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  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Me, Myself, and Why

  JENNIFER OUELLETTE is a science journalist and the author of three previous books, The Calculus Diaries, The Physics of the Buffyverse, and Black Bodies and Quantum Cats. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Discover, Slate, Salon, and Nature, among other publications. She writes a science and culture blog called Cocktail Party Physics on the Web site of Scientific American. Ouellette served from 2008 to 2010 as the director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences that aims to foster creative collaborations between scientists and entertainment-industry professionals. She has also been the Journalist in Residence at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara and an instructor at the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop. Ouellette holds a black belt in jujitsu and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Caltech physicist Sean Carroll.

  Praise for Jennifer Ouellette

  The Calculus Diaries

  “Ouellette makes math palatable with a mix of humor, anecdote, and enticing facts. . . . Using everyday examples, such as petrol mileage and fairground rides, she makes even complex ideas such as calculus and probability appealing.”

  —Nature

  “This dash through a daunting discipline bursts with wry wit. Ouellette uses differential equations to model the spread of zombies and derivatives to craft the perfect diet. Sassy throughout, she reserves special barbs for subprime mortgage holders: ‘Chances are they weren’t doing the math.’ ”

  —Discover

  “A great primer for anyone who needs to get over their heebie-jeebies about an upcoming calculus class, or for anyone who’s ever wondered how calculus fits into everyday life and wants to be entertained, too!”

  —Danica McKellar, New York Times bestselling author of Math Doesn’t Suck and Hot X: Algebra Exposed

  “I haven’t had this much fun learning math since I watched the Count on Sesame Street when I was three. And the Count never talked about log flumes or zombies. So The Calculus Diaries wins the day.”

  —A. J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Know-It-All and Drop Dead Healthy

  “Ouellette is every English major’s dream math teacher: funny, smart, infected with communicable enthusiasm—and she can rock a Buffy reference. In this book, she hastens the day when more people are familiar with an integral function than with Justin Bieber.”

  —Peter Sagal, host, NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, and author of The Book of Vice

  “Wonderful and compulsively readable . . . Ouellette finds the signature of mathematics—and especially calculus, of course—in the most unexpected places, from the gorgeously lunatic architecture of Spain’s Antonio Gaudi to the shimmering arc of waves on a beach. . . . Her ever clear and always stimulating voice is a perfect match to the subject. The Calculus Diaries is a tour de force.”

  —Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook

  “As amusing as it is enlightening . . . Ouellette steers us so gently we think we’re gliding along on our own.”

  —Michael Sims, author of Adam’s Navel

  “If you ever thought that math was useless, read this book. Want to survive a zombie attack? Win at craps? Beat a zombie at craps? Well, listen to Jennifer Ouellette. The math she describes might just be your best hope if you don’t want your brains to be gobbled by the undead.”

  —Charles Seife, author of Zero: Biography of a Dangerous Idea

  “A charming and gentle introduction to important mathematical concepts and their relevance to everyday life.”

  —Leonard Mlodinow, author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

  The Physics of the Buffyverse

  “Blending fizzy pop culture with serious science . . . Ouellette makes an earnest effort to introduce the laws of physics to couch potatoes in a relatively painless way.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “If you dig science, vampires and the like, give The Physics of the Buffyverse a try.”

  —USA Today

  “Ouellette presents a strong case for many of the seemingly impossible aspects of the world Buffy and her friends inhabit. All the while, she makes the science accessible, guaranteeing that fans of the show will be receptive.”

  —Booklist

  Black Bodies and Quantum Cats

  “Bursts with answers for curious adults . . . Employing contemporary cultural icons like the movie Addams Family Values and The Da Vinci Code, Ouellette explains the principles behind acceleration and ancient geometrical anomalies. . . . Ouellette shines when she pulls analogies from real life to explain, for example, why blackouts are more likely since the deregulation of the power industry, in prose that is engaging and economical.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Readers of these pieces will feel Ouellette’s companionship as a fellow layperson sharing her interest in physics history. Hooking the audience with some movie or science-fiction novel . . . her entertaining explications encourage generalists to give physics a try.”

  —Booklist

  “Remarkably fresh and immensely readable. . . . All major theories and breakthroughs, along with the personalities that brought them to life (including a particularly ruthless Thomas Edison and a resourceful patent clerk named Chester Carlson, who built the first photocopier in his Astoria, New York, kitchen), are presented clearly by the reader’s pop-culture escort. It is a credit to Ouellette that, as the reader progresses into more complex theories, the TV and movie references aren’t nearly as interesting as the science.”

  —Publishers Weekly

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  First published in Penguin Books 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Ouellette

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Ouellette, Jennifer.

  Me, myself, and why : searching for the science of self / Jennifer Ouellette.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-14-312165-7

  ISBN 978-1-101-61364-1 (eBook)

  1. Self psychology. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology) 3. Identity (Philosophical concept) I. Title.

