Cartographies

To know what answers when someone says “I”.

Replaced “who am I really?” with “which relations are active in my becoming?”

The self is an evolving pattern of relations, neither a hidden object nor a freely chosen story.

a self could be found intact, before anything had touched it.

To know whether a life is a body or a story.

Put Merleau-Ponty and Schechtman in one room and let them argue.

The stories we tell about ourselves are made possible, and limited, by the body.

a story could be told with no body to carry it.

To know whether believing can reach into the body.

Followed belief through prediction, attention, regulation, placebo and trauma.

Belief can become a biological cause, but conviction alone cannot command neurotransmitters, erase trauma or move events.

conviction alone could command an event.

To test the promise that thought shapes matter.

Asked physics, yoga and psychology the same question, separately.

No reliable evidence shows that thought selects physical outcomes. Intention works when it becomes attention, action and skill.

a wish were ever seen choosing a measurement.

To know whether humanity is becoming one mind.

Traced the coupling from neurons to platforms to civilisations.

Humanity is becoming a more tightly coupled cognitive ecology, not one mind. Synchronisation is not unity.

a crowd could think well without its differences.

To know how much of the world a person makes.

Carried one intuition through physics, biology, belief and time, removing its overreach at each step.

We participate in the actualization of a resistant world.

wishing alone moved anything — or nothing we did moved anything at all.