Jenni Potts

Human Knowledge Acquisition

October 8, 2002

Damasio opens Chapter 7 with his belief that extended consciousness is a uniquely human characteristic. He further discusses extended consciousness as our pinnacle of neurological feats, observing that it involves our abilities to draw from our past and memories and our abilities to take the future into account. I don’t agree with his opinion that these are unique to humans. After watching that episode of Nova in class, I believe that animals have some extended consciousness. The key word here is “some”. I don’t think that animals’ consciousness is congruent to ours, but I believe there are more similarities than Damasio gives credit to as he opens the chapter. Using the video as example, the gorilla’s decision not to take hostile action against the boy who fell into the enclosure shows me that animals have some extended consciousness. That gorilla pondered the situation and possibly gathered memories of his previous experiences with humans. He might also have remembered a similar situation with an injured gorilla and based on that memory realized that the boy was injured and did not pose a threat. The gorilla also reflected on the future and could have realized the consequences of his actions. He may have been aware that if he were aggressive towards the boy that the humans would have been hostile towards him, and maybe even the other gorillas, in return. Although to the people watching the events unfold it seemed like ages, the gorilla made these decisions and thought through all of this in a few seconds. Damasio upholds this observation by saying that the time scale of extended consciousness is seconds and minutes. Of course, it is very difficult to prove that animals have extended consciousness, but based on the video and even some of Damasio’s own information, I think they have some.

Damasio continues the chapter by describing the autobiographical self and how our memories come into play in extended consciousness. I believe that my dog has an autobiographical self, and I’m almost positive she has memories. Based on this, I would like to say that she has some extended consciousness. However, Damasio doesn’t feel it is that easy to infer. He does mention that he knows some dogs he thinks have autobiographical selves, but he believes that extended consciousness is more than just memories and a concept of the future. It is the ability to take into account all of our life experiences, past, present, and future and to apply them to our current situations all the while maintaining our core consciousness and sense of self.

When I began reading this chapter with the video in mind, I did not fully agree with Damasio about animals’ lack of extended consciousness. However, as I continued to read, he expanded the concept of extended consciousness and helped me to see his point of view.