Beginnings 3

PART I: ABOUT LIFE AND ITS REGULATION (HOMEOSTASIS)
1 On the Human Condition 11
A Simple Idea - Feeling Versus Intellect - How Original Was the Human Cultural Mind? - Humble Beginnings - From the Life of Social Insects - Homeostasis - Foreshadowing Minds and Feelings Is Not the Same as Generating Minds and Feelings - Early Organisms and Human Cultures
2 In a Region of Unlikeness 33
Life - Life on the Move
3 Varieties of Homeostasis 44
The Distinct Varieties of Homeostasis - Homeostasis Now - The Roots of an Idea
4 From Single Cells to Nervous Systems and Minds 53
Ever Since Bacterial Life - Nervous Systems - The Living Body and the Mind

PART II: ASSEMBLING THE CULTURAL MIND
5 The Origin of Minds 71
The Momentous Transition - Minded Life - The Big Conquest - Images Require Nervous Systems - Images of the World Outside Our Organism - Images of the World Internal to Our Organism
6 Expanding Minds 84
The Hidden Orchestra - Image Making - Meanings, Verbal Translations, and the Making of Memories - Enriching Minds - A Note on Memory
7 Affect 99
What Feelings Are - Valence - Kinds of Feelings - The Emotive Response Process - Where Do Emotive Responses Come From? - Emotional Stereotypes - The Inherent Sociality of Drives, Motivations, and Conventional Emotions - Layered Feelings
8 The Construction of Feelings 117
Where Do Feelings Come From? - Assembling Feelings - The Continuity of Bodies and Nervous Systems - The Role of the Peripheral Nervous System - Other Peculiarities of the Body-Brain Relationship - The Neglected Role of the Gut - Where Are Feeling Experiences Located? - Feelings Explained? - An Aside on Remembrances of Feelings Past
9 Consciousness 143
About Consciousness - Observing Consciousness - Subjectivity: The First and Indispensable Component of Consciousness - The Second Component of Consciousness: Integrating Experiences - From Sensing to Consciousness - An Aside on the Hard Problem of Consciousness

PART III: THE CULTURAL MIND AT WORK
10 On Cultures 165
The Human Cultural Mind in Action - Homeostasis and the Biological Roots of Cultures - Distinctive Human Cultures - Feelings as Arbiters and Negotiators - Assessing the Merits of an Idea - From Religious Beliefs and Morality to Political Governance - The Arts, Philosophical Inquiry, and the Sciences - Contradicting an Idea - Taking Stock - A Hard Day's Night
11 Medicine, Immortality, and Algorithms 194
Modern Medicine - Immortality - The Algorithmic Account of Humanity - Robots Serving Humans - Back to Mortality
12 On the Human Condition Now 211
An Ambiguous State of Affairs - Is There a Biology Behind the Cultural Crisis? - An Unresolved Clash
13 The Strange Order of Things 234

Acknowledgments 245
Notes and References 249
Index 295