Mental life emerges from the neuronal only through negation and conflict.

Evidence

The transition from the neuronal to the mental supposes negation and resistance. There is no simple and limpid continuity from the one to the other, but rather transformation of the one into the other out of their mutual conflict. We must suppose that mental formation draws its being or identity from the disappearance of the neuronal, born of a sort of blank space that is the highly contradictory meeting point of nature and history. Only an ontological explosion could permit the transition from one order to another, from one organization to another, from one given to another. The neuronal and the mental resist each other and themselves, and it is because of this that they can be linked to one another, precisely because—contra Damasio—they do not speak the same language. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 239

Categorization

• XREF: Directly contradicts Damasio’s continuity view; offers a test for whether Malabou argues or asserts the brain-mind link.