ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a definition of the self and how it is situated in its social and physical environment. It considers the nature of human waves in Network Studies and neuroscience terms and states that the self is not simply a psychical structure, cannot be just a psychic structure. The chapter presents a clear distinction between the self and the self-representation/self-perception system, the many problems associated with smushing all three of them together as intrapsychic phenomena disappear. It explains a relatively new discipline of Network Studies that looks at and quantifies social connections between individuals across multiple relational dimensions. The chapter focuses on many disciplines: biology, epidemiology, social science, and neuroscience, to name but a few. Network Studies looks at how individual members of networks that are connected to each other and pass information from one to another. Critiques of Christakis and Fowler's work have begun to appear in the literature.
