Nature of the Ego

In order to use the idea of cause and effect, we have to have an agent to which causes happen and from which effects are generated. The modern term for this agent is the “ego”. In order to explain how cause and effect can be applied to the ego, we need to have a suitable and realistic model of what the ego is. In my view, conventional models of the ego are inadequate and cannot fully explain the origins of serious mental disorders. In this article I present my theory of ego consciousness. I focus on the nature of the ego and the manner in which it is affected by change. It is based on my experiences of some serious mental disorders and an intuitive sensitivity to some others. Overall, I have found that mental disorders form patterns in the subconscious mind.

The theory presented here is based mainly on my own experiences, together with a deep philosophical analysis of the limitations of traditional ideas of reality. The first idea to resolve is the question: is the ego a static, unchanging entity, or is it engaged in a process of continual change?

A Process of Change

One conception of humanity is that it is a cultural organism. Each person has his place in society, and society will find its highest fulfilment when everyone is content to be what he or she is. Just like the way a body works best when the separate organs – liver, lungs, heart, etc – are each working at their best. This idea, when generalised so that it included the cosmos, gave rise to the medieval belief of the great chain of being. In this belief, the universe has a hierarchical structure and everything in existence has its proper place.

In the first half of the 20th century this idea of organism changed into the idea of the life cycle of nations and empires. Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee promoted the view that nations and empires have their birth, then youth, then maturity, and finally deteriorating into old age and eventual death.

The idea of organism is the antithesis of the idea of evolution. Evolution entails progress through the means of cause and effect, whilst organism is a pattern of life. Organism focuses on the purpose of life; all is pre-ordained, so a mood of contentment can permeate society. Evolution focuses on the meaning of life; all is change, so anxiety permeates society.

Which idea is true? To resolve this issue we have to turn to the idea of the Hegelian dialectic, a three-stage process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This conception proposes that progress consists of the initial idea (the thesis) about something; then the opposite idea (the antithesis) is introduced; and the synthesis is the resolution of the issue. Then the synthesis becomes the new thesis for another round of progress.

For example, during a time of social change a number of left-wing ideas are proposed (the thesis); then during the right-wing backlash (the antithesis) to such change, these ideas are subjected to critical analysis and some are put into practise and the results analysed. The synthesis becomes the final result, when the ideas that actually work and are better than the previous ones become the ones that are accepted. Ideas that initially appear good but lead to undesirable consequences are the ones that get discarded. During the 1960s, the hippie movement in the Western world gave rise to many new views about relationships and sexuality. The 1970s were the backlash or antithesis to the new sexual idealisms. Eventually, during the following decades, these ideas were sifted and modified, giving rise to new forms and expressions of sexuality and sexual identity.

In my view, both the ideas of organism and of evolution are true. I see them as part of a dialectical process. Organism is thesis, evolution is antithesis, and the synthesis is a new cycle of civilisation. The new cycle will be more advanced in some ways than the old one if the members of the old one had managed to increase their degree of personal evolution, such as the acceptance of new ideas on society and culture, together with developing a more flexible and more balanced character. However, personal evolution does not always mean a positive change; sometimes during periods of excessive and prolonged distress a person can regress to more rigid and backward moral values.

Society as organism is the arena in which each person plays out the drama of his or her personal evolution. The person is changing, though usually the pace of change is very slow: sometimes the change is so slow that it is barely noticeable. When the pace of change is slow, this can produce a major issue. When the person’s situation in life is a difficult one, with lots of sorrow and pain, then it produces the issue of the meaning of life. What is the meaning of sorrow and pain when there seems to be no way either to avoid them or to effectively treat them? To answer this, I first offer definitions of ego and consciousness, and then turn to the idea of cycles again.

Ego and Consciousness

What is consciousness? If we simply watch the activity of our mind, we become aware of an endless flow of thoughts and ideas going through it. This flow is consciousness. We can remember the contents because we have a memory. What happens if we have no memory? The flow of thoughts and ideas carries on, but we cannot remember any of it. Without a memory, each moment of time becomes separate from other moments, and we cannot perform any tasks because we cannot remember what we should be doing. If we lose our memory, then we can no longer function as a coherent ego. Hence it is essential to possess a memory before we can develop a meaningful ego from the flow of consciousness.

I give a general definition of consciousness:
Consciousness within the physical world = awareness of thoughts and ideas.

