We have several words that draw attention to the self or in the plural selves. For example, ourselves, selfless, selfish, selfhood, her/himself and the strangely tautological myself are just a few. What is a “self”? When we think of a self how does it seem to us? How do we describe ourselves?
A scientific description might start with, say an 80 kg person, might contain 8×10²⁷ atoms or nuclei and ten times the number of electrons. This is just a quick back of an envelope calculation, so just take it with a grain of salt. On a mass basis we are primarily, 80% to 90%, star stuff. The remaining atoms are a little more primordial, the hydrogen in our bodies was created some 380 000 years after expansion started and about 100 million years before stars started to form and generated carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and the other heavier elements that makes up the bulk of our ‘selves’. To get the really heavy stuff the stars have to explode. We recycle this star stuff many times, neutron stars must merge to get radionuclides, that keep the Earth’s core molten.
When I refer to [my] self, I am at least referring to the physical or elemental aspects of my body. OK, I can hear people saying we are more than just star stuff. Well yes and no. Is a nicely constructed Lego diorama more than a pile of blocks? The nice diorama has been constructed by some other star stuff and resembles some aspect of reality. Whereas the jumble caused again by star stuff reflects our chaotic existence. Notice the word just in the phrase “just star stuff”. This is often a rhetorical ploy used by people arguing against a deterministic interpretation of existence. Yes, we are more than star stuff. We are the interaction of our star stuff with the star stuff in our environment moved by the lever of unimaginable time and space.
So, we have 3.5 billion years of evolution, that helps with this “more”. Exquisite imperfect replicating chemical reactions, where the likelihood of the replicators replicating, are shaped by the environment that they are part of. After tens of millions of years of replicating imperfectly, these chemical reactions can eventually be described as biology.
So, after close to 14 billion years of the universe unfolding, certain ground apes are still wanting to be “more”. They have developed sophisticated ‘wants’ from their lowly chemical affinities.
I am star stuff shaped by the universe; I don’t feel a need to be more.
When I look deep inside myself,
I see the universe quietly staring back at me.
rom's corner 