The I-Self And Symbolic Language

by Ursula Goodenough

We've had many postings of late on human nature from guest-blogger Tom Clark and from Marcelo, Stu, and me, so I'll go ahead and continue the thread. I'll first consider the concept of a self, then suggest that our human perception of having two selves is probably unique, and then explore how this might relate to our other unique feature, the capacity for symbolic language.

The word self is in most cases synonymous with the word organism. When we speak of a bacterium, we speak of its capacity to self-maintain, self-protect and self-reproduce in recognition of its self hood. By listing such activities as denoting a self, we are also saying that the self is not a thing but an ongoing and integrated process (not to say totally mind-boggling). Selves have a function, which is to keep that process ongoing and integrated while they interact with other selves and the environment.

Most selves on the planet, now and throughout its history, are single-celled, like bacteria and most algae, occupying every possible niche and responsible for much of the planet's maintenance and basal food supply. The land-plant and fungal radiations generated multicellular selves that self-integrate using hormones, while ...