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We are all under the illusion that when we use the word 'I,' we are referring to some presence which is inside our body, that is within ourself. "I can feel my foot, I can smell that." But is that awareness in the body?
Humans are continuously responding to the future before it is happening. When we react to a sensation, it takes the brain over a quarter of a second to process the data and then respond to it. So what is going on in this short amount of time?
The self is controlled by the ego, and each of us are not even aware of it. We believe that we are conscious of things as they take place. But what scientists have found is that our brains have already decided what we are going to do before we are aware of it. The most common example is putting your hand on a hot stove. You remove your hand instantaneously without having the time to integrate the information to tell you to remove your hand. This is our ego. It is our conscious being within ourselves that we have become conditioned to ignore. We are sitting in the same room with him, but the lights are off, and we cannot see him. He is your reflexes, your instincts, your impulses. And he has taken over you, directing you what to do, controlling all of your thoughts, expressions, and actions, and you are simply along for the ride. Everything that you do, you are doing well before you are actually aware of it.
Pain overrides rational decision-making, and has done so since the earliest and lowest lifeforms. It is the central focus of survival mechanisms.
Your hot-stove analogy is explained by the organism's non-rational predisposition to escape from pain, which is a default response that maximizes survival. So if the hot stove is your only illustration of your theory in effect, it fails, because it has evolved to operate independently of decision-making..
Pain overrides rational decision-making, and has done so since the earliest and lowest lifeforms. It is the central focus of survival mechanisms.
Your hot-stove analogy is explained by the organism's non-rational predisposition to escape from pain, which is a default response that maximizes survival. So if the hot stove is your only illustration of your theory in effect, it fails, because it has evolved to operate independently of decision-making..
That is only what you think. There is no observable proof of this; your version is only another cleverly worded explanation. A quantum physicist would certainly not agree with what you've just told me. Realize how limited our perception is.
We are all under the illusion that when we use the word 'I,' we are referring to some presence which is inside our body, that is within ourself. "I can feel my foot, I can smell that." But is that awareness in the body?
Humans are continuously responding to the future before it is happening. When we react to a sensation, it takes the brain over a quarter of a second to process the data and then respond to it. So what is going on in this short amount of time?
The self is controlled by the ego, and each of us are not even aware of it. We believe that we are conscious of things as they take place. But what scientists have found is that our brains have already decided what we are going to do before we are aware of it. The most common example is putting your hand on a hot stove. You remove your hand instantaneously without having the time to integrate the information to tell you to remove your hand. This is our ego. It is our conscious being within ourselves that we have become conditioned to ignore. We are sitting in the same room with him, but the lights are off, and we cannot see him. He is your reflexes, your instincts, your impulses. And he has taken over you, directing you what to do, controlling all of your thoughts, expressions, and actions, and you are simply along for the ride. Everything that you do, you are doing well before you are actually aware of it.
You say ego, I say amygdala.
Yes, an individual organism is comprised of many interlocking, interdependent, symbiotic processes and organizing principles-incl. the potential conflict between reflex action (amygdala) and introspective, reflective, retrospective thought (frontal lobe). However, it serves all the purposes of our components to cooperate with each other so as to preserve the life of the single organism containing/sustaining them, hence the belief in a unitary "self"-'cause it's more useful an illusion to experience than not, I suppose.
The most common example is putting your hand on a hot stove. You remove your hand instantaneously without having the time to integrate the information to tell you to remove your hand.
How do you explain that a person can be cut, burned, or shot but not realize it until they see the wound, blood, etc.? If your hypothesis were correct, then those wounded people would seek medical attention before they knew that they were wounded.
That is only what you think. There is no observable proof of this; your version is only another cleverly worded explanation. A quantum physicist would certainly not agree with what you've just told me. Realize how limited our perception is.
Not my strongest field, so I could be wrong. But extremely primitive organisms respond to pain, even though they have no discernible mechanism to process any information that they receive. Pain avoidance occurs without any critical or analytical processing of the nature of the stimulus.
So, even though there is no observable proof of this, it is intuitive, and lacks proof to the contrary, as well. Even the OP described the difference between pain reaction-time and analytical reaction time, which, if true, would suggest separate processing.
Quantum physicists would not agree with anything Newtonian, yet Newtonian works well enough in almost every observable event.
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1. I'd argue that your "ego" responds quickly, and is not rooted in the future. Just because bodies are predisposed to react does not mean it will always react that way.
1a. Conversely, when I breathe, I can not be aware, or be aware that I am breathing. I can control my breath. I can also place my hand on the hot stove and leave it there. I can train my "ego" to no longer resemble it's former "self."
2. I know I will get hungry, but hunger can "control" me to eat or it can be a suggestion.
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Like jtur88 aludes to; since the Greeks there has been discussion of mind over body and rationality over the passions. And that is what is going on here. And this is and has been observable since that time.
Freud postulated that the self is broken down to the id, ego, and super-ego.
If you're referencing the ego in Buddhist terms, in which psychology has made several references to in terms of mindfulness, the non-self means that I do not exist without you. Meaning, people tend to think of the 'self' as more important than 'others.'
A lot of what's written about the ego, in relation to psychology and philosophy borrows from different vantage points from different schools of teaching and culture.
From a purely psychoanalytic viewpoint, by choosing actions we've subconsciously decided for ourselves, the dynamics we may be conflicted between include: our impulses and desires (id); our mediator (ego); and our ethical/moral conscious (super-ego). They are all encompassing of the self.
IRL-It is difficult to separate the self from our identity. It is not difficult to forget that people as humans can be very selfish, self-centered, and only think that the world revolves around us when there are a million and one things going on out there that the self (and in context to the ego here) does not exist. We're not as divided in that regard. Things just don't occur out of nowhere without a before and after, which also requires the self. We're also very altruistic, giving, loving, and kind (non-self; ego based on integration and collectivism).
Ego-based thinking pertaining to individualism promotes selfishness, and describes how that individuality provides lack of regard for the community at large. Ego and the self in this regard is considered by Buddhists to be delusional. In psychological terms, very id-driven. Lots of what's written about ego can be lost in translation, misinterpreted, or misunderstood.
Depends on how the ego is defined, and in which school of thought?
Anyone who doesn't believe there are "other you's" should try lucid dreaming... try to argue with your dream characters and you will quicky realize the mind is manufacturing different personalities right and left!
Waking consciousness really is only the tip of the iceberg; what we think of as "us" is only a shadow of what is REALLY going on in our heads.
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