Introduction

"The experts seem to know everything that needs to be done and what needs to be known nowadays, but everyone only knows a part of it and relies on the competence of the other experts for the rest." (Abels, 2017). In this context, there is an increasing lack of an authority that forms a synthesis of the accumulated knowledge without favouring certain sub-areas.

"Self-Determination, Thoughts On Self-Concept" is an attempt to summarize a variety of theories derived from individual sciences such as biology, psychology, sociology, communication science, cognition science, neuroscience and philosophy to form a synthesis.

Three essential contents of this synthesis are:

1.         Self-determination, human freedom and free will are not given to us; we have to work hard to achieve them. Favorable social environments and appropriate cultural frameworks play an important role.

2.         The main characteristic of human beings is their body, their functioning as an organism, embeddedness into an environmental contexts, past experiences and relation to the future. All wishes, goals and therefore, inevitably, emotions, only become possible through a space-time relationship, and hence through man's organic-functional continuity. There would be no firmness of purpose, no needs, no states of mind, no self-consciousness, no personal identity without this continuity, which includes the past and the future.

3.         Matter can be located in "space and time", whereas consciousness can be experienced "in the present moment in a steady flow of the here and now". In view of this insight and the deep connectedness of all being it is only logical to deduce a principle of "Unity of Spirit beyond space and time".

The aim of this synthesis is to contribute to our self-conception. The author is committed to the principles of the Enlightenment and humanism and aspires to meet the criteria of scientificity. Consequently, he wants this paper to be criticizable, verifiable and extensible. On the basis of this principle, interested readers are  invited to provide feedback.

On the methodology: The methodological issue that arises is that as many findings from across scientific frontiers as possible should be integrated into the work to obtain a reasonably sound, holistic result. At the same time, for the sake of clarity and to keep a smooth reading, the individual propositions and hypotheses should only be mentioned briefly. Additional information is provided in the footnotes in the form of other authors' supplementary comments and literary sources and references.

The abundance of  propositions and hypotheses offered by a holistic view can only be embraced in fragments, leaving scope for new scientific evidence, amplifications and improvements. Also, they require room for interpretation because, coming from across sciences, they are not always mutually compatible and sometimes the required interdisciplinary approach is absent. The free will debate with the philosophers' and neurobiologists' different approaches and widely differing conclusions is only one example. An integrative understanding of man can only be preliminary, therefore.

In the next to the last chapter of the main part a self-contained epilog that is differently drafted than the rest of the text presents the conclusions of the essay in the form of a parable. The final chapter of the main part provides a brief summary of my work.

The annex contains the bibliography, the "Basic Definitions", and the "Positioning of the Text", which explain some terms and philosophical positions that are important to understanding the text.