People wrote them books although they gain their authority by virtue of proclaiming them to be the divine will of God to have them written... A ghost writer... so to speak. I figure God would have simply made the books appear much like the ten thingy that also lumped women in with the cows and other chattel... Sounds man made to me.The thing about those higher power books that bothers me is not so much the books themselves but the certainty of so many who read them that they know exactly what those books intend. I mean, where's the advantage in worshiping a God whose meaning and wishes may be beyond your personal ken. The ego is looking for self importance, not humility. Humility isn't ego.
That seems to happen to a lot of people.
Most older people I know have mellowed out over time if they are educated to any degree.
I believe there are two competing strategies for survival for beings who have brains, the ancient one of flight or fight based on instantaneous response to threat, leap without looking, and a more recently evolved one, situational awareness, the impulse not to leap from the frying pan right into the fire. In the brains of people who self report as conservative it is observed that they have larger right amygdalae then folk who self report as liberal with the latter having larger cingulates. Neuroscience has shown that the right amygdala is involved with emotional reactions like fear while the cingulate functions to suppress emotional response from rational analysis.The brain evolved over millions years. There is no brain defect, it is working how it was evolved. If it were a defect, you could show it an MRI scan.
A person has zero control of what they think and you know it. The brain is just running its program and reporting its results to its owner. What you consider defective is just your opinion. Unless you have some scientific data or papers to back up your assertion, there is no brain defect.
In the hubbub I didn't want it to pass not to tell you I found this intriguing.That made me ponder on the idea that maybe a person becomes more liberal the more they cast aside their selfishness?
Just say'in.
Both of these are survival enhancing specializations. I use the term defect specifically when the amygdala reaction is inferior to the cingulate response, where cold reasoning capacity is called for and a fear reaction is a reaction to a danger that isn't there.
Probably great care should be taken when a discussion of ego occurs, like some common understanding of just what the ego is. I get the feeling that you are talking about something a bit different than what I mean and interchange something else different again. Still, I think I can understand and appreciate what you say here. To me the ego is the persona we inhabit to which via external attachment we see ourselves with great merit, and because the feelings are just the opposite. When Jesus came for the weak the poor and the downtrodden, I think he did so for a reason. A certain Sufi saint had two disciples in particular, one the son of a king and the other just a plain old nobody the son of a beggar. One day the king noticed that the beggar's son had made progress far in advance over his own son and he went to the teacher to inquire as to why. The Sufi replied that his son had much farther to go.People wrote them books although they gain their authority by virtue of proclaiming them to be the divine will of God to have them written... A ghost writer... so to speak. I figure God would have simply made the books appear much like the ten thingy that also lumped women in with the cows and other chattel... Sounds man made to me.
I don't much care for Freud nor his thinking but do find Jung's thinking on point. Them books and stuff and such seem more valuable to the ego in need of them. The ego that has no external need is an ego at peace. It seems more rational to me. At least the outward manifestation of its ego driven behavior is not harming to others... me thinks.
Nobody knows the answer but I am one who does not believe these things are genetic but rather a product of exercise, the manifestation of development by usage. A brain programmed especially by fear of punishment may develop more brain that responds to fearful things .
Jung said - sorta.Probably great care should be taken when a discussion of ego occurs, like some common understanding of just what the ego is. I get the feeling that you are talking about something a bit different than what I mean and interchange something else different again. Still, I think I can understand and appreciate what you say here. To me the ego is the persona we inhabit to which via external attachment we see ourselves with great merit, and because the feelings are just the opposite. When Jesus came for the weak the poor and the downtrodden, I think he did so for a reason. A certain Sufi saint had two disciples in particular, one the son of a king and the other just a plain old nobody the son of a beggar. One day the king noticed that the beggar's son had made progress far in advance over his own son and he went to the teacher to inquire as to why. The Sufi replied that his son had much farther to go.
“I yam what I yam, and that's all what I yam.” Popeye the Sailorman.Jung said - sorta.
Consciousness is controlled by the ego, however, the Self controls the totality of the person's personality. (Consciousness, unconscious AND the ego.
Let's assume that to be true... that Jung believed that. Well, I think the ego also infiltrates the unconscious state and rears its ugly head in mysterious ways. In fact, I think the ego controls all behavior. See the behavior and you see the ego that motivated it. I'm speaking to the reasonably normal mind and not a mind controlled by abnormal stuffs. In other words, there is no such thing as Self. There is the person and her ego. We were born with an ego and all manner of inputs were absorbed by it. At a young age what was absorbed may not have been remotely connected with the input... Billy don't put that crayon in your mouth... bad boy! That might be construed by a two year old as Billy is bad. Now Billy who may be 30 years old carries with him the notion that he's bad and that may motivate him to act bad in order to prove he is what he believes he is. (A gross example, I know.) I just don't think it is all that complicated.
