metonymy4u

one classic existential question is how to account for the fact that we die many times before we die. because we are self-aware—an assertion based on the rather outrageous notion that the brain doubles its own function in some mysterious and special way. while we would likely never say that the stomach digests about digestion we readily learn to affirm that the brain thinks about thinking. i suspect a more likely explanation for the so called existentialist predicament is that animals eventually evolved large emotional brains. the darwinian approach at least avoids the vexing problem of substance dualism. that is: the problem of a brain, unique example of a universe otherwise gone mad, that doubles its own function and thereby dis-covers the “truth” of its own singular existence.