Is Existence Dependent on Visibility?
Following up on yesterday’s post about intimacy is the old; if a tree falls in the forest conundrum. If no one hears it, did it fall? If no one sees me do I exist?
At around 2 years old children must work through the developmental issue–the conundrum– of whether they’re special or not; whether they exist as a unique entity. Every other sentence, is “look at me . . .” As parents, it’s exhausting however, if the child isn’t adequately reflected he turns inward to see himself- and like Narcissus in Greek Mythology, he’s forced to hold up his own mirror to realize his existence. He now lives in his own eyes but lacks an ability to see others.
If the child is seen by his parents the conundrum is resolved in an ability to know he’s the only one, but he’s not the only one who’s the only one.
Held in solitary confinement or being stranded alone on a desert island, will drive anyone mad. The ego cannot hold it’s grip on reality without support from the environment. Like the child unreflected, the solitary human will turn to the unconscious for validation which is the definition of madness; the boundary between the ego consciousness and the vastness of the collective unconscious is broken and the ego is drowned in archetypal images.
Psychological existence is dependent on visibility. If, like the tree that falls in the forest, he falls and no one hears him, he doesn’t exist–to himself. And since no one else is there to see him fall, to anyone else either.
Whether physical existence is dependent on visibility is a question for tomorrow.
