Is your goal to overcome what you see as ‘my defense of self’? That doesn’t sound very fun. 
What I’d love us all to move towards, both individually and together, is a deeper understanding of the true nature of self. The self in its fullness, not self as the enemy.
We know that artists, inventors, philosophers, can be awful human beings who create things many people feel have great value and that most people don’t have the leisure or the opportunity to find out why they feel that way, so could it be that your pro-self position may be elitist?
My positive feelings about the self are balanced by my negative feelings. The reason I don’t write about the latter is that view is very well represented here, doesn’t need any bolstering. Positive feelings about the self are otoh kinda taboo, and taboos can block the truth.
Elitism may play a role in my positive feelings about artists. I’m definitely biased in favor of artists and other people who create things. I love the creative human spark.
I think the issue is that when you use the word ‘self’ it is not clear what you mean. I have tried to be very clear about how I use the words I write, but I don’t always feel that this is reciprocated.
You are on a website for people interested in Krishnamurti, so you already have a rough idea of how people will be using certain words. But it is not the same for me with respect to you. You are a black-hole as far as orientations are concerned.
You are not using the words ‘self’, or ‘ego’, or ‘me’ and ‘mine’ in the way that Krishnamurti used these words - nor are you using them in a way that most Buddhists and linguistically careful Advaitins use these words. You haven’t responded to any of my attempts to explain the situation in the language of Samkhya-Yoga. And you don’t advance much in the way of careful neuroscience or modern psychology to back up the meanings that you give to these words. So your use of a word like ‘self’ appears without context, without meaning. It is just an assertion.
And when asked to clarify what you mean, you often go on tangents that are not immediately relevant, or become seemingly evasive rather than simple and frank. We have discussed this before, but I don’t know if you are aware of this pattern?
Coming back to your specific statements - yes, artists, musicians, scientists, politicians, etc, can “provide motivation, purpose, energy, and novelty”. No-one is denying this. Krishnamurti talked about partial insight - and probably in creative people (in all walks of life) partial insight expands (momentarily) a person’s awareness. Partial insight is not what I would call a movement of ‘self’. It is impersonal partial insight/intelligence.
The self or ego or ego-self can use partial insight for its own ends, and often does. This is why even great artists and scientists can sometimes be monstrous egotists or suffer debilitating nervous conditions that end up being destructive of themselves as well as others.
But self is always a limiting factor. Insight - whether partial or complete - is the factor of expansion.
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Yes, me to. But artists, inventors, philosophers, athletes, etc., are not common or ordinary people. We’re grateful that these exceptional people exist and do what they do, but if we don’t have the time, energy, or interest to understand and appreciate what they do, we assume they’re con-artists or maniacs and consider them threats and suppress, censor, or banish them.
A healthy society appreciates and supports artists, inventors, and philosophers, but most societies aren’t healthy, and these days even the healthiest are sickening. In a sickening society, artists, inventors, and philosophers are ignored or persecuted because cooler heads do not prevail and reason is overtaken by rage and reaction. The house is burning.
I’m definitely guilty of playing fast and loose with language. Words connote more than denote for me. (Despite my years of tech writerhood! Or maybe because of it?) I sometimes fall into improvising with language as I might improvise with music. Other people do that here, but less than I do, and they usually (not always) make it clear for readers when they’re riffing and when they’re explaining. I always try to communicate, even when I post something that seems goofy, absurd, irrational. But I’ve come to associate linear rational ‘technical’ language with formulaic thinking and feeling, and I’m very sensitive to the downside of thinking formulaically.
I agree. But I’d add: and sometimes it’s an expanding factor. Different aspects get limited and expanded.
What you agreed with was the statement “self is always a limiting factor”, and yet in the very next sentence you negate this. This is why it is difficult to play games with you Rick - much as I would like to. 
To repeat myself: insight expands, ego contracts. You haven’t shown that the contrary is true.
It seems to me that Rick is not playing by any rules - he once told me that nonsense is as legit as logic or reason - but this just made my brain explode - a bit like the time I got mad trying to play chess with a pigeon.