  BF697.Q778 2014

  155.2—dc23 2013034514

  Version_1

  For my parents, Paul and Jeanne

  One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

  —G. K. CHESTERTON, “THE LOGIC OF ELFLAND,” Orthodoxy (1908)

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  PART I: ME

  1 What’s Bred in the Bone

  2 Uncharted Territory

  3 Moveable Types

  PART II: MYSELF

  4 Three and I’m Under the Table

  5 My So-Called
Second Life

  6 Born This Way

  PART III: WHY

  7 Feed Your Head

  8 Ghost in the Machine

  9 The Accidental Fabulist

  Bibliography

  Index

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Several years ago, I resolved to confront my lifelong math phobia head-on and recounted that experience in The Calculus Diaries. That’s how I discovered that the story I’d been telling myself—that I was bad at math—wasn’t based on fact. When I went back and checked the records, I discovered that I earned A’s in all my math classes. It got me thinking about everything that goes into how we define ourselves and craft a personal narrative and how this in turn influences not just our identity but the choices we make and what we think we can and cannot do. Ultimately this led to a book project exploring the science of the self.

  I soon realized this was an impossibly broad subject. Massive tomes and stacks of scholarly papers have been written about each of the topics covered herein, involving decades, if not centuries, of research. Boiling all that material down into a concise, reader-friendly overview was the very definition of a Herculean task. The end result is a highly selective, often personal account that I hope will give general readers the scientific lay of the land and provide some fodder for thoughtful reflection on our most deeply ingrained assumptions about ourselves.

  The number of scientists who generously shared their expertise is downright humbling. I could not have written this book without their patient input. Ulrike Heberlein gave me my first glimpse of drunken fruit flies under a microscope. David Poeppel spent an afternoon discussing the neurological intricacies of the self and let me observe an MEG scan in the bargain. Patricia Churchland welcomed me into her home and enlightened me on the finer philosophical points of consciousness. Anne Wojcicki, Brian Naughton, Joanna Mountain, and Catherine Afarian of 23andMe took time out of their busy schedules to give me an overview of their venture. I still log in to the site from time to time and remain a fan of the service.

  I had a lively, entertaining visit with David Eagleman, who provided a brain scan and allowed me to chat with his entire lab over a Texas-sized noodle bowl: Mingbo Cai, Josh Jackson, Sean Judge, Scott Novich, Ricky Savjani, Steffie Tomson, and Don Vaughn. Kathleen McDermott and Henry Roediger introduced me to the entire psychology department at Washington University in St. Louis, many of whom agreed to be interviewed, thereby giving me a crash course in the field: Katie Arnold, Erika Carlson, Bridgid Finn, Adrian Gilmore, Joshua Jackson, Randy Larsen, Lori Markson, Tom Oltmanns, Mike Strube, and Simine Vazire. I spent an afternoon with Jackie Morie of the University of Southern California enthusing over avatars and identity in virtual worlds. Ricardo Gil da Costa spent two hours going over brain scans and the neural correlates of the self with me, and Uri Hasson patiently walked me through his work on neural coupling in a La Jolla diner, sketching helpful diagrams on the paper placemat.

  Thanks also to the following for granting interviews: Jeremy Bailenson, Michael Bailey, Sven Bocklandt, Matthew Botvinick, Robin Carhart-Harris, Laura Case, Anthony Chemero, Meredith Chivers, Danielle Dick, Rick Doblin, David Featherstone, Andrew Gerber, Rob Goldstone, Sam Gosling, Nicholas Grahame, Carla Green, John Halpern, Bernhard Hommel, Christof Koch, Joseph LeDoux, Dan McAdams, David Nichols, Cibele Ruas, Juan Sanchez-Ramos, Sebastian Seung, Lindsay Squeglia, and Bradley Voytek.

  Extra-special thanks to the pseudonymous “Rory,” for sharing his personal transition story-in-progress; and to Meg Bowers and Petra Boynton for helping me navigate the treacherous waters of gender identity and sexual orientation.

  One never knows when a casual conversation will turn out to lead one in fruitful directions, so I must also thank Charlie Jane Anders, Misha Angrist, Allyson Beatrice, Deborah Blum, Bethany Brookshire, Gay Crooks, George Djorgovski, David Dobbs, Raissa D’Souza, Shari Steelsmith-Duffin, Esther Dyson, A. V. Flox, Jason Goldman, Kieran Healy, JoAnne Hewett, Alan Klein, Maria Konnikova, John de Lancie, Joshua Landy, Tom Levenson, Michael Lill, Ben Lillie, Robin Lloyd, Peri Lyons, Malcolm MacIver, Jennifer McCreight, Usha McFarling, Bob Mondello, George Musser, Jr., Annalee Newitz, Annie Murphy Paul, Laurie Paul, Nick and Susan Pritzker, John Rennie, Sherry Reson, Cassie Rodenberg, Michael Russell, Nick Sagan, Cara Santa-Maria, John Scalzi, Carlos Schroeder, Steve Silberman, Michael Sims, Brian Switek, Melanie Tannenbaum, Carol Tavris, Holly Tucker, David Wallace, Nick Warner, Carolee Winstein, Ed Yong, Robin Yuan, Amos Zeeburg, Philip Zimbardo, and Carl Zimmer.

