Hello, World!
"W
hitehead's process philosophy takes it further, proposing that there is actually no space between us, that we are all aspects of each other." (Neville, 2013. p. 392. bold text by me)
I read the above quote and felt as if my head was going to explode! What does Neville mean?
He says later on that "We are relational beings. We do not exist except in our connectedness. For the ecopsychologist that connectedness extends to all human and nonhuman being." (ibid. p. 392).
I am left thinking that maybe I am nothing except for the connections that I have within the world. Connections to people, oxygen, the sun, bacteria, cells, lungs, trees, water. A complex web of connections which come together to form the 'me' as I see myself.
In a biological sense, I am nothing if not the complex organisation and connection of millions of cells in my body, arranged to make a 6' tall human male. And those cells are made up of a connection of particles, and those in turn made up of a complex connection or web of atoms. And so it could work the other way up: in the same way that liver cells are part of a larger-organism (me), so I am a part of a larger organism (the ecosystem of Earth, or the universe?),.
This is a challenge to the Western notion of individualism, and how we are separate entities, both from each other and from the world around us. Rather, this theory would state that we are all connected, on many levels. There is no such thing as a separate, individual human being.
This idea may change how I see myself.
References
Neville, B (2013): Setting therapy free; Person-centred & Experiential Psychotherapies: 12 (4), 382-395.