The Organismic Otherness of Being

Abstract

In this paper I explore the proposition that much of our functioning as a “self” occurs enigmatically in a way that cannot be seen or known directly, at the biophysiologic, organismic level of our existence. As a consequence, uncrystallized aspects of our being, evoked “seductively” (as Jean Laplanche might put it) by circumstance, can well up and carry us away from our customary sense of self. We may then be both overtaken and taken aback by this black box of self-experience. The effect is sometimes constructive and at other times what I call “microtraumatic.” I offer the following instance as a starting point for discussing our organismic “otherness.”