Is the self, to use an analogy, like a piece of coloured glass that borrows its light from the sun? -
The self being a pattern of memory, that borrows its (apparent) vivacity and life from the brain’s natural capacity for awareness.
I am sharing what ‘being a self’ feels like to me. ‘Pure’ first-person subjective experience. My self is what I feel I am. You’re asking if that experience is actually an illusion, a kind of mirage.
My way for visualizing: self as prism through which the light flows.
Yes - a prism being a transparent crystal or glass through which light can be reflected.
But without light the prism exists in total darkness. Its light is borrowed.
By analogy the self is a series of memories with which the brain is (temporarily) identified, which is given apparent life by awareness.
However, without awareness the self is just what it is - a neurological movement of memory in the matter of the brain. Its awareness is borrowed.
Yes.
I think the self is like a mirage. To explore the self is to explore the nature of the mirage. ?
You put it as a question:
To explore the self is to explore the nature of the mirage. ?
If I say ‘yes’, what would be your reply?
I use the question mark at the end of a sentence to indicate I’m wondering rather than asserting.
“Let the exploring begin!”
Alright - I take the self to be an adventitious or accidental conjunction of memory and awareness in which the brain is temporarily caught.
This conjunction can be sundered at any time, leaving memory as simply memory and awareness as simply awareness.
Please explain why you see the conjunction of memory and awareness as accidental.
Remind me what you mean when you say awareness? Are awareness and consciousness the same for you?
(Gotta go for a while, will be back around 11 or 11:30 EST.)
By adventitious (or accidental) I simply mean something that happens but that does not have to happen.
E.g. It is not inherent in the nature of memory that it must become egoic.
That memory has become egoic for most human beings is a fact, but it is not a law of nature that memory must be egoic. Therefore it is adventitious that it has done so (where it has done so).
The brain is temporarily, adventitiously, identified with certain memories that it takes to be its own property - ego.
Awareness is awareness. For present purposes awareness and consciousness can be regarded as synonymous.
I agree that memory isn’t (doesn’t seem to be) inherently ego-building. Memory is present afaik in all living organisms, but not all living organisms have egos.
The question that interests me: Is it inherent in the nature of the brain to become egoic? Was the development we here call the wrong turn inevitable for the human brain?
The brain is identified with certain past experiences as in ‘I saw that’, ‘I did that’, ‘that happened to me’, ‘I wish that hadn’t happened’, ‘I hope that doesn’t happen’ etc…the brain sees itself as the same ‘I’ over time; a continuous entity: me and mine. It gets blamed for what it does ‘wrong’ and credit for what it does ‘right’. Is it this illusory continuity by thought (me as thinker) that K has called “evil”? Evil in the sense that it has locked the brain in this confined divided Illusion of ‘I/Me?
I would say no. But the fact is that it has happened for most human beings. This is why I call it adventitious.
But before discussing the ‘wrong turn’, we were previously discussing the nature of the ego, Rick. What is the ego to you?
Yes - the brain has become entangled in its own productions of thought and memory, which has resulted in a vividly real but false sense of (temporal) continuity and (separative) atomic identity that we call ‘me’.
K may have called the ego ‘evil’ on a few occasions, but the danger of such language is that it thwarts investigation. The word ‘evil’ is the most extreme word in the English language - it communicates something so abhorrent that one can hardly look at it for fear of being tainted by what it is pointing to.
While selfishness results in great evil in the world (as we are seeing tragically in the war between Hamas and the IDF), the adventitious identification of the brain with certain memories - the so-called ‘wrong turn’ that humanity took - cannot be called evil; and labelling it such thwarts open investigation (imo).
For me the verdict is still out.
What is the ego to you?
I like looking from objective and subjective points of view. Objectively the ego is the conditioned mind, the totality of it: DNA, upbringing, personal history, the psychological aspect. Subjectively the ego is who-what I think and feel I am. The objective and subjective aspects are intertwined.
I think he made a point of calling it evil because of what it deprives the brain of realizing / being from birth to death…anyway we have one and we know we’re not ‘evil’ but having it and not dissolving it means continuing it and making it available to others who possibly will employ it for greater ‘evil’ in Man’s future?
We see the brutality going on around us and what has been, every imaginable horror has been committed by us in our current state. Something is driving humans crazy and we are asking , is the ‘self / I process’ the cause?
Do you feel there is anything inherently problematic with egoic consciousness, or are you comfortable with it?
Yes - though not only in the future but in our present. One’s apparently separate hatred or ill-will contributes to the pool of hatred and ill-will in the world - which then manifests as human acts of violence.
Yes - I think that is the question (and the answer)
Both. My ego is a source of suffering and joy and every imaginable shade in-between. It’s a demon I have fed for so long that I think-feel of it as a (high-maintenance) friend or maybe: frenemy.
I understand this; but what I am trying to get at is - you must by now be familiar with basic Yoga, Samkhya, Advaita, Buddhist (and Krishnamurti) analyses of ego. According to all of them the ego is essentially an error, something illusory, as well as being the root cause of all man-made conflict, man-made suffering and man-made illusion in the world.
And yet you come across as - and this may be a misinterpretation on my part - the ego’s biggest defender (on Kinfonet at least).
I suppose one can live in a bubble until it bursts; but if it is just a bubble - and all evidence suggests that it is - then isn’t there some sense in doubting the apparent security or comfort that this bubble provides?
Or put it this way: if one could be assured that a state of complete security and even bliss exists in which the ego is completely non-existent, would you be open to finding out if such a state exists? - Or is the ego something too precious to let go of even then?
And yet you come across as - and this may be a misinterpretation on my part - the ego’s biggest defender (on Kinfonet at least).
Ego Man! I’m happy to play that role if it’s useful for forum explorations.
isn’t there some sense in doubting the apparent security or comfort that this bubble provides?
I doubt everything, including my views. I even doubt doubting everything. But I think you’re asking something more subtle, do I doubt the ‘validity’ of the feelings I have vis-a-vis ego.
Or put it this way: if one could be assured that a state of complete security and even bliss exists in which the ego is completely non-existent, would you be open to finding out if such a state exists?
You’re asking me to speculate, but I’m game: It depends on what it would take to find out.