the candidate to explain how, in details, we might try to explain how, from the neural pattern level might ‘emerges’ what we provisionally define a ‘mental state’. In his embodied model of the mind, what is basic is the representation of our own body, the rock-solid, wordless feeling that ‘I am alive’: This is the grounding sense of the biological identity and unity opposed to the always ongoing changes constituting life itself (2010). This representation of the body has an image format, that is, a non-propositional one.
In order to combine this representation with the representation of any object or event in the world the organism interacts with (generating ‘the feeling of what happens’ – 1999), another kind of representation, or, proto-representation, is required. Damasio christens these ‘proto’-representations as ‘dispositions’ or ‘dispositional representations’ (1994, 104). He introduces this level of so called ‘neural representations’, that are neural schemata, ‘disposing’ or ‘organizing’ other representations, in image format at first. ‘Dispositions’ are potential schemata or proto-representations, dormant firing neural pattern that might be activated when needed, in order to build up more specific images. ‘Dispositions’ are potential patterns, inactive in themselves but that can be activated on needing, exciting other neurons of the whole pattern they belong to (in the so called ‘convergence zones’, mainly in the thalamus and basal ganglia, receiving signals both from areas representing the body both from other areas representing the object/events of the world, ordering them so that these representations might be realized synchronously (1999, 162)). In themselves, then, the dispositional representations do not constitute a ‘deposit’ of knowledge, in image format: Rather, they constitute a mean to rebuild it, activating circuits that can do it elsewhere. Differently from images, they do not represent individual, concrete objects: As patterns, dispositions are the basic elements for the construction of images themselves. On account of that, then, they would seem to be precisely the connection between the neuro-physiological level of neural pattern and ‘mental’ (representational) level, as it is (yet?) generally understood.
Furthermore, Damasio’s concept is very close to the notion of ‘image schema’ by M. Johnson (1987) (he himself refers to): J. defines an image schema as «(…) a recurring, dynamic pattern of our perceptual internal and motor programs that gives coherence and structure to our experience» (1987, XIV), or as «embodied patterns of meaningfully organized experience (bodily movements, perceptual interactions, manipulation of objects) […] continous structure[s] of organizing activity» (1987, 29). Opposite to the standard cognitive view, J. emphasizes especially the non-propositional format of these schemata. Thus, image schemata as proposed by Johnson at a theoretical, philosophical level, seems having the same functional role Damasio recognizes for his "dispositional representations", at a neural level. Both authors, in fact, share the same effort of explaining how it is possible building up the grounding levels and hence the more abstract levels of knowledge starting from the bodily dimension, from not initially propositional structures.
Certainly these descriptions are as incomplete as obscure: By the way, they are an attempts, as far as pioneering, of explaining how, in details, ‘mental’ states can be built up staring from physiological levels. The research of a sensori-motoric origin of concepts, however, was already at issue in the forgotten Piaget (1967) even before, who dealt with how to pass through the ‘biologie’ to the ‘connaissance’.
About uncertainity: what do PVS patients feel?
In this article the author’s aim is not simply opposing the principle of the
sacrality of life to the quality one, but rather underlining the inner contradictions
of the functional positions in bioethics with their own assumptions. The
definition of consciousness, e.g., (that, by these same positions, is a basic
feature in defining the concept of person) is grounded on neuroscientifical
data still in progress. Nowadays, we have not a common definition of “consciousness”,
neither from a theoretical point of view; on the contrary, for sure
there exists an endless bibliography in philosophy of mind… We don’t even
have a general and unified theory on “feeling”, that is only one way of defining
“consciousness”.
The article proposes some of Damasio’s researches in neuroscience against
the functional issue (grounded on the cognitive paradigm) that person=thought=
brain, based on a sort of “mystique” of the brain. In his experiments we
can find a difference between “feeling” and “knowing”, always considered
connected features in conscious experience, conceived as a high level phenomenon
only. On the contrary, there is a level of feeling (background feeling)
coming from the body experience, before the cortical one: there are different
levels of consciousness too, all intimately connected to the body.
