Selfprototypes of self

‘The most mysterious thing about the human brain is that the more we know about it, the deeper our own mystery becomes. … Our reality seems to depend upon a miracle.’*

Our consciousness in more than the sum total of our neuronal parts. We can choose whether we see ourselves as trapped in the self, or we can see ourselves as possessing an incredible “vehicle” for exploring the universe.

Though, this is always our universe, never the universe:

‘But that reality — the world seen without self — is exactly what we an never see.’*

There can be no truly objective view of the universe — everything we see and know comes through who we are.

We may reduce the brain to its function as we search for and seek to understand the self — we understand the self not to be a place in the brain, but a process (I’ll come back to this) — but the exciting things begin when we increase rather than reduce, when we bring together (integrity from integer, to be intact) rather than separate.

Embedding and embodiment become important practices of this process of self. And whilst some might be disappointed to find that the self is not a place, like the Arkillian prince in Men in Black, this is way more exciting for those who believe we can exponentially change, grow, and develop. Embedding makes what we see and understand part of our intimate self, then embodying by prototyping gets us moving, from spectating to participating:

‘Prototyping is all about building momentum.’**

(*From Jonah Lehrer’s Proust was a Neuroscientist.)
(**From Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)