THE ILLUSION OF ‘I’

My dear perceptive readers, before I begin, I must implore you to forgive these few awkward lines. What I mean to write of today is no more than a transcript of certain nebulous thoughts floating in my head. I perceive the most fragile of connections, the merest beginnings of sense, no more.

Oft have I wondered, what is the concept of the ‘I’?? Indeed, it is one of the mysteries of life. The closest anybody has ever come to describing it is, I think, the vague, ephemerous term of ‘Anthrocentrism’. Self-delusion is something all of us have, at some point in our lives or other, almost certainly indulged in. Each and every man (and woman, to my many vices shall not be added sexism) believes that he or she is the most important person in the world. Oh, do not get me wrong, I do not say that we voice these beliefs openly, or that we are monsters of our pride. Not at all. In fact, we are perfectly aware that it is neither admirable nor useful to be driven by pride, so we try to subdue that drive, but we might as well disapprove of having oneself powered by one’s heartbeat. Intellectually, we recognize ourselves as merely a part of a greater whole, but not really; not in our guts, which, incidentally, is where an average persons thinking mechanism is located.

But, I wonder, is this delusion really as bad as it is made up to be? Isn’t it this very indulgence that drives a man towards success? And I answer myself, indeed, it is so. But, there is always a ‘but’, isn’t there? In this case, there is no doubt that each and every one of us is a big fish, the ‘but’ simply arises in our ability to identify the appropriate pond. We are indeed the centers of our respective worlds, only the world has become a lot smaller. In the large scale, one is no more than a component, and, this is the cinematic moment of revelation with big bass beats, by no means an irreplaceable one. Here, I must add that this is a revelation which, as far as my perception goes, cannot seep into ones consciousness steadily. It has to hit one with the full force of a speeding automobile suddenly encountering a brick wall.

One must realize that in the grand scheme of human civilization, there is no single person who is truly important. I have no doubt that, by making this assertion, I have condemned myself to heated arguments from many quarters, most of them armed with examples. I’ll quote a few myself. Newton and Einstein are the cornerstones of science today. Great men, no doubt. But do you truly believe that without them, science would not have progressed? Would no one have invented the technique of calculus or discovered gravity? Would no one have introduced the concept of relativity? Of course someone would have done it!! Perhaps the achievement would have come a little later, but it would have come nonetheless. The single greatest engineering feat of the last 150 years is the IC engine. But, in the long run, does it really matter who invented it or if its invention was delayed by a decade or two? Would the Second World War have taken place if Hitler had never been born? Of course it would have!! The sweep of history is inexorable, inescapable. The socio-economic pressures which led to the War had nothing to do with Hitler. He was merely the catalyst. Same goes for Gandhi, or any major historical figure. Even if none of them had ever existed, I believe that the world today would not have been quite different, in essentials, from what it is today.

Isaac Asimov, in his groundbreaking Foundation series, introduced a concept called ‘Psychohistory’. It is, in essentials, a mathematical technique to predict the broad sweeps of civilization. Asimov himself was conveniently vague about the precise details of psychohistory, but stressed many times over, and in no uncertain terms, that the governing equations would break down when applied to an individual. His official argument was of course that an individual’s reaction to any stimulus could not be accurately predicted, but those of a mob could be. I wonder, though, if he had the thoughts expressed above in the back of his head when he created psychohistory. Interesting speculation, is it not?

My dear reader, as I promised at the very outset, the post seems to have no easily apparent order or chronology. I humbly beg you to pardon these inchoate musings, and I hope you will share your thoughts with me, in the process perhaps enlightening my lost, troubled soul.