John Donne, the English poet, wrote in the 17th century, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." Now, a British academic has claimed that human individuality is indeed just an illusion, because societies are far more interconnected at a mental, physical, and cultural level than people realise. In his new book, The Self Delusion, Professor Tom Oliver, a researcher in the Ecology and Evolution group at the University of Reading, argues there is no such thing as "self", and not even our bodies are truly "us".
Just as Copernicus realised the Earth is not the centre of the universe, Professor Oliver said society urgently needs a Copernican-like revolution to understand people are not detached beings but rather part of one connected identity. "A significant milestone in the cultural evolution of human minds was the acceptance that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, the so-called Copernican Revolution," he writes. "However, we have one more big myth to dispose of: that we exist as independent selves at the centre of a subjective universe. You may feel as if you are an independent individual, acting autonomously in the world; that you have an unchanging inner self that persists throughout your lifetime, acting as a central anchor-point with the world changing around you. This is the illusion I seek to tackle. We are intimately connected to the world around us."
Professor Oliver argues there are around 37 trillion cells in the body but most have a lifespan of just a few days or weeks, so the material "us" is constantly changing. In fact, there is no part of your body that has existed for more than 10 years. "Since our bodies are essentially made anew every few weeks, the material in them alone is clearly insufficient to explain the persistent thread of an identity."
Professor Oliver claims that individualism is actually bad for society, and only by realising we are part of a bigger entity can we solve pressing environmental and societal problems. Through selfish over-consumption we are destroying the natural world and using non-renewable resources at an accelerating rate. "We are at a critical crossroads as a species where we must rapidly reform our mindsets and behaviour to act in less selfish ways," he said. "So let's open our eyes to the hidden connections all around us."