What I do to others is done to myself. Every act of kindness, every mean thing I have ever done has always been done to myself. The same goes for everyone else.
If you think that’s crazy, I don’t blame you. In fact, nothing in this text will substantiate or prove the validity of this claim. The origin of this philosophy comes from Andy Weir’s short story titled “The Egg.” I was first introduced to this story on YouTube. Kurtzgezagt, a popular channel on the platform, produced an animated version of the story.
The main idea is that you are the universe and everyone within it. The whole story is a dialogue between a recently deceased man and a higher being in some rendition of an afterlife. The recently deceased man learns that after every life he is reincarnated as someone else.
“But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point” the man said to the higher being. It happens all of the time, but each person is only aware of their own lifespan.
“The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.” The God-like figure continued. “I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect. In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
Human consciousness is a complete mystery. For as much as we aim to understand the functions of the brain, science has yet to devise a concrete way of understanding how it is that humans are able to be aware of the world around them. A way I like to think about it is that the brain is a computer. A computer is able to receive data that is served to it from an external source and process that data determined by its operating system.
The same goes for the human brain. The brain is served data from all our bodily senses. That data is processed, and actions ensue as a result. Our consciousness is the way we observe brain activity.
Our brain defines what we do but not who we are. We have always been the same person from birth to now, but because of the growth and development of the brain over time the decisions we make change. The development of the brain can be categorized as either environmental or biological. Environmental development is the data your brain processes and learns from to mature. Biological development is how the physical brain develops and changes over time.
This framework has allowed me to rethink my perception towards mental health and more specifically depression. People don’t choose to be depressed. In many cases it’s caused by factors out of one’s control. When damage is done to the brain it is very difficult to reverse.
Jonathan Martin is one of an increasing number of former NFL players that are dealing with the constant battle against CTE endued depression. In a New York Times article from last month he announced that he would be donating his brain for research purposes. A constant cycle of concussion after concussion throughout a 13-year football career damaged his brain. Hopefully science can learn from the pain he endured to help others.
The causal link between brain trauma and increased levels of depression makes total sense. If you damage a computer it won’t be able to process data correctly. But you are still you. All that has changed is the brain.
I think that the Egg Theory of shared consciousness helped me have more empathy for individuals with mental health issues. Our consciousness is the same, the only thing that’s different is the brain through which we observe the world.
I personally believe free will doesn’t exist for this very reason. That’s not to say that we don’t have free choice. There are an infinite number of options or outcomes in life. It’s that our brain is making the decisions, not us. That’s what I mean by free will not existing.
Western convention assigns our brain and being to be one in the same. From an efficiency standpoint this makes total sense and I agree with it. It’s impractical to compensate one brain for CTE damages and charge another brain for having caused that damage.
I think this philosophy is important to understanding why people behave the way they do. It’s not because people are different, but rather their brains are different. The reason people’s brains are different is because we each have unique life experiences. I think that if more people approached human interaction with this mindset we would be a more empathetic and kind society.
Whenever you interact with someone else you are interacting with yourself. “Every time you victimized someone,” the figure of higher power said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
Help others. Be kind. Listen to those around you. Be more understanding. You’ll thank yourself later.
This is one of the more interesting and captivating pieces I have read so far. I completely agree with your statement that our interactions with others are projection of the type of individual we are. Who we are as person determines are outlook and attitude to people and all aspects of life in general. Even though you highlight that with all of our emotions and thought we do not have full control of our brains.
I enjoyed reading your blog post. The post had me very interested and engaged. One part that stood out to me is when. you said The Human Conscious is a mystery because it made me realize there's so many things that run through peoples brains. Also everyone brain works in different ways and this can have something to do with peoples mental health.
This blog is super interesting, and I really enjoyed learning about the Egg Theory. I liked how you acknowledge the extent to which mental health is affected by factors outside of our control. And also, I found it really interesting how you pointed out each interaction we have with someone is a reflection of ourselves and our projections of what's on our minds. Yet, if we are not fully in control of how our minds work and react, these interactions are not necessarily fully intentional. Lastly, I loved how you ended with a reminder that no emotion is unique - I think there is much solace to be found in that statement.
I love the egg short story, and I do like your viewpoint on mental illnesses. Human consciousness is in reality a pretty small window of knowledge and people are a lot more similar in ability to perceive than we may think. I think this perspective will help us be better people and understand each other better- I also think that were mental illnesses were more often seen as what they are- illnesses, and not a weakness of mind, then the world would be a better place.
The way that the brain, consciousness, other brains, and other consciousnesses interact has been a topic of passionate debate for a very long time, and I find it fascinating (even if some of the ways people have chosen to reconcile these concepts strike me as... existentially horrifying). I agree that a deeper understanding of physiology can foster deeper understanding of one another (and empathy too, as you argue here), particularly if mental illness is a factor. For centuries in Europe and elsewhere, mental illnesses and birth defects were explained away with rather wild theories of a religious and/or spiritual nature. Certainly more empathy would have resulted from a physiological, medical view of these conditions.
However, I do not think that…