Self, no-self, & human "complexity"

... with help from Dante and St. Silouan, Naipaul and Merton

The name given to the “Big Think” website may be the biggest misnomer online.  Occasionally, one of its clickbait titles will entice me to read an article; however, I have yet to encounter any whoppingly “big” thoughts presented on the site, even if there have been a few rare instances of moderately interesting ones. Recently, one “Big Think” headline had been reappearing so often in my Facebook newsfeed, sporting the lavish title, “Eastern philosophy says there is no ‘self’ — Science agrees” (the only ingredient missing in that is a double exclamation mark at the tail end), that I relented in my resolve just to let it pass unread. I suppose it shows what a sucker I am that, after so many times seeing the same come-on rotate through my feed, beckoning me to “take up and read” as it circled by again and again, I finally did precisely that. I opened it and read.