A traffic jam "is more than the sum of all its cars. Something similar goes for the self."
— Mooney, Chris
Author
Date
March 7, 2014
Metaphor
A traffic jam "is more than the sum of all its cars. Something similar goes for the self."
Metaphor in Context
Ouellette's conclusion from all of this, therefore, is that while it would be going too far to say there is no such thing as the self at all, our understanding of what the self actually is must be dramatically revised. "It's not right to say it's an illusion," she says, "but it is a construct. But it's not what you think it is." More specifically, Ouellette ultimately concludes that the self is an emergent property of the billions of neurons of our brain all interacting with one another. What's emergence? "A system in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts," writes Ouellette.
"A traffic jam is emergent," she explains. "You have all these cars interacting. If it gets dense enough, enough interactions, you're going to get a traffic jam. But that traffic jam is real." It is more than the sum of all its cars. Something similar goes for the self.
"A traffic jam is emergent," she explains. "You have all these cars interacting. If it gets dense enough, enough interactions, you're going to get a traffic jam. But that traffic jam is real." It is more than the sum of all its cars. Something similar goes for the self.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Mooney, Chris, "Science Says Your Soul Is Like a Traffic Jam," Mother Jones (March 7, 2014). <Link to Mother Jones>
Date of Entry
03/07/2014
