Descartes' Error

Descartes’ Error will help you understand why the argument that the mind and body are disconnected is false by using neuroscience and interesting case studies to identify how the body and our emotions play a vital role in logical thinking.

To see the brain from the perspective of experimental neuropsychology, we need to look at case studies. Specifically of people who have had brain injuries by comparing their traits before and after their incident. Although there are many of these, the experience of Phineas Gage is the most interesting.

Living in the 19th century, Gage worked on the railroad. He had a reputation for being dependable, diligent, and efficient. Thus his employer entrusted him with the dangerous job of setting the charges for demolitions.

One day in the summer of 1848, Gage set a charge for a small explosion to make way for the track like he’d done hundreds of times. But this time, it triggered an accident that sent a rod straight through his head. Miraculously, he survived and was even talking minutes later.

In the remaining decade or so of his life, however, Gage wasn’t himself. He began being impulsive and unconcerned for his future. He eventually lost his job with the railway and drifted between jobs until the end of his life.

We now know that part of Gage’s brain was damaged in a way that affected his personality, including emotions. This brings an interesting light to the mind-body debate, but Gage is long gone so we can’t learn from him anymore.

But today we have the author’s experience with a patient he refers to as Elliot who experienced similar brain damage and after-effects.

Elliot’s tragic situation taught the author a lot about how the mind and body work together. Among all of their interactions, these two got to know each other, but the way that Elliot never seemed to express emotion puzzled the author. He’d been through a lot, too, including job loss and divorce. After seeing pictures that were supposed to evoke emotion, he told the author outright that he just wasn’t experiencing emotions like he used to. But these are emotions we’re talking about, not logical thinking abilities, right? Although Elliot struggled with those too, we might think that no emotions would make him better at reasoning skills, not worse. The answer lies in how our body and mind use emotions to help us make sense of our experiences. We have our body state, which is our body’s system of letting our brain know how everything is doing. When we feel emotions, the body is also sending signals to our brain to let us know what to feel, think, and do. But at the…