General psychology

[pljames]

"On some level all of life is an illusion. So is time".

Agreed on time. But which level of the illusion? I see I feel I am convinced it's real. I had low self esteem and would do anything to be liked and feed off of  their self positive esteem. It was once one of my idiosycrocies (among many). Agreed it is in our nature to control or be controlled.I was being controled by my ego because of my low self esteem and my illusion was I believed I was controlling myself for fifty years.

I am thinking my ego is sin. Sin is disobedience to whatever you call truth. I questioned by actions and beliefs and got enlightened by what I felt, my ego was my alter ego my real created me. I now see and understand what was what is. Change is inevitabe when you question your beliefs. I am now partially in charge of me and at war with my ego. pl

[S. Earl Martin]

I do not agree that ego is sin. I see ego as a sense of who I am. This is neither good or bad. I am who I am. I strive to do good. I always have, but I don't always suceed. Sometimes people really just piss me off and I have a lot of patience, but it has reached its limits at times. So does that make me a bad person? I don't think so. I still feel over all I am a good person. As you sow so shall you reep. Or what goes around comes around. The other person was being "bad" by attempting to mess with me. They got what they got. I still see myself as striveing for good. Did I "sin" against the other person? Maybe. But that is where forgiveness comes in.

I have always had a strong self esteem. Usually I was the one who other people followed. I can understand about trying to fit in or being a follower though. I have seen all kinds of this. The best advice I can give you is this. Examine your strengths and weaknesses. Utilize your strengths and repair your weaknesses. Read Sun Tzu the art of war. You don't have to be going to war for it to be useful. It can teach you about personal interaction and how to be the victor. Or at least build self confidance. I have read it several times. Also seek selflessness and humility. This will bring about good Chi or Karma. I try to be humble. I will admit. It is an area I have to strive to maintain. We all have our crosses to bear so to speak. Areas we can improve. This will be until we die. If you stumble or get lost on lifes journey don't feel that you are inferiour. Learn from every experience and grow as a person. So no matter where you are on the path you will bear good fruit. Also everyone has wisdom. Something they can teach. It is in seeking the wisdom we interact as humans and can be at peace.

[pljames]

Excellent post. pl

[sakoz]

The three of us,(pljames, S.Earl Martin and me) do not have a 'mutually shared/agreed definition of the word 'ego'. For pljames, ego is sin; for Earl, ego is' sense of who he is'; for me; ego is a conceptual artifact. How can we proceed with different understanding of the word 'ego'? Let each of us make our 'case for ego existence'. Is 'ego' real or illusion? That is the fundemental question.
There is no 'ego' at birth, no 'ego' sense of self therefore, no artifact. After we learn language and can think; we 'make/construct' a ego "out of' language/thought. That makes ego who we THINK we are. When we sleep, 'ego' "goes off line". Does it exist while we sleep? By that I mean; my body exists even while asleep, so do think 'ego' exists during sleep? Is 'it' dormant;inactive; hibernating; in SUSPENDED ANIMATION ? Each of these terms implies the premise that 'ego' is real, a entity, referent, 'thing'. I am questioning that premise (assumption).
Is 'ego' real or illusion? Consider this; when a fan is turned on, the blades rotate at a high speed and we see a disk; is the disk real or illusion? After a rain, mist hangs in the air like a cloud. As light goes through the mist, the light is refracted and we see a rainbow. Is the rainbow real or illusion? You can't touch a rainbow; so it's not a real 'object', but appears AS IF real.
A prism also refracts light and we see the same colors as in a rainbow. Without the mist and prism, where are the colors? IN the light. During sleep, does ego disappear the same way?
I wrote before that we have concepts/images for what does NOT EXIST, are not real; like mermaid, unicorn, centaur, leprechaun, ego. these are real concepts/images but they are not real "things" in the environment, they are only images in our head/mind, they are not real like stones, trees, animals. I say "ego" is a conceptual artifact, a function; MISTAKEN for a real entity/thing. The mistake is BELIEVING ego is real 'matter'. CONSCIOUSNESS   is real but does not exist as matter( unless we invoke e=mc2 implying energy and consciousness are one).
Consciousness is ones' sense of self'. Consciousness and ego seem CONCURRENT even 'homogenized'. Consciousness ANIMATES ego the way 'life' animates the body. No life no body movement. No consciousness no 'sense of self'.
Now you two "make your case for ego".

