Part 1: The enduring self
Logically, if we do things that support our continued existence then we are more likely to continue to exist. And if we don’t, then we are less likely to continue to exist. The logic of this is irrefutable.
So, maybe that’s it. Maybe that is all there is to it. We are here, we exist, because we are the kind of thing that supports its persistence – ‘what persists exists!’. If so, then to the extent that we are ‘supposed’ to be doing anything, we are supposed to do whatever extends our persistence (including our offspring, our ‘legacy’, etc). There isn’t any point to it. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter whether we are here or not. But if it matters to you – well, do what matters to you (except insomuch as that interferes with what matters to me, of course!).
I am parodying a simplistic and misguided mindset. But it is no joke. That kind of self-interested reasoning is very, very widespread. It is the dominant worldview. It is very powerful and influential in politics, in commerce, in organisations, in communities, and in everyday human interpersonal lives. It is the logic of greed and control, of “blind craving and aggression”. It powers the discompassionate exploitation of one another and natural resources. All our global challenges – poverty/wealth disparity, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, armed conflict, political polarisation, loss of human rights, distortions of truth and mass propaganda (including scientism) – and all the personal suffering that follows from that – the separation, the loss of humanity and the meaninglessness.
And it is not a straw man. It is not easy to see what might be wrong with the logic. It IS true that things that act to support their continued existence are, all other things being equal, more likely to continue to exist.
One area of science (developed within this self-interested worldview) that provides foundational support to this logic is evolutionary biology.
There is evidence of tiny, fossilised microbes that indicate life on Earth was present 3.7 billion years ago. There are maybe close to 10 million different types of plants and animals alive today, but many more have come and gone since that beginning. Each new type of living thing is usually a small change from the type that came before it, and all of the many complex forms of life which we observe today appear to be connected in a tree-like pattern, branching-out from those ancient origins. We notice that within each type or species there are differences between one individual and another, and sometimes these differences matter to which type leaves more descendants in future generations. Types that leave more offspring in a given time, tend to displace those that leave less, all other things being equal. From this we recognise the evolution of life on earth and the relatedness of all living things.
The theory of evolution by natural selection ties these (valid) observations to the meaninglessness of ‘what persists exists’. That is, it posits that the reason we see more of one type relative to another is precisely because it is a type that leaves more descendants. It is almost a direct restatement of the basic observation – the most numerous types are those that proliferate the best. The logic is irrefutable. And all the self’s interests are reduced to just two – survival and reproduction. Everything else an individual does are just actions that serve the interests of survival and reproduction – to persist. Hence, survival of the fittest.
What should we make of this? How does it relate to us?
Sometimes, the differences that matter to the path of evolution appear to be about who out-competes who in the struggle for life – in the struggle for habitat, resources, survival and reproduction. But not always. Other times, the differences that matter are about who is most synergistic with their habitat, who can cooperate the best and who works together most effectively. Indeed, the truly dramatic increases in biological complexity are characterised by new ways of working together – for example, when single-celled organisms discovered ways to diversify, specialise and work together, up to 30 trillion of them in a multicellular organism like us. Moreover, if there is some way that ‘being nice to one another’ is a successful strategy then it makes sense that ‘being nice to one another’ is a strategy that increases in representation. Some say, this might explain why humans are so nice to each other (!?), given our highly social way of living. But this cannot shake the foundational commitment to self-interest. According to natural selection, cooperation within the group is for the purpose of competition between groups, and from the individual’s point of view, cooperation is only rational when cheating is prohibited.
Well, maybe the logic was right then? We might not like it – we might wish it was different – but that is the way that life works and that is ‘the way of the world’, isn’t it? Self-interest is logical and natural, orthodox evolutionary science says.
In fact, from this point of view, ubiquitous self-interest is not even a problem – it’s a good thing! It is not even an animal instinct we should try to ‘rise above’ using our intellect. On the contrary, self-interest is something to be celebrated and protected (“the virtues of selfishness” and “laissez faire free market”). After all, the reasoning goes, self-interest (i.e. natural selection) is the mechanism by which all wondrous and beautiful living things arose. And if you interfere with competition, then it wont work properly – you will be interfering with progress. So, any attempts to advocate for ‘being nicer’ that are not grounded in differential growth and competitive advantage are ‘breaking the system’, counter-productive, dangerous even and should be stopped to protect the integrity and profound power of self-interest. I kid you not.
What a tragic state of affairs.
So, is the science correct? What does the evidence say? Is life really about self-interest?