Now then. I agree that folks have different size Amawhatevers and those with one size often align with a Fear motivator and other sized folks are opposite. (Or like that.) I can't point to how that behavior is an ego motivated behavior other than to suggest that each may process the inputs construed by the Amawhatever into the ego and, ergo, behave based on that.
I guess I don't feel that stuff is all that difficult and ego to me is nothing more than the motivator who got the information from its environment and acts accordingly. Little Paul is a Baptist... he is two and his parents are God fearing Baptists... I'll bet Paul grows up claiming he's a Baptist cuz his parents are...
Ego is not a bad word. It is who we are. Actually, I could easily say... point to my ego... I've not an ego but I do have a me who is me!
That made me ponder on the idea that maybe a person becomes more liberal the more they cast aside their selfishness?
Just say'in.
Jung said - sorta.
Consciousness is controlled by the ego, however, the Self controls the totality of the person's personality. (Consciousness, unconscious AND the ego.
Let's assume that to be true... that Jung believed that. Well, I think the ego also infiltrates the unconscious state and rears its ugly head in mysterious ways. In fact, I think the ego controls all behavior. See the behavior and you see the ego that motivated it. I'm speaking to the reasonably normal mind and not a mind controlled by abnormal stuffs. In other words, there is no such thing as Self. There is the person and her ego. We were born with an ego and all manner of inputs were absorbed by it. At a young age what was absorbed may not have been remotely connected with the input... Billy don't put that crayon in your mouth... bad boy! That might be construed by a two year old as Billy is bad. Now Billy who may be 30 years old carries with him the notion that he's bad and that may motivate him to act bad in order to prove he is what he believes he is. (A gross example, I know.) I just don't think it is all that complicated.
Now then. I agree that folks have different size Amawhatevers and those with one size often align with a Fear motivator and other sized folks are opposite. (Or like that.) I can't point to how that behavior is an ego motivated behavior other than to suggest that each may process the inputs construed by the Amawhatever into the ego and, ergo, behave based on that.
I guess I don't feel that stuff is all that difficult and ego to me is nothing more than the motivator who got the information from its environment and acts accordingly. Little Paul is a Baptist... he is two and his parents are God fearing Baptists... I'll bet Paul grows up claiming he's a Baptist cuz his parents are...
Ego is not a bad word. It is who we are. Actually, I could easily say... point to my ego... I've not an ego but I do have a me who is me!
bshole: ]
b: I mean lets be honest here. Fearmongering comes from ALL sides. The only thing that changes is WHAT is being fearmongered against.
M: Let's be even more honest. Experiments by neuroscientists have proven that conservatives are more likely to do this than liberals. We are talking about a difference that is measurable and significant, data that conservatives have a hard time believing. I presented all this research in this forum sometime back and on numerous occasions, to some amazing and amusing responses.
Yea I get that. I wonder where I would fit in there. I am far smarter than anybody in my family. I have a master's degree in engineering while no other member of the family even made it to college. The whole family is about as right wing fundamentalist as you get. Racist and homophobic to boot. Politically I am an independent moderate and religiously I am kind of agnostic. Weirdly my brothers fear almost NOTHING. They were never afraid to jump off the 30 ft cliff into the lake, climb cliffs without a safety rope or countless other activities I avoided because of fear of bodily harm. This doesn't make sense to me. If their amygdala was so large, why did they take such personal extraordinary risks (including risk of death) when we were kids while I avoided risks like the plague?
I think it's important to make a distinction between rational and irrational fears. It's rational to be afraid of jumping of a 30 ft cliff. It's irrational to fear that ISIS is around every street corner. It seems liberals are more able to identify when fears are irrational.Yea I get that. I wonder where I would fit in there. I am far smarter than anybody in my family. I have a master's degree in engineering while no other member of the family even made it to college. The whole family is about as right wing fundamentalist as you get. Racist and homophobic to boot. Politically I am an independent moderate and religiously I am kind of agnostic. Weirdly my brothers fear almost NOTHING. They were never afraid to jump off the 30 ft cliff into the lake, climb cliffs without a safety rope or countless other activities I avoided because of fear of bodily harm. This doesn't make sense to me. If their amygdala was so large, why did they take such personal extraordinary risks (including risk of death) when we were kids while I avoided risks like the plague?
You did mention, did you not, that you are the most intelligent person in your family..... I suspect that intelligence manifests often . as a heightened capacity to predict, a heightened ability to perform risk assessment. In a testosterone dominated world of macho worship, folk like you will probable shift the population numbers to more and more smart people. But such things are hard to determine I guess. Who can know for sure why one person enjoys taking risk, perhaps it flatters the ego, and another sees himself as a chicken. Just my two pokpokpogoks about it. Perhaps the answer is on the other side of the road.Yea I get that. I wonder where I would fit in there. I am far smarter than anybody in my family. I have a master's degree in engineering while no other member of the family even made it to college. The whole family is about as right wing fundamentalist as you get. Racist and homophobic to boot. Politically I am an independent moderate and religiously I am kind of agnostic. Weirdly my brothers fear almost NOTHING. They were never afraid to jump off the 30 ft cliff into the lake, climb cliffs without a safety rope or countless other activities I avoided because of fear of bodily harm. This doesn't make sense to me. If their amygdala was so large, why did they take such personal extraordinary risks (including risk of death) when we were kids while I avoided risks like the plague?
