How is ego death philosophically possible?
I think there is a difference between the sense of self and the self itself. Perhaps a person can lose the sense of the self but the sense continues to exist. However there are some who believe that the self itself ceases to exists e.g. some sufis concept of fana.
I fail to see how either is possible especially the latter where the self ceases to exist yet still exists. If the self ceases to exist then that is a state of non-existence with no experience possible at all. A person cannot experience ego death if they cease to exist as a separate entity.
I also fail to see how the former (the loss of the sense of self) can exist in the absolute sense. It is possible for a person's senses/awareness or thoughts to be focused on other things with less attention on the self, but this must have its limits. For in such cases there is a central subjective experience wherein an individual is focused on things other than itself. Even if a person were to experience everything exactly in the same manner that all other individuals are experiencing (i.e. a shared experience) there are still individual experiencers. Not having individual experiencers would be tantamount to non-existence.
In my view when people speak about ego death with NDEs or psychedelic experiences, they are not actually experiencing ego death. Rather they are experiencing less attention on the self or greater connectivity (at least in cognitive terms) with other things.
I fail to see how either is possible especially the latter where the self ceases to exist yet still exists. If the self ceases to exist then that is a state of non-existence with no experience possible at all. A person cannot experience ego death if they cease to exist as a separate entity.
I also fail to see how the former (the loss of the sense of self) can exist in the absolute sense. It is possible for a person's senses/awareness or thoughts to be focused on other things with less attention on the self, but this must have its limits. For in such cases there is a central subjective experience wherein an individual is focused on things other than itself. Even if a person were to experience everything exactly in the same manner that all other individuals are experiencing (i.e. a shared experience) there are still individual experiencers. Not having individual experiencers would be tantamount to non-existence.
In my view when people speak about ego death with NDEs or psychedelic experiences, they are not actually experiencing ego death. Rather they are experiencing less attention on the self or greater connectivity (at least in cognitive terms) with other things.
Comments (79)
Quoting EnPassant
Well they are self though in that they are what one "likes" which is a personal thing. I don't think there is such a thing as being truly selfless as everything is motivated by some level of egoic desire.
I think these sorts of terms are poetic understandings and not to be taken literally.
The ego is an illusion to the extent it can't be zeroed in on. Can you tell me what's your ego? Is it your body? Is it your mind? Quid sit?
Exactly! It's your body. You walk and talk between the world and your brain.
Not all will agree I'm afraid.
Thats true.
Disagreements in an illusory world do not truly matter, so no worries ;)
Then who wrote these words, if it wasn't you? Or is "you" equally illusionary? The illusion seems pretty real. I think the ego is called an illusion to counteract the egoism present in our world.
This is the root of the identity crisis. Who am I? Every time you think you have found yourself, it slips away. Why can't you zero in in on yourself? Because you stand always one step behind it? There only is one you. Not you and you looking at it.
Perhaps we cannot look truly "look" at us from a bird's eye view because there isn't any possibility of a duality in perspective. Advaita: Not two :)
Nobody is fundamental. We are all children of the universe, created by the eternal beings. If you want to make an illusion out of that, no problem. :wink:
I see what you mean. No one is unique, contrary to what commercials show you. In that sense the ego is illusionary. Only isolated egos are unique.
Yes, indeed. Just like unbridled collectivism. Attention to the individual might blind us for other people and can lead to nasty behavior towards other people (or lack of contact). Attention to the collective only can lead to nasty behavior towards the individual. So both can lead to nasty behavior. The collective, as well as the individual, are abstractions in the sense that they don't have an independent existence, and any claim on individuality or collectivity is a claim that ignores reality.
It would be useful to have some context for particularly the notion of ego death. If people talk about in descriptions of NDEs etc, it because it is a term familiar from elsewhere.
[quote=Wiki]Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity"[/quote]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
This fragment allows me to rephrase your opening remark: there is a difference between the self and the self-identity/ego.
Now identification is a familiar process that has great importance, for example, to mushroom gatherers. They need to reliably identify the edible and poisonous mushrooms and ensure that they only pick the edible ones. Note that it is a process of thinking that humans go through. The mushrooms are passive, and oblivious.
So self-identification is a thought process humans go through to distinguish self from non-self. for example:
These are my thoughts, which I give to you and the world to read, typed by my fingers on my laptop inmy living-room, as a member in good standing of The Philosophy Forum
Thus it can be seen that self-identification includes the mind and body and material objects, places and associations - to greater or lessor extents. There're core and peripheral aspects. It hurts when I lose my laptop, and it hurts more when I lose my finger. But these thoughts are immediately replaced in the same way that lunch follows dinner.
