鈥淜NOW thyself.鈥� The first of three maxims said to have been inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi sounds grand. What it actually means has been a matter of debate for millennia, and when it comes to knowing ourselves, modern science has made things deliciously more complex, too.
How the physical substance of our bodies creates our sense of being a consistent entity, and what it means to have that sensation, is a long-standing puzzle. Debates about this relationship between matter and mind were meat and drink to the Ancient Greek philosophers, but they didn鈥檛 have our conception of a universe whose matter consists of fundamental particles that have been evolving according to rigid mathematical laws since the big bang.
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They also didn鈥檛 have the rapidly expanding knowledge of genetics and cell biology that the past century or so has brought us, or the sophisticated psychological experiments showing that we are all a bundle of delusions and biases that prevent self-knowledge.
鈥淧sychological experiments show that we are all a bundle of delusions and biases that prevent self-knowledge鈥�
Such insights give new perspectives on some old philosophical debates about the nature of human free will and whether any sort of afterlife awaits us. They have also sparked new ones. Where do the boundaries of our selves lie if the trillions of alien cells that make up our microbiome are also influencing our moods and emotions? Or how does the complex, ever-changing interplay of genes and environment that makes us who we are alter our ideas of the continuity of our self?
We hope you will find much to enjoy and stimulate in our special feature on the greatest mysteries of you, which covers all these and more (see 鈥淵ou are stardust: The long view of when your existence really began鈥�).
All of the 鈥淵ou: Special issue鈥� features
- You are stardust: The long view of when your existence really began
- How nature, nurture and sheer randomness combine to make a unique you
- Think your sense of self is located in your brain? Think again
- You are not one person: Why your sense of self must be an illusion
- Why it鈥檚 the aliens living inside you that create your sense of you
- Do we have free will or are all our decisions predetermined?
- If we can鈥檛 change the world, does anything we do matter?
- Why we鈥檙e in tune with our emotions 鈥� but suck at judging our smarts
- If the multiverse exists, are there infinite copies of me?
It is possible to take introspection too far. Not for nothing were the two other Delphic maxims 鈥渘othing to excess鈥� and 鈥渟urety brings ruin鈥�. But as we reach the end of a unique year of lockdowns that has seen many of us struggling without the company of others, let us delve into the mysteries of ourselves with one of the most productive interpretations of the ancient aphorism in mind: that by better knowing ourselves, we can learn to understand others a little better, too.