Even if Damasio has never approached bioethical problems or persistent
vegetative state (PVS) definition, his conclusions seem particularly remarkable
for this kind of patients. Pvs people, whose cortical functions are (probably)
completely destroyed, have still a body. Their brain doesn’t work any
more; so, they (probably) have no possibility of thinking or having an access
to their conscious contents; but do they suffer pain? Are they afraid of
anything? Do they have any feeling?
In sum, when cortical functions are destroyed, but there is still a body, is
it possible feeling anything any more?
At the end of the article, the author focuses the reader’s attention on a
dangerous semantic “slippery slope”; the linguistic habit of speaking about
vegetative state in terms of death (though only a cortical one) implies an implicit
choice, following from the same words used. Pvs patients should be not
considered as still alive, but as already dead, at the end. This arbitrary comparison
should legitimate some people’s request, for example, to explant Pvs’s
organs, just like it happens for people already dead.
Books by emilia barile
Two or three things I know about him"
http://www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_libro.aspx?ID=20775
The increasing interest in neuroscience from different fields of research such as psychology, philosophy, ethics, etc. asks for providing with adequate theoretical tools so to not overestimate
the explanatory power of newer and newer neuroscientific discoveries.
We need improving the ability to approach these results in a critical manner so to shun
both 'neuro-maniacs' attitudes and intellectual ‘a priori’ prejudices.
Following the Italian translation of Self Comes to Mind (2010), this
collection of essays aims to take stock in particular of the state of the art of Antonio Damasio’s research, focussing the reader's attention on his most
controversial issues: The definition and classification of emotions, the feeling dimension, the multiple states of consciousness, the controversial concept of 'neural representation’, the overcoming of the new neuroscientifical body / brain dualism.
A tool, not only for specialists but also for an attentive audience
to the developments in neuroscience and interested in the suggestions that, starting from
Descartes' Error, the work of the neuroscientist still inspires nowadays.
"
Quella proposta da Emilia Barile è una lettura critica del modello neurobiologico, e più in particolare dei risultati sperimentali di Antonio Damasio e delle sue indagini intorno al rapporto fra emozione, corpo e coscienza, che oltre a evidenziarne le potenzialità esplicative ne mette chiaramente in luce i limiti teorici.
Tuttavia, anche seguendo un approccio “scientifico”, permane un profondo dissenso, probabilmente inconciliabile, fra dualismo e monismo, spiritualismo e materialismo; dietro ogni posizione teorica, infatti, anche scientifi-ca, si cela una precisa scelta teoretica.
Dal confronto–scontro fra due dei più autorevoli neuroscienziati (J.C. Eccles e G.M. Edelman) del secolo ormai trascorso emerge allora un dato: allo stato attuale delle ricerche, si può solo decidere se partire dalla biologia, dalla fisica quantistica o dall’informatica per indagare quell’enigma che chiamiamo, in modo ancora nebuloso, “mente”, senza pre-tendere di giungere, infine, ad una risposta de-finitiva.
Talks by emilia barile
Two or three things I know about him
The increasing interest in neuroscience from different fields of research such as psychology, philosophy, ethics, etc. asks for providing with adequate theoretical tools so to not overestimate
the explanatory power of newer and newer neuroscientific discoveries.
We need improving the ability to approach these results in a critical manner so to shun
both 'neuro-maniacs' attitudes and intellectual ‘a priori’ prejudices.
Following the Italian translation of Self Comes to Mind (2010), this
collection of essays aims to take stock in particular of the state of the art of Antonio Damasio’s research, focussing the reader's attention on his most
controversial issues: The definition and classification of emotions, the feeling dimension, the multiple states of consciousness, the controversial concept of 'neural representation’, the overcoming of the new neuroscientifical body / brain dualism.
A tool, not only for specialists but also for an attentive audience
to the developments in neuroscience and interested in the suggestions that, starting from
Descartes' Error, the work of the neuroscientist still inspires nowadays.