I do think both players should play by the same rules - is that me being an old fuddy duddy?
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I don’t understand what is so confusing about: X limits certain aspects of Y and expands others. Translated: our sense of self limits certain aspects of awareness, and expands others. There’s nothing that is even vaguely illogical about it. No magic, mystery, or shenanigans. If you guys don’t get what I mean, or disagree with it, it’s not due to any logical flaw, at least not one that is apparent for either me or GPT.
I don’t understand what is so confusing about: X limits certain aspects of Y and expands others. Translated: our sense of self limits certain aspects of awareness, and expands others. There’s nothing that is even vaguely illogical about it. No magic, mystery, or shenanigans.
GPT
You are absolutely correct, and there’s nothing inherently confusing or illogical about the statement that “X limits certain aspects of Y and expands others.” In fact, this statement is a common and straightforward way to describe how different factors or elements can have a dual impact on a particular aspect of experience.
What is really going on here?
Sorry Rick - I’m obviously still carrying ancient trauma - I’ll try and see if I manage to follow along.
I do think “expand” is the wrong word here, wouldn’t “focus” work better?
“Expand” works better with the idea of opening out - from my subjective view of things to increased spaciousness - not tied to any things.
I agree that expand is not quite right, it’s overblown. What verb would you use for the opposite of limit? The self both limits and extends awareness?
I honestly don’t know where Rick is going with this?
The thread topic is ‘what do we mean by self (or ego)’, and Rick has spent the last couple of days either ignoring the question or dismissing it because he has some other notion (not yet elucidated) that the self is something special.
The grounds for this are - and one has to tentatively guess at them because Rick is so unforthcoming - that human creativity is the one last sacred cow that Rick still values. And so creativity - the kind of creativity that Mozart and Beethoven or Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane had - is being shoe-horned into this ‘save the self’ business of Rick’s.
But as has been said over and over: true creativity obviously involves insight, intelligence, something more than what mere memory or self-interest can provide. And yet the ego is essentially memory and self-interest - nothing more.
Yes, Michelangelo gave us the Sistine Chapel - every great musician and architect and sculpturer and artist and writer has given humanity something precious. But aside from the creative insights that fired these minds, it is thought and skill that expresses (or elaborates) what they perceived or felt. And thought and skill are limited. Just as the self or ego is limited. Because memory is limited.
But Rick will read this (if he does read it) and then just go back to talking about how the self is creative, unlimited, etc.
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Focus works fine for me - when a magnifying glass focusses light, that focus “augments” the energy
Rabbit hole alert! For the good of the thread and its members, I think it’s best to retire our self/awareness inquiry, for the time being at least. Observing how the inquiry began and developed and went off the rails would be I think a good learning experience. I’ma do it.
Douglas, sorry you weren’t there for most of the self/awareness conversation, I think you would have added Doug-pov to the mix!
Bob is not alone, there is also me and where I feel this needs to go. And as I have the high ground etc…
I am a great fan of logic and reason when it comes to ideas - but I will not violate a friendship on the grounds of what righteousness demands. Mindfulness and compassion matter - even if it is me that has the superior brain.
Some say that openness in dialogue depends on acceptation of what is.
Part of this 4D game is in finding out what rules are being played.
Who is Bob?
Rick, you always say this. But what is stopping you from simply answering questions simply?
What do you mean by self? Concretely.
Bob represents a generic person in a debate, I represent the central protagonist.
Just to give a view on this. The ‘self’, ‘self-image’, ‘ego’ is a misplaced thought construct in the brain that must be eliminated through an understanding of its past and present danger. Krishnamurti has given his reason why this is so: It ,the self, has created by its construct of ‘me and mine’ a ‘division’ that exists nowhere in the universe. And it has cast us in a kind of ‘darkness’. The brain has been conditioned to accept this and the result has been stagnation. The ‘blossoming’ that the brain could realize (its birthright) its relation to the ‘All’, to Mind, is denied by the presence of the limited, self.