[sakoz]

To ask the question; " Is ego real or illusion"? Implies connotations. I contrasted ego and rainbow; rainbow as 'appearance' but not real, but there is NO image of ego. Do you have a image of ego? There is no image of 'ego' just as there is no image of CONSCIOUSNESS. pljames wrote in #27,"one cannot see the ego"; used the analogy of wind, ( good example pljames).

As I write this, I see 386 readers read this thread. How many do you guess 'experienced' their 'ego' the way you did? I would guess one in every hundred.
Besides yourself, do you guess there's 3 more? (Those that have, let us know.) Do you think S.Earl Martin qualifies? He wrote; " I see ego as a sense of who I am." That indicates his "centre of gravity"; "locus of reference" is IN his ego. So his ego is still 'real' to him and not a illusion. Only by 'transcending' ego can 'it' be recognized as illusion.

[pljames]

My friends. Do we have a spirit (invisiblity)? Our senses are invisible until we acknowledge them externally. Time is a illusion. We cannot see the air around us until either wind smoke are feeling will convince us the space is around us. I summize our ego is part of our spiritual side the side we do not recognize because we are raised material. To me the word philosophy means (understanding) to others wisdom.

Each person has their meaning or understanding of ego. You yours me mine. pl

[sakoz]

pljames;  "Each person has their meaning  or understanding of ego. You yours me mine." Yes, 'ego' is subjective, like pain, I can't feel your pain, you can't feel (experience) my pain.
 "Do we have a spirit(invisibility)?" You mean like invisible ego? Are you now calling ego 'spirit'? or ego's twin is 'spirit'?
My belief might seem "off the wall". When we fill our lungs with air, that air is ours (temporarily) but it 'belongs' to all air. When we are conscious, that consciouness SEEMS separate from the BIG CONSCIOUSNESS  at large. like space and air, yes it's a mystery. The universe is intelligent, that intelligence is called GOD by most people.

[pljames]

Are you now calling ego 'spirit'?  Yes. pljames

pljames;  "Each person has their meaning  or understanding of ego. You yours me mine." Yes, 'ego' is subjective, like pain, I can't feel your pain, you can't feel (experience) my pain.
 "Do we have a spirit(invisibility)?" You mean like invisible ego? Are you now calling ego 'spirit'? or ego's twin is 'spirit'?
My belief might seem "off the wall". When we fill our lungs with air, that air is ours (temporarily) but it 'belongs' to all air. When we are conscious, that consciouness SEEMS separate from the BIG CONSCIOUSNESS  at large. like space and air, yes it's a mystery. The universe is intelligent, that intelligence is called GOD by most people.

 ( I go nap now, will be back in about one hour; smily face)

[sakoz]

NO, It looked like you were making that 'mistake'.  Ego is made of language/thoughts; consciousness is 'natural'. Do you want to call 'consciousness' 'spirit'?
'Ego' is imbued/permeated in consciousness, or vice versa. Like smoke in the air, when the air moves so does the smoke so it looks like the smoke is 'alive' moving on it's own.

[S. Earl Martin]