Each of us has a personal consciousness. How is this attained? Memory allows us to localise the flow of thoughts and ideas to ourself. So a metaphysical definition of ego is that it is a localised point of awareness with a memory, or a localised consciousness with a memory. Consciousness is localised to a structure called "ego". The degree of maturity or immaturity of the ego depends on what kinds of thought and idea attract it from amongst the flow going through its mind.

Cycles of Consciousness

Attempts to formulate a view of the meaning of life depend on the historical and cultural contexts of the thinker. He has to use whatever ideas are available to him. As societies change and develop, new ideas are generated and so the range of ideas for understanding life is expanded. This allows new theories to be formulated.

The medieval world of Europe was dominated by the idea of salvation. Alternative ideas, like reincarnation, were excluded from debate. So the only apparent alternatives discussed were really just varieties of the same essential theme. This state of affairs changed in the 19th century with the introduction of the idea of evolution. This has made possible a genuine debate on the nature of human reality, since evolution is a genuine alternative to salvation.

The idea of evolution underlies ideas about reincarnation, personal development programs and self-realisation that have entered Western thinking in the 20th century. Whereas, the idea of salvation underlies ideas about self-surrender and being satisfied with one’s place in the cosmic order of things. What idea is true – salvation or evolution? If we apply the idea of dialectics to them, we see that both have their place in the drama of humanity.

When a religion is born, it creates its view on salvation. The view of salvation depends on what the religious thinkers consider is wrong with the individual person. Salvation becomes the way to address and resolve those faults. However, as society progresses and evolves, ideas on what is wrong with the individual person will change. Therefore ideas on salvation will need to change, otherwise the individual person is likely to turn away from old ideas to newer, more relevant ones. For example, in the 20th century we saw the emergence of New Age spiritualities which do not depend on monolithic religions.

Whilst it is acceptable to see evolution as a gradual process, it is not usually understood that salvation is also a gradual process. A person can only be saved up to the level at which he can function well. If he is “promoted” beyond that level he will only become confused, overwhelmed and incompetent. Once he is saved at one level, he has to continue his evolution in order to be promoted to the next level of salvation.

Within any historical period, human evolution is limited by the ideas and opportunities that are available. In my view, human evolution is a process of personal growth over numerous lifetimes on Earth (using the idea of reincarnation), rather like climbing a ladder, with each rung denoting a different level of attainment and development. So too, salvation is a process; salvation is not a once-and-for-all-time achievement, but is a process that has many levels to it. I see the process of attainment to be a dialectical one, with the ideas of evolution and salvation acting as thesis and antithesis, and rebirth on Earth as the synthesis. When a person is saved in one lifetime, eventually he will be reborn on Earth to practise his attainment in a society, perhaps a more evolved one, which will offer new challenges to his faith (thereby offering new possibilities to continue his evolution).

How does dialectical attainment happen? I view it this way. Within any historical period a person evolves to the limit of his ability, making sense of life by using the range of ideas available to him. Then he can turn inwards to seek salvation. Then God gives him a suitable reward and he experiences some form of spiritual attunement. This is not the end of the process because his existing psychological and social limitations are not resolved by such attunements. His problems are relegated to the background of his mind but they still continue to exist. To resolve them he will need to return to Earth and live through his problems again, though this time he is a little bit more advanced. The problems of an Earth life can only be resolved on Earth; they are not resolved in heaven.

Hence at a later time, when ideas on human perfection have expanded, he is born again on Earth to continue his evolution. However, he carries the stimulus of his previous salvation in his subconscious mind, so he seeks more moral and spiritual pursuits than he did in his previous life. We can think of the rebirth as the synthesis. When he resolves, probably in several more lifetimes, his current psychological and social limitations to the best of his ability again, so he can once more turn inwards and aim for another spiritual attunement. When this happens, it will be at a higher level than his previous attunement.

And so the process continues, evolving to higher levels of capability whilst also attaining to higher levels of spiritual reality. The person always interprets and manages his level of spiritual attunement according to his current level of personal evolution.

If a person tries to short-cut his evolution and turn prematurely to the cultivation of salvation and self-surrender then nothing is likely to happen to him. He is unlikely to find salvation no matter how long he strives for it. There are no short-cuts to spiritual development. Only when he has attained his evolutionary potential that is possible to him within his current historical and cultural situation is he likely to find salvation by turning within.

