For centuries, we have tended to associate consciousness with the most sophisticated things our brains can do: thought, reason, language, memory. But Antonio Damasio argues that we should be looking somewhere much more ancient, and much more humble: Hunger. Thirst. Warmth. Cold. Pleasure. Pain.
His argument is that consciousness begins with a living organism sensing the condition of its own body. At some point in the history of life, being alive began to feel like something.
