From neurons to emotions and consciousness

Fig. 1: Cartesius

The mind-body problem has always fascinated man and it has puzzled great philosophers. The two extremes of this problem are, on the one hand, the rigorous dualistic position of Cartesius, who considered the mind (Res cogitans) an entity completely unrelated to the body (Res extensa) and, on the other hand, the radical reductionist positions. A widely accepted belief among neurobiologists is that mental activity and consciousness only exist as the result of cerebral activity and that, therefore, the basis of every mental function should be found in the activity of neural circuits. Furthermore, neuroscientists who have posed this question in a rigorous manner, such as Gerald Edelman and Antonio Damasio, point to the importance of subjective experience and emotional states to fully understand how "matter becomes fantasy".