Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing" - Isaiah Berlin
If we wanted to summarize human history with one word, it would be "paradox." Throughout the ages, mankind has always gravitated between two poles: creation and destruction, peace and conflict, victory and defeat, good and evil. Our most important ideas are usually debates between two fundamentally different ways of perceiving the world: idealism and physicalism, episteme and techne, empiricism and rationalism, liberalism and conservatism.
Information on a computer is created through a sequence of binary numbers (0's and 1's). The universe itself is made up of matter and anti-matter. And if we study the works of the great thinkers of human nature, we discover that the individual person is perpetually torn between various conflicts that take on this dualistic character: meaning and expedience, persona and shadow, the ethical and the practical, the finite and the infinite.
This dual nature of existence is itself a mystery. We can only accept that it is so.
The great thinkers about human nature of the last two centuries have explored these polarities in detail, but there has never been a synthesis between these ideas. Instead, scholars have focused on the subtle differences between biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers. This book explores what they have in common.
In the age of information, the modern individual is paradoxically empowered and enslaved. The rapidly changing technological environment has led to the development of a new kind of individual, not merely disenchanted, but bewildered by variety and novelty. Such changes have made the study of human nature even more difficult than it was. Can we answer eternal questions such as "What is nature of the self? Why does conflict exist? Why is the world polarized?" by turning to the ideas of the past?
The Dichotomy of the Self attempts to answer this question by taking you on a journey through the great ideas about human nature, how they began, and how they have shaped our history. By understanding where our ideas came from, and what they tell us about ourselves, we can have a better idea about where we are going.
Synopsis
"A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing" - Isaiah Berlin
If we look back toward the beginning of the universe, we can see the fragile nature of existence.
If events unfolded differently, life would not exist.
Particles and anti-particles, or matter and anti-matter, were residues of the energy created by the heat of the Big Bang. As the universe cooled, the particles and antiparticles destroyed one another in pairs. If the amounts of matter and antimatter had been equal, everything would be annihilated, and there would be no life in the universe. There wouldn't be anything.
There had to be an initial asymmetry, more matter than antimatter, so that after the universe cooled, there would be stars left over.
Thus, the universe exists because of a basic dichotomy, between matter and antimatter.
But what if everything had this dual character? What if brains, morality, nature, information, perception, and thought all exist due to a fundamental division or dichotomy?
What if our grand theories about human nature are informed by the dichotomous nature of our brains?
What if the grand theories themselves describe human psychology and behavior as the tension between opposites?
In The Dichotomy of the Self, I explore what has been termed as "the coincidence of opposites" - the ways in which dualities manifest in nature and in our lives.
For each discovery, there is a discoverer. Throughout the book, I will go through the ideas of all the great discovers of our time. You will learn how these ideas can explain the persistent existence of conflict, rigidity, blindness, narcissism, polarization, short-sightedness, stupidity, and naivety.