The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures Hardcover – Deckle Edge, February 6, 2018

As a fan of Damasio's work, I eagerly anticipated reading this book. The experience was similar to anticipating the first day of an undergraduate class with a celebrated professor, notebook open and pen in hand. However, by chapter 2, I was staring out the window planning the rest of my day. The book read like lecture notes from an entire semester of a relatively low-level undergrad class replete with some off-topic quips and colloquial stream of consciousness explanations/solutions/rambling on the state of social politics. That social ills can be remedied through more robust educational means is not a novel concept and not why I took this class. That said, Damasio comes alive when he makes his case for the historical subjectivity of feelings (contrast to emotions) as an embedded component of the central nervous system necessary for homeostatic survival and, thus, the evolutional root of consciousness. Unfortunately, the gems of his case are randomly scattered throughout the course: you'll have to sit through of what feels like 20 hours of lecture to get 2 pages of great notes. Admittedly, I had to start skimming early on and most likely missed a few points. The book seems to waver between journal article (stultifyingly long explanations of simple concepts with copious footnotes aimed at satisfying the most egregious academic peer reviewers) and interesting case study (think great NOVA documentary).2/5 stars worth of invaluable content...the rest, not so much.

In celebrating our humanity and distinctiveness, we have long prided ourselves on our reason intellect to the neglect of our emotionality, which brings us closer to our animality. In our current cultural milieu, with its flood of social and broadcast media barraging us continually, we now find ourselves floundering--and foundering--in a sea of emotion. As Damasio makes plain, we cannot bail ourselves out by reason and intellect alone. I hope this is not his last book, but he appears to be taking stock of our current cultural scene in light of his decades-long learning from research in neuroscience, summarized marvelously in a series of prior books.Well informed by biological science, the book gives needed space for commentary and reflection that puts the science in perspective at it pertains to our profound cultural challenges. Plainly, our human distinctiveness is a mixed blessing. But the relatively rare thesis that Damasio explicates suggests that we need to rely more on our feelings, not less. Indeed, his prior research demonstrates convincingly that we are utterly at sea and directionless when we are deprived of feeling and reliant solely on intellect. Of course, powerful feelings (especially in the anger family) can lead us into destructiveness, as our intellect also can do. But Damasio makes a major psychological contribution in this book by encouraging us to feel more at one with our bodies and to appreciate and value our feelings--the mental representations of our bodily state in relation to homeostatic conditions. Feeling more at home with our bodies through awareness of our feelings might be a pathway to feeling more kinship with the rest of nature. Driving this point home, exemplifying the "strange order" in nature that he discerns, Damasio makes the claim that our morality (and sociality) has some origins in the lives of bacteria. (Perhaps this is a good thing, inasmuch the bacteria in our bodies greatly outnumber the other cells.) While wedded to biological science, Damasio is far from being reductionistic in his thinking (and feeling); on the contrary, he is expansionistic, keen to open readers' minds (and hearts) rather than confining them to materialistic dogma. In summing up what he has learned, thought, and felt, Damasio is grappling with no less than understanding the place of humanity in the world while fully appreciating the limits of our capacity to understand where we fit in the cosmos. In this sense, although it is implicit rather than explicit, his book is in line with current trends in ecologically oriented theology. Expansionistic indeed, while remaining thoroughly grounded in science.In this book, Damasio appeals to a wide audience, writing with flair as well as erudition, in an engaging and minimally technical style. He is willing to go out on some limbs, but he certainly knows what he's talking about.

Damasio’s books, DESCARTES’ ERROR, LOOKING FOR SPINOZA, and THE FEELING OF WHAT HAPPENS, had a profound effect on my thinking, teaching, and research. At least as important, since they were accessible to the attentive and reasonably ambitious general reader, they were books that one could use in the (graduate-level or advanced undergraduate) classroom. Indeed, I still use portions of DESCARTES’ ERROR in class.By my lights, Damasio’s books have been on an unhappy trajectory in two respects. Later books have been both much less accessible and much less valuable. They have become much more difficult to read, much denser, and at times painfully abstruse. They have also become more frankly conjectural, more tangentially connected with evidence, and at times outré. In the current instance, the game simply is not worth the candle.I found the book very hard going, and too ‘grand theory of everything’-ish. As the book wore on, I was doing less focused following of the argument and more skimming to get to the next chapter. This left me both in a poor position to write an analytic review of the book, and—conscientiousness aside—unwilling to devote the considerable time and energy it would have taken simply (!) to get the book carefully read.Wondering whether I had become less cognitively competent and more arrogantly impatient, I went back and looked at the first few chapters of DESCARTES’ ERROR and LOOKING FOR SPINOZA. I found them as exciting and as accessible as I did when I first read them, years ago. I think that it is Damasio whose focus, writing, and style of argument/speculation have changed.There are, indeed, (ostensibly content-focused) reviews of THE STRANGE ORDER OF THINGS appearing now in greater numbers. I’d urge people contemplating reading Damasio’s new book to work through at least a couple of them to get a sense of what lies ahead.‘Why three stars?’ some wags are no doubt wondering. Though I cannot indeed endorse the ‘clear’ descriptor that comes ith the three-star rating, I felt that it was fairest. ‘Shrug’ was not an option.

A seriously important book. The idea that human emotions build on the fundamentals of thermodynamics is hugely compelling. Plus at last a counter to the bleakness of Homo Deus (which whilst also sweepingly brilliant Damasio argues is built on a false premise that human intelligence can be reduced to algorithms.I was engrossed in this book for a marvellous week.

This a wonderful book, obviously written with an interested lay reader (like me) in mind. It is packed with robust current neuro-scientific facts and personal speculations on Aesthetics, Music and Art, which, but for the ponderous literary style adopted by the Nobel Laureate author, could have been presented even more enjoyably using half as many words.

This is an extraordinary evoluctionary review of feelings and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

As a psychology student, I can say that the book introduced me to the world of Affect in a scientific manner. The book is really informative- includes explanation regarding the biological, evolutionary reasons for humans and other animals to have emotions. It also explains the underappreciated but the very significant role played by emotions in maintaining or disrupting the balance of our internal and external environment.

Unclear. Too much repetition. I gave up after two-thirds of it.