La rappresentazione dello stato corporeo attuale o, come dice Damasio, online, così come cambia momento per momento, avviene su siti corticali (mappe della corteccia sensoriale-motoria, topograficamente organizzate in base a segnali provenienti dai muscoli) e sui siti subcorticali, non mappati, deputati alla ricezione di segnali provenienti dai visceri. Il risultato di tutti questi feedback corporei è il senso dell’organismo nel suo insieme, che è sempre presente, almeno sullo sfondo, finché non vi dirigiamo l'attenzione. La rappresentazione dello stato potenziale del corpo, invece, deriva dalla propriocezione e dall’interocezione (complessivamente indicate come enterocezione). La propriocezione - la percezione dei muscoli e della struttura scheletrica, che restituisce il senso della posizione del corpo nell’ambiente - e l’interocezione - la percezione del milieu interno e dei segnali provenienti dai visceri, concernente il senso di equilibrio omeostatico dell'organismo – assieme ai ‘background feelings’ costituiscono le principali modalità con cui percepiamo il nostro corpo.
Grazie a tale percezione di base, si costituisce anche il "senso di essere", la nostra identità biologica, che è il significato più ‘basso’, elementare possibile che possiamo attribuire alla parola "sè" (“sé biologico”). Come questo è collegato agli altri significati di ‘sé’, come "sé autobiografico", “sé sociale", e così via? Qual è il rapporto esistente tra la base corporea individuale e la possibilità della percezione soggettiva, in prima persona?
Conference Presentations by emilia barile
Moreover, an analysis of an ‘unorthodox’ taxonomic level of affective life is provided in this paper. The ‘mirror concepts’ of ‘background feeling/emotions’, added in the existing affective classification by A. Damasio, underline the grounding dimension of body for ‘feeling’, mostly underestimated, or even completely ignored in standard cogni-tive approaches to feeling.
Tra le tassonomie esistenti, A. Damasio ne ha proposto una originale, introducendo il problematico concetto di emozioni “di fondo” [background emotions] (e quello speculare di “background feelings”), collezioni complesse di stati corporei, più che mentali, affini alle motivazioni biologiche e alle pulsioni, e basate sugli stati fondamentali di dolore e piacere. La letteratura neurobiologica (LeDoux 1996; Damasio 1994; Panksepp 1998), infatti, tende a retrodatare la comparsa e la presenza delle emozioni in organismi di molto precedenti all’uomo, mentre le teorie cognitiviste (Ortony & Clore & Collins 1988; Frijda 1986) tendono a posizioni più antropocentriche. Il principale criterio dirimente fra le emozioni propriamente dette e gli altri stati di regolazione dell’organismo sembra essere costituito dalla presenza di una “stima”. A. Damasio, con un atteggiamento più cauto rispetto ad altre posizioni neurobiologiche sulle emozioni (cfr. J. LeDoux), la ritiene una componente costitutiva delle emozioni (a partire da quelle cosiddette “primarie”), salvo assegnarvi un significato che, almeno per quanto riguarda quelle di livello più basso, non è necessariamente cognitivo, ma si struttura a partire dalla capacità di scegliere secondo i valori biologici di base che garantiscono la sopravvivenza dell’organismo.
Per cercare di superare l’impasse in cui il dibattito sulla classificazione delle emozioni sembra essersi arenato, converrebbe piuttosto concentrare l’attenzione sulle caratteristiche costitutive di questi stati, quali, appunto, la valutazione o stima dell’evento scatenante [appraisal/evaluation] e la dimensione del “sentire” [feeling], del “provare” in prima persona, per cui non esistono ancora modellizzazioni generali. L’esperienza del “sentire”, in particolare, non è esclusiva degli stati emozionali; questi, piuttosto, ne costituiscono solo uno dei casi possibili, e forse neanche il più rilevante, per cui sarebbe meglio riferirvisi includendoli fra gli stati che definiamo più generalmente come “affetti”.
Possiamo “provare”, infatti, molteplici stati che non siano emozioni, come le motivazioni, i bisogni, ecc., che hanno in comune il fatto di venir anch’essi valutati in termini di dolore/piacere dall’organismo e di essere “sentiti”, provati in prima persona. Detti stati, inoltre, manifestano tutti uno stretto legame con la retroazione a livello del corpo, e di un corpo biologico, di natura organica, non di uno hardware, comunque concepito: diversamente dalla visione funzionalista oggi dominante, questi fenomeni, dunque, sembrano rivelare quanto la natura della “base
Drafts by emilia barile