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Jun 22, 2014 · According to philosophers, there is no “Cartesian ego” unifying our consciousness, no unchanging core of identity that makes us the same person from day to day; there is only an ever-shifting bundle of thoughts, feelings and memories.
Dec 20, 2005 · First, there is the Kantian view, advanced by Christine Korsgaard, that conceiving ourselves as practical agents simply requires us to view our lives as unified, despite the weakness or strength of various psychological connections that may or may not obtain between our various temporal stages.
Jul 12, 2014 · According to philosophers, there is no “Cartesian ego” unifying our consciousness, no unchanging core of identity that makes us the same person from day to day; there is only an ever-shifting bundle of thoughts, feelings and memories.
- Western View: The Self Is A Pilot
- Eastern View: The Self Is An Illusion
- There Is No “Self Center” in The Brain
- An Accidental Discovery
- An Untrustworthy Interpreter
- The Uncontrollable Inner Voice
- Science Supports The Eastern View
This “I” is for most of us the first thing that pops into our minds when we think about who we are. The “I” represents the idea of our individual self, the one that sits between the ears and behind the eyes and is “piloting” the body. The “pilot” is in charge, it doesn’t change very much, and it feels to us like the thing that brings our thoughts a...
Now let’s turn to the East. Buddhism, Taoism, the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, and other schools of Eastern thought have quite a different take on the self, the ego, or “me.” They say that this idea of “me” is a fiction, although a very convincing one. Buddhism has a word for this concept — anatta, which is often translated as “no self” — wh...
The great success story of neuroscience has been in mapping the brain. We can point to the language center, the face processing center, and the center for understanding the emotions of others. Practically every function of the mind has been mapped to the brain with one important exception: the self. Perhaps this is because these other functions are...
As a matter of background, it is important to remember that the brain has two mirror halves connected by a large set of fibers called the corpus callosum. In research undertaken to try to mitigate severe epilepsy, Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga believed that by cutting this bridge between the two sides of the brain, seizures would be easier to ...
Gazzaniga determined that the left side of the brain creates explanations and reasons to help make sense of what is going on around us. The left brain acts as an “interpreter” for reality. Furthermore, Gazzaniga found that this interpreter, as in the examples mentioned, is often completely and totally wrong. This finding should have rocked the worl...
Most of us live our lives under the direction of the interpreter, and that makes the mind our master, and we are not even aware of this. We may become angry, offended, sexually aroused, happy, or fearful, and we do not question the authenticity of these thoughts and experiences. While it is clear that these experiences are happening to us, we someh...
So, for the first time in history, the findings of scientists in the West strongly support, in many cases without meaning to, one of the most fundamental insights of the East: that the individual self is more akin to a fictional character than a real thing. Why does all of this matter? The unfortunate truth is that each of us will experience plenty...
- Chris Niebauer
Jan 10, 2024 · When we shift our focus from ego to unity, we open ourselves up to profound transformations in our lives. Here are some ways in which universal consciousness can positively impact us:
Developing self-awareness is key to understanding the role of ego in our lives. By observing our thoughts, emotions, and reactions without judgment or attachment, we gain insights into how ego influences our perceptions and actions.
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Is there just one ego unifying our lives?
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Sep 13, 2019 · The ego is simply our identity, who we believe we are. The ego encompasses all of our fears, our insecurities, our doubts, as well as what leads us to believe we’re better than or inferior to...