The ‘survival of the fittest’ framework has logical limitations. It cannot explain its own axioms or the setting of its own parameters. To be fair, this is true of any theory; no theory can explain its own axioms (except circular theories with circular axioms perhaps?). But the axioms of natural selection help themselves to a lot. In particular, they help themselves to the self – the evolutionary individual that is separate and different from other individuals in that it holds characters that affect its differential reproduction. Since it helps itself to this, it cannot explain the origins of life or the origins of evolution. Nor can it explain the necessary conditions for evolution (suitable mechanisms of reproduction, suitable variation, suitable heritability and suitable selection) (also known as evolution of evolvability). It also cannot explain how new units of evolution arise (also known as evolutionary transitions in individuality) such as how the evolutionary process transitions from one level of organisation to another (e.g. from single-celled life to multi-celled life). These are important unsolved problems. The theory of natural selection is unable, logically unable, to explain the origins of selves at any level of organisation other than the level that is assumed in its own axioms – and these presupposed selves come from nowhere – they are axiomatic and have to systematicity to their composition (like non-compositional symbols without semantics).
Interlude: Attachment to self
There are other perspectives on the world, of course. Many people in the world know that this ‘survival of the fittest’ and a ’self-interested’ worldview is misguided. They know that love is the way, not self-interest. They know that separation and fear, and the urge for greed and control, lead to suffering. They know that everything is connected, and that harmony and peace is the way. They don’t need science to tell them that they are right about this – they know it to be true in their heart that compassion and empathy are authentic and the only things that are. Love gives meaning. Love creates. Love existed before anything else – everything is connected in love. Love just IS. Love is the prime mover. In this worldview, it makes sense to treat the natural environment that gives us life, and one another, more kindly. And it doesn’t matter if science tells you that you are wrong about that – that love is just a brain chemistry trick, caused by your genes to cause you to reproduce them, or at best, a social strategy to foster protection for your descendants via the longevity of your genes within your social group. Scientists only know the world in that way. But it is not the truth. So says this love-centred worldview.
Is there any hope for reconciliation of these views? It would be good if there was, given the global crises and personal suffering. But wishing doesn’t make it so. Maybe this love-centred worldview is just woo woo nonsense? Or perhaps, even if it is true, it is something spiritual that can never be codified in objective terms and can have no purchase on material matters?
What would it take to make room for love? How could the logic of self-interest show any ‘gaps’ where love might live? Or conversely, perhaps there is a deeper loving framework with spaces where self-interest can be held gently?
Is there any loophole in the logic of self-interest? It seems watertight; Once you have identified a self, and wondered what their interests are, the only logical thing for a self to do… is to do what is in their self-interest!
But look at the condition “once you have identified a self”. The only way out of the logic of self-interest is to NOT identify a self. To let go of self. If there is no self in the first place, then the logic of self-interest has no purchase.
Consider the reasoning offered at the beginning of this text: “If I do things that support my continued existence …then I am more likely to continue to exist [than something that doesn’t].”
It is not untrue; but this logic presupposes a self. The only place to go from that presupposition is to account for what supports the self. This framing therefore precludes explanation of where selves come from, and it doesn’t even prove that selves are real things! – let alone tell us that the meaning of life is to survive and reproduce or self-interest! Love can only be part of this framing insomuch as it serves the self (also known as “business love”).
Part 2: Not the enduring self
Is there a different place to start?
Notice that the framing of part 1, the framing of self-interest, makes the presupposition of the self that is separate from non-self, and asks a question that is linear – where are we going?/what should a self want or do (all other non-self-things being equal)?
If we do not presuppose a self that is separate from non-self, how do we begin? How can there be anything at all without a separation of self from non-self? A separation of some-thing from no-thing? Isn’t “self” intrinsic to there being any-thing at all?
What if “everything is what it is because of, and in relation to, other things”?
This is the complementary place to start – the opposite of part 1. A logic supporting this kind of view would be relational, not isolationist (solipsistic?). And to be self-consistent, it would be a circular logic – justifying its relational nature with a relational argument, not a linear one. It might even accept its own existence only in counterpoint and simultaneously to its own non-existence.
Perhaps something like: Different is the same as the opposite of same, and same is different from the opposite of same. In the same way, all things exist only in relationship to their opposites. Selves for example depend on non-selves. And the arising of a self depends on the ceasing of the self.
It reads a bit like a paradox or a riddle – but Im getting used to that. Maybe reality is a bit more like a riddle or paradox, and a little less like a linear thing with a beginning and an end. Maybe truth is a little bit ‘all at once’ and a little bit ‘round and round’ and not so much ‘one thing at a time’ or ‘from here to there’.
What does life look like with this lens? With a lens of dependent arising and circular causation?
In fact, this lens sees living things very well. Everything about living things has circular causes, every self exists only by virtue of the non-self, and every creative arising is both caused and a cause.
