Why R U, U?

Cogito ergo sum. Decartes was trying to ground philosophy on the most basic and incontrovertible proposition possible, short of a tautology. He did good! But I have another candidate: U R U (you are you). 

Surely this is tautology at its worst! But no. The appearance of tautology is just an artifact of our language’s limitations. You are you but ‘you’ is not ‘You’. Hint: we are using one word (you) to express multiple concepts. 

First, there’s the ‘you’ that was born in Richmond, VA in 1972, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale, yada, yada, yada. Then there’s the ‘You’ that ‘knows’ you’re an academic snob engaging with me now through the medium of this article.

There’s ‘you’ the image and ‘You’ the reflection of that image. Does it matter which is which? Might not the relationship be reciprocal: A reflects B reflects A? Save that one for a rainy day.

This ‘marriage’ of you and You is one of the great mysteries. “Why am I, I?” It’s a multi-part question: First, why is there such a thing as an I in the first place? Then, how is it that there is this particular I? And why do I reflect this I (me) and not that I (you)? And not a rice farmer in the Han Dynasty? And not his ox? And not a flea living luxuriously on ox hide? Or the unicellular animal about to be lunch for this flea? I could go on…and on (yes, I know, I can do that).

You play the role of the subject and the indirect object of every event in your life. Like, ‘I gave myself a rose’? Exactly! However, once again, language fails: “I see myself a rock? I feel myself a pain?” are ugly…but you get the point

The probability that you are you is ‘absolutely minimal’ and I don’t use those words lightly. According to conventional wisdom, being itself vanishes when temperature reaches Absolute Zero (0° K). Theoretically, 0° K is the limit of an infinite series of temperature reductions; one can get ‘infinitely close’ to 0 without ever reaching it.

But there’s a problem with this! Being is not a continuous function. You either are…or you are not (1, 0) (+, -). Intuitively, we recognize an infinite gulf between something that is and something that is not.

Counterintuitively, we’ve discovered that between the ‘smallest possible positive real number’ and 0, there are an infinite number of hyperreal numbers that can be collectively represented by the symbol ε, the infinitesimal.

Nothing is less probable than something that is minimally probable (ε)…except something that is infinitely improbable, aka impossible, like 0° K. So the lowest possible temperature is not 0° K but ε° K. Likewise, the smallest possible unit of Being is you. Every you has the same probability of being, ε.

The 20th century deconstructionist, Jacques Derrida, applied a similar concept to language. He distinguished ‘difference’ from ‘differȧnce’, a jeu de mot in French. Differȧnce is the space between the least possible real difference and ‘identity’.  Differȧnce is a quantum of difference; it is naked differentiation. You are, then, a quantum of otherwise undifferentiated (i.e. potential) being! (Sartre?)

It is estimated that the known universe consists of 10^80 bits (0 or 1) of information. Therefore, there are (10^80)^80 possible combinations of bits, i.e. states of the known universe. That’s all she wrote! You are one of those ‘infinitesimally probable’ combinations. So am I, so is the rice farmer, so is his ox…

Why do we say, “infinitesimally probable” rather than “highly improbable” or “infinitely improbable”? If P = 0, then you don’t exist at all (0/n); and even if P is as small as possible, the numerator will change as a function of any change in the denominator (1/2 = 5/10). We say that the phenomenon known as ‘you’ is infinitesimally probable because the numerator is always 1 no matter the denominator (1/n). You are a ‘one-off’; they really did throw away the mold.  

The question of why you are this particular you is now obviously ridiculous. There are at least 10^160 potential ‘yous’. You can only be one of them; if you weren’t one of them, you wouldn’t exist at all. So, Hamlet was right: you either are, and then that’s who you are, or you are not. There is no disembodied ‘being’ walking abroad, seeking an ‘identity’. King Hamlet’s ghost is not real after all. Horry for Horatio!  

Being is binary. “Is you is, or is you ain’t…?” There are no intermediate or medial states. But every ‘you’ is ‘you’ in exactly the same way that ‘you’ are you. In this sense then, you are the undifferentiated minimal unit of being. You’re what’s left when you can’t be dissected any further…without ceasing to be you (i.e. alive). 

Remember high school chemistry? You are like an element, e.g. carbon. The smallest unit of carbon is one C atom. You can divide that atom further but then it’s not ‘carbon’ any more, is it? Same with you. You are indivisible! (I didn’t say indestructible or indomitable.) 

In another sense though, “You are everything and everything is you.” (The Stylistics). ‘You’ are whatever you, or anyone else, could ever possibly be.  It has been suggested that every unique you is paired with a unique You; ridiculous! Poor Occam! 

Being is not wasteful like that. One You is all it takes to realize innumerable yous. How many Yous do you need to change a light bulb? There is only one You. You-ness is a singular phenomenon, like alterity (otherness), like differȧnce.

David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com

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