ABSTRACT
From where should we seek advice about our future if not from nature? Where else if not from
culture, which is to say from the meanings which we ourselves make. That is the thrust of this
book. If self is the locative, navigational system that I have argued for, simultaneously containing
its world and being contained by it, then how can we think about this question of navigating our
futures, whether encountered or fabricated by our own actions? Our paths ‘through’ life are
sometimes found, sometimes forged. The biological origins of self may seem humble from the
vantage point of full-blown, creative, moral consciousness, but those humble roots are dazzlingly
complex.
