Emma Madden

the human is an semi-arbitrary* unit. because we exist in this level of coarse graining, we perceive an organizational structure to things at this level as well. our humanness, our inherent structure, doesn’t allow us to see the full spectrum of organizational units of a ‘society’ or of the ‘self’. we compartmentalize ourselves; we change, we grow, we study organs and organ systems. but we in ourselves are systems built to perceive the world in a way that is similar to ourselves, we are self-centered beasts (yes, pun). (click for more)…

of course we are going to use individuals as the basis of society and social thinking/organization. we don’t share our internal structures with anyone else (on the level of perception) and our substructures are only perceived by this internal ‘self’ or selves. we consider individuals as the base unit because its what we share with other humans around us. our perceived existence is existence because it is the level that were perceiving ourselves at. we don’t have access to those other levels. we couldn’t. we’re not designed to (by ‘we’ i mean our society-interfacing ‘selves’). the ego is a tautological argument.

we are the gods of our own reality and yet constrained by it

*dennett would disagree, still working though this

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