And all of this (as I identify myself) is ego. And it is all an ongoing habitual way of thinking, which might cease, but probably won't. The permanent cessation of this process of identification is what constitutes ego death. There is a body still and thoughts and a computer, but I am no longer attached to them, they are just part of the local scene. whether or not such a complete cessation occurs in any individual case, is a matter of speculation, but it is "philosophically possible" in that it is not, ahem "self-contradictory".
It would be self-contradictory though to to claim ego death as an identity; hence "Those who speak do not know, Those who know, do not speak."
High ten, Dasixsevenone! Let's call the ego real as well as illusionary. Real in the sense it interacts with other egos, creating a sense of community, illusionary in the sense it stands apart. And a similar for the community, and it's relation to other communities. More balanced we can't get! A dynamical balance.
Excuse me, but when did I share my personal diary with you? ;)
Haha! Guess we share a secret diary... Like all of us. :smile:
Damn you Agent! How come you make me laugh every time? :razz:
Living without an image of yourself how you should be leads to ego death. Living like you feel makes the mental image of yourself disappear and you are as you are. You're your body then, fully alive between the outer physical world and the inner mental world, without a second you disturbing.
Just because you can't zero in on it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or is an illusion. There are lots of phenomenon like that.
Quoting Raymond
From what I read about Buddhism and the ego the goal isn't ego death, because then there wouldn't be anything to keep you alive. They would also strongly argue that you aren't the body, for a lot of reasons.
I also find it odd you're positing an external reality when in my thread you tried defending solipsism, just a side note.
Defending solipsism? I defended the guy. I'm not a solipsist.
If not the body, then who are you? It's who I see in the water. It's what other people see of me. The brainy mental universe and the physical one around me make it possible for me to live. In that sense they are essential for me. But they are no me.
Quoting Raymond
Apparently you aren't your body either. I forget the argument they used but it's similar to the ship of Theseus
Ah, then I understand. I'm not made of the same particles as when born. I'm not sure if that matters. All the new ones have a direct relation to the old. There is not a new me.
I don't get this. Why you say that?
Quoting Raymond
Because the guy is literally arguing for solipsism.
If you can't identify your ego, does it even exist. Given a description of a man, if no real individual matches it, is the man described real?
How much does a magazine pay for a(n) (original) joke? I'll be expecting a deposit from you into my nonexistent bank account!
Quoting Agent Smith
Sounds like an argument from ignorance to me.
Studies of individuals whose personalities had been well-organized and well-liked but who suffered accidents or illnesses that altered their brains often found their personalities change to become disorganized and disliked.
This set of facts suggests that whatever is an individual's self and whatever is an individual's ego that either cause or otherwise reveal an individual's personality are brain functions which can change when the brain is altered and will be dead when the brain is dead and no longer functioning.
Thus, to address the OP, whatever is an individual's ego relevant to his personality will die when the individual's brain is dead and no longer functioning.
Quoting Robert H Kroepel :down:
Does this not explain the visible in terms of the hidden, the public in terms of the private? These old, familiar postulated entities, ghosts in the attic. What if 'desires, fears and priorities' are ultimately fancy and potentially confusing words for 'consistent proactions and reactions' in various situations?
I can't see the air and there isn't a way to truly isolate it. The same goes for gravity, where is gravity located? You don't feel gravity, you just notice it's effects yet if asked to identify or locate it you wouldn't be able to.
Quoting Agent Smith
Neither can gravity yet it exists. Waves can't be weighed or felt either yet they exist. Again you're just appealing to ignorance here. Some things are more than their component parts. The human "body" is just made up of millions of smaller individual parts, yet the whole is more than the parts. I believe it's called emergence, which is a property where you can't locate it in any one area. The ego is the same way, there is no one "Spot" where it is located, same with memory. It's not like you can slice a part of the brain and make someone forget, it's more complex that way.
Quoting Agent Smith
Except it isn't unreal, it's just more complex than you know like any aspect of the human mind/brain.
My question though is why do you care? Not everything can be analyzed and quantified.
Then why claim one thing or another. If something is complicated, it usually means one can't make anything out of it. Your statements, confident and sure, don't square with "like I said, it's complicated".
Anyway, I too think it's complicated and there's a reason why I used this: :point: It kinda simplifies matters if you catch my drift.
