What’s all that fuss about ego?

[waechter418]

…..after all ego (Latin: I) is just a viewpoint, a reference term – which might irritate, when overly used - but so does “you know”
“Egoists, Egocentrics & Egomaniacs” stem probably from the need to project and label something beyond the I – at least it would explain why ego is supposed to be synonymous for self. But what is self? – certainly not I, otherwise psychologists, mystics & gurus couldn’t make so much ado about it.
To me the term self encompasses what I am – including my ignorance about it – which doesn’t bother me, since I am what I do & I do what I am – thus having no problem with my self, and no desire to be someone else, or to go to a monastery to get rid of my self – which in my opinion requires an ego much larger than I can afford.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

I am not sure, but ego was probably first formulated by Freud and it was supposed to be something that manages between superego and id. Those are probably obsolete and Freud isn't exactly considered to be 'scientific' though he was an important figure and put forward some pioneering ideas. In pop culture, ego mostly refers to the self with a bit of a negative connotation. Egoist, Egocentric and all that are more or less synonymous to selfish. You may find mystics saying there is no ego and then again implying as if there is some transcendent self. So in certain philosophies and religions, ego has become more of synonymous to 'false apparent self'. There can be problem of translation and all that. It may be important to look into what exactly one is trying to say by using 'ego' by looking into the qualities and attributes they ascribe to it, the context and such. These words can be kind of ambiguous. In Buddhist sense, the 'self' ego refers to a permanent doer essence and rejects that type of self, by demonstrating impermanence of all attributes like body, thoughts, feeling etc, then you can take perspective like Hume, and you can see that there isn't anything more than a bundle of perceptions. 'Thoughts' appear, 'feelings' appear, 'intent' appears bodily action happens...but where is the 'thinker', 'feeler', 'intender'. Though in a way you can say that well after all how can the eye see itself? Similarly the doer who may as well be the perceiver can't perceive itself. Some philosophies does take similar stance, a position of 'neti neti' which rejects all things that appear as not self. But again...why exactly there need to be 'a thinker' under than 'just thoughts', I mean may be there is, but can we logically deduce a thinker from apparent thoughts. We may feel as such, but we don't really see a we feeling as such...such is merely linguistic...what appears is a feeling of agency. Things get wierd if you introspect too deep.
These all goes into many different ways. Hard to explore all in a little comment section.
You may find Derek Parfit's ideas on personal identity interesting.

 

[waechter418]

WELL DONE !