What Are We?

The greatest question of the human condition is not the origin of our consciousness, nor what happens after we die, it's what we are right now. Sometimes we ponder our faculties, sometimes we marvel at the collection of atoms which form the cells which encapsulate the chemical reactions which form us, and sometimes we wonder how a little mammal scurrying in the undergrowth trying to avoid being spotted by a dinosaur could have evolved into us, but we rarely ask what we are now.

To the physical aspect, I have already alluded. We don't fully understand the subatomic physics which go beyond quarks, but in essence, we're made up of atoms. Democritus proposed the theory of the atom - the indivisible, over two thousand years ago, and back then it was just another spacey idea formulated by a philosopher of the same ilk as those who suggested that the entirety of the world was made of fire, water, air, and earth. However, that is not reality to us. We can't see atoms, and we rarely feel their presence on a macroscopic scale. A quick transfer of electrons during a shock may be the height of our experience with the subatomic. Cells, however, we do experience. We may not be able to see individual cells, but their products are always front and center in our lives. The electric rhythm of our heart often mediates much of our daily activity, and those who partake in elevating that heart rate will certainly feel the blood cells moving quicker through their veins. The question of physical experience is one which deserves not only its own essay, but its own book. I simply wish to posit that our cells are the largest small thing that we can comfortably say we interact with on a daily basis.

The union of the opposites which make up our experience is quite another thing. Like I said, it'll take a whole book to unravel the mystery of our experience, but our experience is predicated upon the ability to feel without. What does that mean? Well, how can we know something is hot? Only because we have a reference point we have felt prior which is cold. The cells which comprise our sensory organs give us a near infinite range of values for any particular experience. Eating a certain food could trigger textures, temperatures, tastes, smells, and sights, all of which amalgamate into an experience we associate with that food. From the moment we're born, we begin to coagulate millions of tiny yet completely individual experiences to form the range of values which we'll use for the rest of our lives. Of course, things shift around, but without this range, without the opposite, we couldn't fathom experience. In philosophy, the idea of the union of opposites has been expounded upon by many philosophers, such as Hegel, and their unity is often at the heart of some of the most influential work in experience. As I sit here in the latest New England heat wave, I can only know how hot it is around me because I know what cold is. Someone coming to this 95 ºF weather from a tropical country would have quite a different experience.

So that's what we are physically and what we are experientially; multicellular organisms whose experience is rooted in the unity of opposites. That's all well and good, but what really inspired me to write this essay is thinking about what we are now and how that relates to what we will be. I needn't remind anyone about death; I think that's been in the foreground of our minds for a long time. I said at the beginning of the essay that what happens after we die isn't as important of a question as who we are now. In truth, the two are related.

While I cannot answer what happens when we pass on, I do know one thing. In the grand scheme of things, the physical nature of our body does not matter. Whether we choose to be cremated or put in the ground (or something else entirely), the cells which comprise us will break down and be scattered, either in other organisms as we decompose, or in ash. In a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years, there will be no trace of our physical bodies left in the world. Unless of course we've chosen to be embalmed or frozen like the patron saint of comical mice, but those cases are rare. So is that it? Our experience is tied to senses which no longer function, so are we gone?

Interestingly, the animated movie Coco and the horror miniseries The Haunting of Hill House played the same key role in influencing this essay. Coco is entirely about how the memories of our loved ones keeps them alive and flourishing in the afterlife, and how no one can truly die until there are none who remember them. The Haunting of Hill House echoes the same sentiment. Outside of their physical selves, people leave the greatest footprint on the world within the memories of others.

When I made that connection, it really struck me as powerful and confusing. I've spent a lot of time thinking, and writing, that people should do their best to not let the perceptions of others influence them. I still believe that we shouldn't worry so much about what others think, and we should only seek to be the best versions of ourselves. The language there is vague, yes, but the point behind it isn't to be an egotistical jerk and treat everyone as though they don't matter; the point is to understand that the opinions of other people should not shape your mental health.

So do the two pieces of media then say that we should focus only on what others think of us, seeing as how our continued existence is predicated upon the perceptions (which form memories), of us within other people? Is that not directly contrary to what I believe? Yes and no. We live through the stories that others tell of us, perhaps the legends that those stories become, if we're lucky. Some day, the last who remembers us directly may fade, but those stories will not. Even if they're not told, those stories, those memories, will have shaped generations to come, and like the whisper of a butterfly's wings in India causes a hurricane in South America, so too do our memories continue to shape the descendents not just of our familial line, but of those who were closest to us. However, we cannot, and should not, take that to mean we must bend over backwards to placate as many people as possible, so our memory lives on. If we do that, we will only incur the opposite effect.

Instead, we need to stay true to ourselves, and strive to be the best persons we could be in the world. People should remember us not for our spineless placation, nor our wrath, but our kindness, our intelligence, and our strength which we lend out to those in need. Virtue ethics aside, we should remember that the journey to being a "good person" is marred with false idols and dangerous ideals, and so rather than spend one's life in the gloom of extracting truth from what is in all likelihood a life bound only to our cellular composition and its experiential limits, we should try to dedicate our days to being just a little better than we were the day before, knowing and acknowledging that there will be mistakes along the way, and having the capacity to forgive not just others, but ourselves in the process. Just that simple act of trying will ensure we live on through memories for as long as there are people in this world.