Does the individual exist?

[stone space]

55. An eddy in the stream?

Where does the stream end and the eddy begin?

I'm reminded of the title of a Book written by Barbara Deming, "We Are All Part of One Another".

Perhaps consciousness is nothing more than a manifestation of what it "feels like" to be a universe.

But the feeling of atomic individuality and separation from the rest of the universe may very well be an illusion.

But let's take this in a less "ultimate" or "cosmological" level.

The human mind has been described by at east one evolutionary psychologist a the modular mind, analogous to a smart phone multiple independent apps.'

If this is in any way an accurate reflection of how the mind works, then it has many implications on what it means to be human, a what it means to be rational.

Robert Kurzban shows us that the key to understanding our behavioral inconsistencies lies in understanding the mind's design. The human mind consists of many specialized units designed by the process of evolution by natural selection. While these modules sometimes work together seamlessly, they don't always, resulting in impossibly contradictory beliefs, vacillations between patience and impulsiveness, violations of our supposed moral principles, and overinflated views of ourselves.


This modular, evolutionary psychological view of the mind undermines deeply held intuitions about ourselves, as well as a range of scientific theories that require a "self" with consistent beliefs and preferences. Modularity suggests that there is no "I." Instead, each of us is a contentious "we"--a collection of discrete but interacting systems whose constant conflicts shape our interactions with one another and our experience of the world.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9271.html

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whittman--"Song of Myself"

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/whitman/song.htm