Most of us experience ourselves as individuals, as beings separate from their environment. But if we look at the material world through the lens of, for example, biology, ecology, chemistry, or physics, we get different pictures. Our electric fields extend beyond our skin; we are fully integrated and dependent on our environment for survival (we don’t exist in a vacuum); there is a constant flow of information into our senses and out through our hormones, excretions, and language; and at the quantum level, well, shit gets really weird with particles popping in and out of spacetime. Not to mention the vast emptiness between the particles that constitute our bodies in the first place.
Where do you experience the boundary between yourself and the world? What do the words “self” and “world”, “other,” or “outside reality” really mean to you? To what extent can you isolate yourself from the outside world? What is the nature of the boundary, and therefore the link, between “inner” and “outer” reality?
It’s heady stuff. But it can be fun to contemplate the depth of our existential connection to reality from time to time.
EXISTENTIAL TUESDAYS
Existential Tuesdays are small weekly* lunch discussions in the Nook of the TUD Library. Practice your critical thinking skills, learn to see the world from different perspectives, and hang out with your fellow deep thinkers in Delft.
Interested in other events in the Nook? Sign up for the newsletter to find out what else we’re planning.
* no sessions during exam weeks or study week