Quoting TerraHalcyon
I'm a human being (I'm not a 100% certain though as I feel quite animalish sometimes). I hope that explains it.
Not usually, it's like the case with memory. You can't really feel or weigh it but you know it's real (well some would debate it), the issue though is that there isn't really an area of the brain that stores it all. You can't really cut a piece out and alter memory like that.
The same goes with the self, or ego. It's complicated, the result of several areas of the brain in concert with each other. To ask someone to "Locate the self or ego" is asking the wrong question. It's not in one area and you won't find it if you try to reduce it to it's component parts.
Quoting Agent Smith
Kind of an irrelevant statement, being human doesn't mean the question is important.
Isn't this more or less susceptible to ship of Theseus?
Brain localization of function. You're on point though! :up: Will get back to you if I think of anything interesting.
That's what I said. Buddhism also has a similar point.
Quoting Agent Smith
Not really, like I said as in memory it's many parts in concert not just one area.
Another way to translate it would be to say the exact opposite … you become everything. There is nothing like it I have experienced since and nothing I can possibly conceive of that holds more power due to having none. It is an amalgam of contradictions when an attempt to strap words to it is made.
Another way would be to describe it as imagination that knows no bounds. Openness to a level where the idea of ‘end’ seems laughable as much as ‘beginning’ and leaving ‘infinite’ behind as a speck. The word ‘awesome’ (actual AWESOME) suits well.
If all you can hold onto are rigid meanings attached to words then you cannot do much thinking other than dry logical analysis. That has its value though obviously.
So, you can't :point: (point) at a part of the brain and say "here, this is the memory" (perhaps memory is a diffuse network); nevertheless, there's still something you can use your index finger on!
Who cares?
No because again it's different parts of the brain in concert with each other, even if there is something you can point to you can't point to memory or measure or feel it so by your logic we have no memory. Like I said, complicated. Same with the self, it isn't located in a specific part of the brain but rather "all over" (so to speak).
You really aren't getting anywhere with your questions.
1. Mistaking your ignorance for fact.
2. A network is still amenable to a referential act effected by an index finger i.e. I can still do this: :point: to the network of neurons responsible for a mental faculty (here memory). Fuzziness is pointable!
What isn't pointable is a word whose extension is the [math]\emptyset[/math]. I believe "ego" is such a word.
Actually no you can't. I said it is different areas in concert, but you can't point to a network of neurons and say this anymore I can point to a network of neurons and say ego is here.
All I can really say is that it's the brain, but I can't point to a part and say it's here. That's how emergence works.
You seem awfully invested in there being no ego.
Quoting Agent Smith
You'd be wrong then.
That is an interesting kind of via negativa, the agent has to be found through sifting the evidence for what is missing. That reminds me of the unknown value X in Descartes' geometry, where we act like we know it to make other equations.
Subtle differences, although the one I'm using at the moment ( :point: ) is far from being an examplar of one , should be given due consideration.
:point:
:smile: There really was no other way. I move that we expand our emoticon set. Mods, are you listening?
Nope. I should have.
I'm not lucky enough to read books. :sad:
Quoting hopeful
First of all, what do you mean by the "sense of self" and the "self" itself? Also about the concept of "ego", which features in the title of the topic. I believe you must start from that, because I know well that people mean different things about them. What matters though is what do you mean by them, since this is your topic. Don't you agree?
So, I won't start describing what do these concepts mean for me or, even worse, start talking on the subject assuming stupidly that I know what exactly you mean about them! :smile:
In this way, an animal does not have a "sense" of time, as they are not held to the same expectations (many of these expectations being unnecessary and sort of arbitrary - but ultimately result from the human condition - according to Tolle), as us. For example, having a job, and the "on-timely" nature that comes along it, is [i]not[i] an expectation we have of animals.
He's still wrong in that sense as well, I wasn't talking about circadian rhythm. It's also funny how he talks about not needing to do stuff when the guy literally has more than enough money to feasibly do that. His words ring hollow.
Quoting Zolenskify
This is a moot point as comparing one animal to another when they have different rituals, behavior, etc shows an ignorance of the natural world. Animals technically have "jobs" in pack or social animals, ever seen lions hunt? As for being on time, there's cases of that too.
Quoting Zolenskify
Debatable. Like I said before the guy has more than enough money to afford to not have to do anything. But he is pretty stupid when it comes to reality.
What's that?
ok!
-G