All of that is constantly operating when you not only learn, but when you recall. But as you recall in a different light, the weights with which something is more probably going to be or not recalled on the next instance, are going to be changed. So you're constantly changing the way, for instance, synapses are going to fire very easily or not so easily.
Antonio DamasioNarratives are not fixed. We change our narratives for ourselves and we change them not necessarily deliberately. In other words, some people do, some people will constantly reconstruct their biography for external purposes, it's a very interesting political ploy.
Antonio DamasioSomething may have happened before, and yet this thing that happened just after may be so important that you don't even know about the thing that happened before and when you tell your story to yourself, or to someone else, it's going to be told not on the basis necessarily of the time course, but rather on the basis of how it was valued by you.
Antonio DamasioWe can be more or less conscious when you create grades of focus on a subject that is flowing in our stream of consciousness.
Antonio DamasioFeeling of an emotion is a process that is distinct from having the emotion in the first place. So it helps to understand what is an emotion, what is a feeling, we need to understand what is an emotion.
Antonio DamasioThe mechanism of primary emotions does not describe the full range of emotional behaviors. They are, to be sure, the basic mechanism. However, I believe that in terms of an individual's development they are followed by mechanisms of secondary emotions, which occur once we begin experiencing feelings and forming systematic connections between categories of objects and situations, on the one hand, and primary emotions, on the other.
Antonio Damasio