The self is a construct of the collective!

An evolution article:
Why Richard Dawkins is no scientist, the survival of the least selfish, and what ants can tell us about humans


The 'self' idea is a construct of definitions,and beliefs that generate feelings, thoughts and perceptions, from which proceed actions and behaviours and conditionings.
Clearly, and observably, foundational self-definitions are imagined and accepted or created in consciousness - but this is not equivalent to the 'definition' of a personal or private 'consciousness' which in our current human template operates AS IF it is a thinker that thinks alone and apart from all else.
In antiquity there were mythic models of a world on the back of a tortoise. In modernity the world seems so much more 'realistic' yet the framework within which which it is perceived and manipulated is no more substantial than an imagined tortoise.
There is no self but Self (for want of a word for the All in All). There is no self as is presumed and asserted and supported with emotional force and intentional identification. But there IS a belief/definition 'self' that has all the currency of its mutual acceptance but only the value of what it fulfils as consciousness experience.
The mechanism of the delivery of experience within consciousness can be explored AS experience, but to do so is to differentiate from the indivisible in order to experience a point of view. But there is NEVER a separation in FACT from the experience observed. It is provided to the desire because it is part of the desire. The desire that has dominated and driven scientific exploration in the main is an expression of a 'disconnected urge to define, control and prevail over Life Itself. And as such is clearly insane to anything but its own self-conditioned blindness.
The cutting off of consciousness from its true nature is a device of dissociation and denial well known to those who would use psychology for the manipulation of other minds rather than heal their own and others. But it operates a splitting off of dissociated 'conscious' personae within a negatively or fearfully determined and segregated self-sense.
The nature of a deception operates defensively against its own exposure by invalidating all else in such wise as to seem associated with the power of it god - from which it derives authority. The god of the separating self sense is the idea of asserting coercive power upon life - but beneath this 'power' is a self that defines itself in victim-hood and thus in hurt, fear and anger. The halt lead the blind. Nothing will come of a fearful foundation but fuel for fear.
The idea of self can be reintegrated to its true nature and consciousness. This is not determined and controlled but yielded to and accepted INSTEAD of yielding to the god of fear. AND in a true willingness for Life, our Arts and Sciences will uncover a wealth of INTEGRATED inspiration in all that it explores to experience in shared reality instead of seeking to manipulate as dictated by private agenda.
WE ARE all already cooperating to maintain a culture of lovelessness, because we are not actually separate from Consciousness and must TEACH what we define and accept ourselves to be. WHAT we teach depends on what we choose to learn. Definitions operate invisibly until you want to check in with what is really going on right here and now where 'reality' is presumed to be. Now are you opening to a truth that you do not make - because that which observes definitions is not defined by them. Just because one can follow thinking, doesn't mean one has to. Aligning with true joy and passion is not a fear-based compulsion. Fear OF consciousness is scientism's shadow. True Science seeks to know the truth - not just the filtered truths that can fuel a fearfully derived agenda.

One commenter offerred this to the article:

Use of the word "selfless" here undermines the argument. Selfless suggests a conscious choice (and therefore ability) to go against ones needs or instinct. In the case of the ants, they have no such ability, so it is not selfless.

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They don't demonstrate it on our timeframe - nor in ways that our human 'self' template can recognize. Species-ality focuses in its own explorations yet they reflect something to us that we take as 'collective' consciousness and that is something we tend to disregard in focussing in what we call individual consciousness. All facets operate consciousness - but we do not stand alone and apart to judge excepting we presume our independent ego to be god and believe our own spin.

Is not what we call 'conscious choice' but a virtual layer over what is actually happening anyway?Have you met any truly 'conscious' self that can choose to go against its needs or instinct - or is it a distorting layer of mind that redefines needs and the 'self' that it is, so as to then automatically 'choose' according to the defined template. In this sense our 'self' is a persona or mask upon what we actually ARE - that makes a model of the world in which to play out its illusory power. Putting such 'self' aside - that is - noticing it is not YOU, allows the undistorted integrity of a true existence to shine through. While the 'power' to be what you are not (against yourself) is your choice, all choice is but a mechanism of conditioned reaction.
But the first choice remains yours to change, regardless the layers of experience and definition that constitute the human conditioning.