Rebirth on Earth is necessary because societies are changing. As societies develop and evolve, the range of issues and relationships that a person has to face in life continually develop as well. As fast as a person resolves old issues, new ones are continually developing. The complexity of moral and spiritual issues increases as societies evolve and become more complex themselves. Moral attitudes and values that are fine in one historical period can easily become limited and out-of-date in a later period that has to face new needs and new moral challenges.

A human life is not a journey to a final spiritual attainment, a final state of enlightenment or salvation. Instead, a human life is a process, a process of developing better and better personal and social skills in order to unfold and manifest better the drama of consciousness.

Relativity of Consciousness

In order to facilitate its evolution, the ego has a particular form of consciousness: consciousness is relative. My understanding of relativity is different from the usual connotations of it. Relativity theory as used in physics produces paradoxes in its analysis of reality. This is a major defect. In my view, there are no paradoxes in reality; there are only paradoxes in theories that attempt to describe reality. So the presence of a paradox indicates that the theory under consideration is faulty. Einstein's understanding of relativity is only a partial view of it.

If something is relative, what does this mean? Relativity means that a relationship exists between two or more factors. But what is the nature of the factors that are related? Western thinkers have consistently mis-understood the meaning of relative concepts. Western thinkers have not clearly dis-entangled the boundaries between the three concepts of subjectivity, objectivity, and relativity.

To understand the central importance of relativity to human values we have to understand the ground of relativity itself. Consider the ego. The ego splits life up into a subject and one or more objects. The ego is the subject and everything else is object to it. The subject-object dichotomy is created during the early life of each new-born child. How does this happen? If we look at a clear blue sky, with no clouds in it, initially it all looks one colour. On closer inspection we can see that the blue of the horizon is a deeper shade than that of the zenith; that is, on closer inspection we can relativise the colour of the sky into shades. This relativising process enables us to separate sensory stimuli into different shades and colours. This process is the first act in trying to make sense of perception: from shades and colours we can identify shapes.

Consider the infant of a few days or weeks of age. It has no ego, no consciousness; it functions on levels of mind below normal consciousness. It exists only as a mixture of a subconscious mind and an unconscious mind. If it were born with a conscious mind then it would have memories of its previous existence and soon after birth be able to speak normally with other people.

At first the infant sees merely a constant interplay of colours. Gradually it learns to separate these colours into certain recurrent shapes, shapes that one day it will recognise as being the teddy bear, the rattle, the face of the mother, etc. It learns to discriminate by relativising its sensory stimuli into patterns. This process of discrimination leads to the construction of the ego, the ego being the subject of the subject-object dichotomy. Therefore the ego is constructed by this relativising process.

The infant stabilises recurrent stimuli into shapes because they are associated with feelings and emotions in him. He learns to value patterns that are associated with happiness and to avoid those associated with pain. The introjected emotions from the mother help to produce value judgements in the infant, enabling him to consolidate the sensory stimuli into the patterns of her face and body. His interpretations of his relationship to the mother create fixed beliefs and underpin the emerging ego. These beliefs and value judgements are relative ones. Hence the world of the infant is a relative world.

A relative world is normally a changing, unstable world. The infant has to find a way of creating stability within an unstable world. It uses beliefs and value judgements to attain the stability it needs. Its ego stabilises its world into subject and object by the production of fixed beliefs and values; this creates its Being. Relativity is the ground of all Being.

Therefore the ego is a relative construction, a relative Being.
For a relative Being there is no permanence; there is only change.

A relative arrangement has existence but not essence. The ego is a relative entity. Therefore it has existence but no essence. However, each ego is unique, since it is the product of countless incarnations with countless psychological and social factors operating on it. This means that each subject-object dichotomy is also unique. And the way that each ego directs its consciousness onto the external world is unique too. Hence each ego creates its own unique perspective on life.

[ Many theories of human nature presume that each person has an essence. There is some confusion here. The idea that each person has a unique essence really denotes that the person has a higher self, which is the spiritual core of each person, or the spark of divinity in each person (it is sometimes called the witness or the silent watcher). The higher self can be considered to be essence, but not the ego].

The Nature of Relativity

To understand the nature of a relative concept I consider the process of perception. Perception is the central feature of consciousness, since the individual engages in it in all states of consciousness (that is, waking consciousness, dream sleep, and trance) except dreamless sleep. Whatever relativity means within the process of perception will, in my view, apply to everything else within consciousness.