At least they are more able to keep emotions out of the evaluation, but gut feelings and emotional reactions are quite similar if not the same think, I suspect. Those are often as valid I would suspect, as cold rational analysis. It is possible, I also suspect, of operating in both modalities.I think it's important to make a distinction between rational and irrational fears. It's rational to be afraid of jumping of a 30 ft cliff. It's irrational to fear that ISIS is around every street corner. It seems liberals are more able to identify when fears are irrational.
The folk who tore the world apart were authoritarian conservatives. I'm sure the post WWII folk aspired to be like Hitler. And the post war surviving Jews had among them some of the greatest liberals who ever lived despite the fact that we often become what we fear.Yea its just that people and their children from the WWII era who saw what happens when the world falls apart are conservative and the liberals take it for-granted, probably.
Yea its just that people and their children from the WWII era who saw what happens when the world falls apart are conservative and the liberals take it for-granted, probably.
(... snip)
Just a heads up that it's nearly impossible to accurately understand these sorts of abstract internal terms/concepts without very concrete physical connections to reality so to speak. If you doubt this it's worth reading at least the first 100 or so aphorisms of Philosophical Investigations.
Well I don't really buy into the notion that those abstract terms are applicable to anything. I think the brain is the repository of everything the senses provided it with. The dynamics of the brain take that data and construe it into information which forms the thinking or actions we undertake providing additional stuff for the brain to house.
Adult, Parent and Child ego stuff and the like are nothing but an evaluation of behavior that occurred. Behavior occurs after the brain does its bit and that is where my circuitous route intended to get me in this thread. The interesting bit is the HOW it occurs. What makes us see the same giraffe and some say how cute while others say yuk.
Without language we'd have the image of the encounter and what ever else the senses observed, I agree. We'd probably have some notion of danger by size but without having encountered an attacking giraffe we'd not know. I'd often ask my secretary to create a retrieval system and not a filing system cuz I wanted to be able to retrieve what was filed... Language has provided the means to catalog information about the image in our brain. Someone else assures us that a hippo will harm us and we assign that to all hippos we see.I think this is a subject wrought with paradox. If you film a giraffe you preserve on some media an image projected by reflected photons, an image that can be so perfect I would say that the image couldn't be distinguished from the real thing. But then there is the sound and feel and smell of a giraffe as would be presented to another animal like a person. You can send the image as a data stream to a computer that can put a giraffe on your monitor, but the computer while holding all the data necessary to display a giraffe will not see one any more than the camera did. What we see when we see a giraffe is a concept, a name applied to the data base stored as 'these are the properties of a giraffe. A giraffe comes into being as the product of putting names to memories and retrieving them with the giraffe data base gets tickled by incoming data that causes recognition. A giraffe is a construct of thought which is language remembered from the past. We see a giraffe because we ate the forbidden fruit on knowledge.
The question is can the mind see the present without reference to the past. Can the mind awaken from its thought dream and see without words of comparison. Can the mind experience the present without the conditioning of the past. If so there is no cute or yucky giraffe, on I and though, only the oneness of being. Can thought and language end. I think the world was here long before we named things.
When I was young a disaster would follow everywhere I'd or was about to go, tidal wave in Hawaii, earthquake in San Francisco, and of course I live in a constant state of rage and turmoil, even in Diablo 3. Why? Because God hates me. And because I deserve to be punished. What is my solution, I curse and swear at him until I'm blue in the face. I give Him His reasons for hating me. Probably hiding from myself my real sins.Without language we'd have the image of the encounter and what ever else the senses observed, I agree. We'd probably have some notion of danger by size but without having encountered an attacking giraffe we'd not know. I'd often ask my secretary to create a retrieval system and not a filing system cuz I wanted to be able to retrieve what was filed... Language has provided the means to catalog information about the image in our brain. Someone else assures us that a hippo will harm us and we assign that to all hippos we see.
I wonder if when we ate that fruit of knowledge we grunted to our buddies, "food' or 'bad' and thus became better suited to our environment or maybe that fruit created lots of changes to an otherwise peaceful environment. I have no idea. What I think I do know is that memory is where all that we put into our brains lives. Our retrieval system is controlled by something and we seem to react to what we conjure that to be. 'L' is worried about earthquakes and I keep telling her that it might be better to figure out what you can do something about or how to mitigate the issue and if that is the best you can do... leave it there. Worry don't solve anything... I know that the odds of being eaten by a great white are about the same as dying in a plane crash - with me in the plane - so I neither go in the ocean nor do I fly but I don't care too much about a plane crashing into my house - with me in the house.