- Biological individuals have lifecycles of birth, development, death and reproduction.
- Development begins with relatively homogeneous parts, and at the adult form, exhibits relatively heterogeneous parts. It begins with potentialities and ends with particular realisations – controlled in the variants that are possible. Reproduction begins with the active integrated adult whole (agent) and produces the new beginning: copying the whole by copying each part (gene), as though each were a separate inert part (data). Development is a dependent arising, a swinging back and fore between differentiation and integration, potentials and realisations, structure and process.
- Evolution occurs in populations that are continuous lineage through time and also discrete generations with potentially no material overlap.
- Evolution begins with relatively homogeneous instances and their spontaneous variation – uncontrolled in the variants that are possible. Each generation begins with instances (variants) and ends, after selection, with less variety. Regeneration of the population begins with the notionally inert data (genotypes) and through the action of the active integrated adult whole, reproduces these types differentially. Evolution is a dependent arising, a swinging back and fore between differentiation and selection, instances and frequencies, discrete entities and continuous lineages.
- And organisms are not ‘downstream products’ (‘phenotypes’) of evolution – they are active agents in the processes of evolutionary transformation:
- Extended inheritance – organisms modify inheritance
- Niche construction – organisms modify selection
- Phenotypic plasticity – organisms modify variability
- Thus evolution and development together – the two biological notions of self-making – are a dependent arising too (not linear and orthogonal processes). A swinging back and fore between continuous transformation (growth) and discrete transformation (reproduction), change within selves and change between selves, top-down causes (organisms are agents of change including genetic changes) and bottom-up causes (organisms are constituted by the parts of which they are composed including their genes).
- And the organismic self and the evolutionary self are likewise interdependent and dependent for their existence on one another. Individuality is not a given. In nature individuality is pliable, context sensitive, dynamic, and transitions radically in timescale and organisational scale (evolutionary transitions in individuality). The self is not a static inert symbol or token. It is a flowing, agential, process with hierarchically nested structure of selves within selves, a recursive process of self-integration and self-differentiation and dynamic, on-the-fly self-definition that is one thing now, and another thing a moment later.
- The self is not a fixed enduring thing.
And to imagine that it is fails to see almost everything that life is.
In short, all the machinery of the Darwinian machine is self-referential; the products of the process modify the axiomatic mechanisms of the process, including the processes of separation and convergence, the selves on which it operates, the operations that create selves, and the cycles of change and non-change that we recognise as a processual ontology and a substance ontology and their interdependence/complementarity.
These selves, do exist, then – insomuch as, for a time, they are causal agents – they are not complete fabrications of our imagination. But they are not enduring. And they owe their existence and meaning to their environment; to other selves and their dynamic relationships with them. The processes that create and destroy selves are also not enduring, they are the complement of the entities and their coming and going (program, data, program, data // process, structure, process, structure // coming-into-being, ceasing, coming-into-being, ceasing).
From this point of view, ‘what persists exists’ explains very little. Only the structural parts. It explains nothing of the creative process or origination, the dynamic pulse of the movement, or the transformation of the process over time. It presupposes the things we really want to understand – the selves, and in so doing predetermines the only answer to life it can make sense of – self-interest.
In reality, the self is created by, sustained by, destroyed by and recreated again – in an ever-transforming process – through the dynamic relationships it is engaged with and constituted by.
Not: What persists exists – but: What related creates.
Epilogue and Prologue
What does this mean for the questions we started with?
Why are we here?
Well, to start with, you are not separate from non-self. And you are not enduring. We are only here temporarily. But do not despair. We are all part of ongoing cycles. Each of us exists only to the extent that we are separate from each other, but also, only to the extent that we are created by and in reflection of the non-self around us. Our not existing – emptiness – is just as profound and just as meaningful as our existing.
What are we supposed to do with our lives?
This is a linear question that supposes a non-circular process – in which we are the difference makers – a path that we can travel whilst all other things remain equal. In reality, every step we take is mirrored – is only made possible by the complement. No linear step is possible, all other things are never equal when we take a step. There is only ‘turning about’, not travel. There is only transformation, not creating-and-ceasing. Yet, the turning needs a thing to turn that is separate from the frame of reference to turn in. And the transformation needs a state that it was in the past, that is different from the state that it is in the future.
So, to return to the beginning of this writing, and regarding its whole (with its contrasting parts and relational inter-epi-pro-logue transitions), the selves are real things – but don’t get too attached to them… Honour the release and the new beginning, with directions you know not. You are a part of it, not just a product of the process but an agent of the process. In this sense, let your context provide your meaning as it arrives and with your understanding.
And, yet, with love, it’s not about you.