To understand relativity we have to consider the influence on it of both subjectivity and objectivity. I look at a tree in the distance. It will appear small to me. The size is in the mind of the observer and so is subjective. Subjectivity means that something is only in the mind of the thinker or observer. The size is also relative: size is a relationship between the object and the observer, and depends on the distance between them. Hence relativity determines the format within which subjectivity operates (by this statement I mean that the way the subjective image appears in the person’s mind depends on the relative relationship between the person and the object).

The relativity of the size of the tree also depends on the size of the eye of the observer (a tree will appear larger to an insect than to a human). Hence the physical eye is an objective factor of perception, and so is also a factor of relativity. Here, relativity, subjectivity and objectivity are associated together.

As I walk towards the tree the size will get larger. This size is due to the size of the angle that the rays of light make to the eye of the observer. If two people walk together towards the tree, both will see the change in size. As they walk together the rate of change of the size will be equal for both of them, since the change in the angle of the light rays will be the same for both. Hence the rate of change is an objective factor to perception.
This simple illustration shows that in the process of perception, subjectivity, objectivity and relativity are all linked together.

I simplify this illustration. Consider again the person who is looking at the tree. The image on the retina of the eye produces the subjective image in the mind. However, the size of the retinal image depends upon the optical angle subtended at the eye by the tree. This angle will be the same for all observers at the same position of observation. Hence the optical angle of the object is an objective component of perception, while the mental image is a subjective component. Both the subjectivity and the objectivity function within the overall framework of relativity.

What this illustration means is that in perception, which is a relative process, a subjective effect always goes hand in hand with an objective effect. This result is the general meaning of relativity.

In any relative relationship, a subjective effect is always tied to an objective effect.

The importance of this conception of relativity is immense. Perception is a relative process. All life depends upon perception; there is no way that anyone can escape it. Perception usually entails interpretations of what we see. So perception is usually tied to our beliefs and values. We do not usually perceive the world in a neutral frame of mind, apart from the background. We only notice what interests us. We only notice what has value for us. Perception is a value-laden process and begins from birth. The new-born baby engages in relativity the moment that it opens its eyes, and never ceases from this process during life.

Two Identities

Each ego is a relative construction and so has both a subjective aspect to it and an objective aspect. It is incorrect to think of the ego as being either purely subjective or purely objective. A useful classification is to look at the ego as being able to orientate itself within its subjectivity and thereby becoming an individual, or as being able to orientate itself within its objectivity and becoming a social person, focused on its network of groups. The relativity of consciousness leads to the conclusion that each person has both an individual identity and a social identity.

The emotional bases of the identities are narcissism and jealousy [¹]. Narcissism inclines a person towards being an individual, whilst jealousy influences the person to become socially-defined. Narcissism enables the person to become absorbed in himself, whilst jealousy enables him to become identified with his groups.

The importance that the ego places on either of its identities will vary over time and over its multitude of incarnations. At some times its individual identity will be of most importance to it, whilst at other times its social identity will take the foreground.

A Relative Life

In childhood the two most important issues are those of security and stability. A sense of security enables the child to develop harmonious social relationships, whilst stability enables it to construct a positive sense of individuality. During an Earth life the child explores reality within the themes of security and stability. If it cannot attain adequate security then it becomes psychologically insecure. If it does not develop adequate stability then it becomes existentially unstable.

I mention some ideas on social identity. The ego has to learn by trial and error how to manage its Earth life. Because Earth life is so difficult, in terms of practising an holistic way of life, consciousness initially becomes polarised on the objective aspect of relativity. The ego functions within groups and social support networks. It explores social identity and the various forms that it can take – the family, the local society, the nation, and international groups. This is the realm of psychology.

The negative aspects of consciousness acting at the objective level produce fragile (powerless) identities and so create issues of insecurity and dis-empowerment. Lacking the power to be himself, the person sees only how weak he is. He feels powerless because the enervating influences of determinism act on him and control him in various ways. Psychology explores discordant objective (or social) identities and their behavioural responses.

To overcome his distress, he may seek the life of faith. Living in a highly organised group or organisation empowers and validates him enough so that he can mask his weaknesses. For example, the group enables him to focus his life on the practise of duty.

