How Joe The Primate Created The Self And Got Us Into This Mess!

[No-Thing]

As we developed language thousands of years ago we started to categories things and attach words to these categories. Primates that were better at communicating through these sounds (words) had a higher chance of survival. We agreed on more and more words and started to develop relationship between words. Soon names occurred to differentiate primates within one group. At this point the only difference between "you" and "me" was, that when the finger pointed away it was Jack (you) and when the finger pointed towards the thing the finger was attached to it was Joe (I).

This went on for a while and the only logical time a primate used words was when there was at least one other primate nearby and the thing the word was pointing to was also present. But than one damn day the mess started to unfold. Primate Joe had the idea to talk about something that was not there. All the other primates looked at him and thought, “What the fuck is he talking about there is no mammoth. He is nuts” (and they were right). But after a while they got the hang of it and started to talk about all kinds of things that weren’t there.

Slowly the nature of words changed. At the beginning they were mere pointers: “Rock”, “Mammoth”, “Fire” .... But now as we learned to use words without the thing we point to being present, they changed fundamentally. This is crucial! Once we developed this ability, we were able to think of all kinds of things that are not there. Fantasy was born (fantasyland as Leo calls it). I know that you get all tingly because you see where this is going, right?

Now that words became abstractions (i.e. the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events.) the freak show was about to begin. Joe (again? come on!) sat on a rotten tree log thinking about all the words he learned, “Sticks, stones, Joe, fire, mammoth, Jack, fish … Joe, Joe, Joe … hmmm” something was odd about this "Joe"-thing. This "Joe"-thing was always there wherever he went. Jack was a primate just like Joe but Jack was not always there. Weird … and then it happened. Joe thought, “Joe needs another word for this Joe thing as Joe is always where Joe is and therefore Joe is really important to Joe. Lets call this thing  - I -  (please read this with an angel voice choir singing a final chord “Haaaaaaah”). Cool, This I thing is pretty cool. Wait a minute.  - I AM Joe!!!! –“ and the self was born.

 

The rest is his-story.