We just got home from a walk. It's 8:40 PM, the itching hour. If I ever need proof that I am an individual, a mosquito whining past my ear would do the job. I am an individual and the mosquito is an individual and each wants to do something to the other which would be inappropriate if we were the same species. You agree, of course. You and I are made of the same stuff and I know without asking that you swat and scratch as do I.
If you have read my blog before, I suppose you know my method. I state the obvious and then wax contrary. Here goes. The Individual is not real. Individuality is one of those fictions that survives because it promotes the reproductive success of certain collections of genetic information in competition with others. It would be stretching things to call a genome an individual, so I won't do that. An individual is something you can murder or hug. A mosquito qualifies but not a genome.
Imaginary information about something real is fiction. We can say that a mosquito exists. However, calling it an individual implies a discreteness that ignores the connectedness of things. That strategy is used to make the mosquito thinkable, snipping it out from reality to hold it in imagination as a separate entity simple enough to comprehend. In reality, a mosquito does not exist apart from its evolutionary history, nor the air it breaths, nor the blood it feeds on, nor its ecosystem, nor its predator-prey interactions, nor the sun that drives its thermodynamics. The individual mosquito is a fiction you can swat, but a fiction nonetheless.
Now, this is the difficult part. What I said about the individual mosquito also applies to the individual person. I habitually think about me, just as you think about you, as an individual. These individuals we think about are fictional. I am the foundational fiction of my consciousness, which has evolved to promote a genome in competition with other genomes. I am the fictional swatter that aspires to murder the fictional flying blood-sucker. But in reality, we are united in a momentary game sharing space, time and blood. Connections like this have brought us into existence. If there were only one player, there would be no game. If there were no game, there would be no player. Dynamic connectedness pervades the precariously balanced reality within which we persist for a time.
Obsession with fictional individuality is putting things out of balance. Murder seemed to be the way to win the game, but belonging would be appropriate if we are really in this together. We are in this together. We have failed to notice how the ecosystem has been shaped and the populations of mammals including humans have been controlled by pesky mosquitoes. If there were no mosquitos, some other way of balancing the system would emerge, perhaps sterilizing the planet to rid it of humans who are too clever to lose a contest. It is not clear whether we are wise enough to survive being clever for much longer.
The swat alters the universe, perhaps in unexpected ways that rebound on the swatter. Swat cautiously. There is always more to be said. I admit that the itch feels real.
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Photo credit: © Can Stock Photo / PongMoji
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