  This is my fourth book for Penguin, in what has proved to be a fruitful partnership. I am grateful to my editor, Chris Russell, for providing focus to my meandering prose as I struggled to pull together so many disparate threads. As always, I owe many thanks to my agent, Mildred Marmur, who looks out for my best interests.

  My sister, Amy Ouellette English, doggedly transcribed many hours of interviews, with Jacqueline Smay picking up the slack when needed. Lee Kottner reviewed the draft manuscript and gave her usual excellent pointers. My husband, Sean Carroll, gently pointed out logical inconsistencies and consoled me during those dark nights of the authorial soul, when I was convinced I could never do the topic justice. Every day he makes my life that much richer for being part of it. Love and gratitude go to my parents, Paul and Jeanne Ouellette, whose support has never wavered. Mom, Dad, this one’s for you.

  Finally, there is that unknown woman who endured all the social pressures and emotional anguish that inevitably accompany giving up a child for adoption. I hope she would look at the woman I became and feel that her sacrifice was not in vain.

  Prologue

  Since I was five, I’ve known that I was adopted, which is a politically correct term for being clueless about one’s own origins.

  —JODI PICOULT, Handle with Care

  When I was five years old, I held my baby sister for the very first time—not in the sterile environs of a hospital maternity ward, but in the slightly musty waiting room of a Midwestern adoption agency, when she was already several weeks old. I knew that I, too, was adopted, as was my older brother, even if I didn’t fully grasp exactly what that meant. Adoption was simply one more fact of life. It certainly postponed all those awkward questions about where babies come from, leaving no need for the invocation of a mythical stork, since for years I assumed that everyone just went to the local adoption store to pick out a new baby, much like buying groceries at the supermarket.

  My biological origins were little more than a point of mild curiosity until I moved to New York City after college and discovered that other people were far less blasé about the subject. Perhaps it struck them as exotic. A few held strong opinions on how I ought to feel about being adopted, often expressing mild shock at my apparent lack of interest: “But don’t you want to know?” they would gasp, wide-eyed. “Not really,” I’d shrug in reply and try to change the subject.

  I never had the urge to embark on the long, obstacle-laden process of seeking out my biological parents. I bristled at the mere suggestion that this wasn’t my “real” family (and still do). My mother once confessed that for the first two years of my life, her greatest fear was that my biological mother would show up, unannounced, and take me away from her. I saw no need to dredge up those old emotions. Moreover, my natural reserve made me balk at the prospect of ferreting out a perfect stranger—one who, for all I know, had spent more than four decades trying to forget a painful chapter in her youth—simply out of idle curiosity. I experienced no psychologically crippling abandonment issues, nor had I felt gaping emotional holes in my life or confronted pressing medical issues—nothing to warrant the intrusion. I knew very well who I was; it never occurred to me to wonder how I came to be that person in the first place.

  Then one day, my mother called and told me she had just mailed me all the documentation she had on the details of my birth: “You’re all grown up now, and it’s high time I handed them on to you.” She hesitated a moment, then
added, “I just want to warn you that the adoption papers—well, they show your birth name.”

  Another name? My interest piqued. A few days later, I opened a plain manila envelope to find a faded birth certificate, duly notarized, and a thin sheet of onionskin paper with neatly typed instructions on my care and feeding (“This baby eats cereals twice a day and prefers to sleep on her stomach”). The sheet included some scant details about my biological parents. She was in her late teens; of French, Irish, and German descent; played the violin; and graduated as co-salutatorian of her high school class. He was in his early twenties, Norwegian, and athletic.

  Finally, there was the mimeographed decree of adoption, legally changing my name from the one my birth mother gave me to the one I bear today. I admit to being momentarily nonplussed by the sight of that unfamiliar name and surname. But the feeling quickly passed, because I didn’t feel as if the “petitioner” named in those documents (“a minor”) was really me—not anymore. William James defined the self as “the sum total of all that a man can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes, and his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank account.”* Our given names are simply what we call the totality of everything that makes us who we are, and that sum total is constantly in flux.

  Still, names possess tremendous psychological power, and in that sense, the manila envelope contained the fragments of a self that might have been. For the first time, I started pondering in earnest the age-old questions about nature and nurture. How much of who we become is due to genetic factors, and how much is shaped by our experiences and environment—and ultimately, by our choices? Would we be markedly different if we had different parents and formative experiences? Or would we be largely the same? I’m sure my biological mother also wondered about the road not taken. How did giving away her child in her late teens mold and shape her for the rest of her life? How might she have been different, had she made a different choice? There is a reason that alternate realities populated by doppelgängers are among the most common tropes in science fiction and fantasy.