Our ego in my opinion is a concept of ourselves. It is imperfect. We have a general sense of who we believe we are, but sometimes we believe what we want to believe. Or what other people tell us. Also because we are changeing and our enviornment is changeing our ego is constantly changeing. I can see my ego in my day to day actions. If I am a baker or a truck driver that will form my ego to an extent as it influences my self image. My ego may change in other ways. If I was also an actor. When I was acting or being recognized as an actor. This would change my ego or self image at the time I am in that role. Or if I am in the truck driver role I may have a perception that I am a good driver. If I have an accident that could change my ego or self image.
As far as ego existing when we sleep? Most of the time we sleep we are unconscious. When we dream some of our ego or self image does come thru, but dreams are not true representations of reality and can be distorted. The ego does still exist, but we are mainly only aware of it while conscious.
It is true that other people cannot experience our concept of our ego, but they can see some of it in our actions and mannerisms. For instance the truck driver anology. My self image of being a truck driver would be projected by my words and actions.
I see that ego and spirit do have things in common. Weather I would say they where the same thing? That would depend on exactly how you define them.
A rainbow is refracted light. It is true we can't touch a rainbow, but we can touch a refraction from a prisim or a crystal. Without the prisim the colors merge into white light. So is a rainbow real. Yes and no. Everything we see is because of reflected light. We only experience time because we can see changes that give us a sense of time passing. If we couldn't see these our concept of time would be altered. In physics there are mathematical formulas that show time is an illusion. That everything is happening all at once somewhere. So time doesn't really pass. It is all related to proximity to an event and the speed of light. We are in one place and are only viewing a small amount of space. So we think what we see is all there is. It is an illusion. As you travel further out in space you would see events happening back further in time. If you could travel faster than light you would see future events happening. I could explain further, but I think you can get the picture.

[voodoo scientist]

Could you point to some of these physical formulas that show time is an illusion? That's a pretty hefty claim to make there, considering how integral things like the arrow of time and spacetime are to modern physics.

[S. Earl Martin]

VooDoo: It would be very difficult to post them here. However I would suggest watching the show Thru The Worm Hole. Hosted by Morgan Freeman. As I have pointed out on other threads most of what science purports is theoretical. Or factual. Which means it is based on facts but is not a fact. The theory of how time works I subcribe to works like this. Remember proving any theory over another at this point is not possible. In my opinion this is the most plausable.

Waves are waves. Waves operate on given rules. This is true weather the waves are water or sound or light etc. A person is hammering. To them the sound is instantaneous. To someone at a distance the sound happens after they have struck the object they are hammering. This is because sound travels at a different speed than light. The sound that is heard is a real sound. It actually happens at different times. So multiple sounds are produced even though we preceive it as only one sound from where we are when we hear it. The same holds true for light. Travel far enough away and we would see the event at a later time. Just as the sound is a real sound happening at different times. So the event would be a real event happening at different times. So everything that has happened is happening or will happen is happening all at once somewhere. So time doesn't really pass in the sense that the past no longer exists. The speed of light is not constant. When it passes by a dark object such as a planet or curves around it, it slows down. When it passes by a light object or curves around it, it speeds up. When time speeds up anything traveling with it would move into the future. When it slows down objects would move into the past. So our belief in the flow of time is flawed and time is an illusion. Because of our limited perspective we think time appears and disappears. It is like people believing that the earth was flat because they could only see so far. We can only see so far in time. Moment by moment. From a cosmic perspective time flows on forever in both directions. Possibly more than 2 directions. Time only appears to pass from our perspective.   

[sakoz]

S. Earl Martin; I 'like' your posts #39&#41. Your "in your element". Are you a 'professor'? We agree 'in essence', so in case of disagreements, lets look to 'semantics', word use first.

voodoo scientist;  I agree with Earl, time is a illusion; but no way can I explain it like Earl can. 'Time' is a concept, we do strange things with mere concepts. My interest is in  how we "unwittingly believe" some of our concept/images are real. Pointing out how 'time' is a concept is as 'tricky' as pointing out how 'ego' is a concept BELIEVED real. if we can correctly describe one, the other will be just as'easy' to understand; but let's throughly understand one or the other first (lol).
We need to clarify "believing concepts are real' as illusions/hallucinations. The zero symbol in math is useful, look at it, it represents 'nothing', we can't do without the symbol; is it real? As symbol; yes; but no 'objective referent' to match. We are language using, thinking creatures. We can't avoid nor stop that. We need to understand our 'symbol using ability'.
When we say 'ego' is illusion, do you implicitly believe it's useless and should be eliminated? No way, as long as your alive, you need a 'ego' to function. The difference is recognizing ; again, how 'real' is zero? Yet it has utility.