Eventually the ego’s social identity ceases to be fulfilling. Groups and social support networks are not meeting the changing needs of the ego. Now the ego becomes polarised on the subjective aspect of relativity. Individual identity is explored. In the past, the usual outlet for individuality was to become a creative artist. However, by the 19th century Western societies had embarked on a course of high-stress social and economic change due to the industrial revolution. Now, for a few thinkers, the consolations of art were no longer sufficient as ways of making sense of life. So in the 19th century a new philosophical outlook emerged, and was given the name of existentialism. Existentialism arose as a consequence of the intensification of the stresses in the subconscious minds of Western humanity.

The negative themes of consciousness acting at the subjective level produce unstable identities. Distressed by instability, the person sees only the poor quality of his life. He sees society as being excessively ordered, ruled, and devoted to authoritarian traditions that have become ossified and unresponsive to the needs of changing times. He may feel alienated, and think of his home as a fortress against society. Existentialism explores discordant subjective (or individual) identities and their behavioural responses. The existentialist tries to pursue an authentic way of life.

To overcome his distress, he may seek the life of adventure and live according to his own rules. If he is philosophical, he may become an existentialist.

Inadequate security leads to the existential issues of life, whilst inadequate stability leads to the psychological issues of life. Throughout its life the ego faces problems of security/insecurity and stability/instability. These problems come under the more general ideas of authenticity and validation. Authenticity focuses on issues of individuality, whilst validation focuses on issues of social needs. These themes of consciousness set up the spectacle of the ego’s life. As it alternates between its two identities, it explores existential and psychological possibilities.

The two identities become ways of creating roles that enable the person to gain experience of life. In his social identity the person may define himself by social roles like husband, plumber, office manager, politician. Whilst for his individual identity he may define himself in non-social terms like artist, writer, intellectual, adventurer, loner.

The two identities usually conflict. Social identity requires the person to lose his or her uniqueness and become one of the group or the community; consensus is needed. Whereas individual identity requires the person to remove confusion and social dependency from his or her mind; choice is desired. A person’s life becomes the drama produced by the interaction between the two identities.

The person can change his orientation as a means of managing stress and following his goals. For some periods of his life he may be socially-orientated and at other periods he may prefer to be an individual.

A Philosophical View

How consciousness is understood will depend on the perspective that a person adopts towards reality. It is obvious that a psycho-analytical approach is very different from a philosophical approach. However, it is not so obvious that a philosophical approach can add depth to psychological theories. For example, at first glance it seems that the relationships a person has with people are only reflections of his desires and needs. However, if we rise to a higher understanding of life, then we may realise that the person’s relationships derive from his relationship to his own higher self.

Another way to think of this view is that the relationship he has with his higher self is given expression in his relationships within his mind (by which I mean that he has different relationships with different compartments of the mind). Then these relationships within his mind are given expression in his relationships with other people. That is, the various aspects of normal relationships – authority, sexuality, friendship, care, etc – arise from the various ways in which the mind can be separated into different compartments. So, for example, the connection with his higher self that gives rise to idealistic sexual views will produce his ideas on sexual identity. Then he attempts to put such ideas into social practice but finds that the reality of life changes his ideas into less idealistic forms.

This separation of the mind into different compartments leads to a loss of self-awareness in the person, allowing various issues to be handled differently between the different compartments. This usually produces mental conflict, confusion and stress. The basic issues that cause most conflict are ones that are not acceptable to both the person’s fundamental orientations – his individuality and his social centredness. The person experiences conflict between his subjectivity and his objectivity, or we can say that his social identity encroaches on his individual identity (and vice versa). The more conflict that a person experiences in his mind, the more likely is it that his life becomes one of high drama.

I believe that a person’s life story over a multitude of incarnations is just the history of the inter-actions of existential issues (relating to his individual identity) with psychological issues (relating to his social identity), modified by the person’s ideals. These inter-actions become enacted into dramas through the person’s behaviour on the stage of life.

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Ian Heath
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.	Overview Conventional medical theory assumes that serious mental confusion is the result of illnesses, that is, they are usually the result of faulty genetics, or faulty physiology or a chemical imbalance of some kind. Hence the focus of therapy is predominantly on pharmacological treatments. Here, “therapy” is understood to mean the management of a condition, not the cure of it. My view is different. The basis of my understanding of serious mental confusion is the assumption that most conditions have psychological origins. They are disorders, not illnesses. This means that the disorders originate from psychological causes. The disorder is the effect that is generated by one or more causes. Hence the focus of therapy is predominantly on the attempt to discover these causes. If therapy is successful, then the assumption is that the condition will be cured, or, if this is not fully practical, at least have its intensity ameliorated. The attempt to cure a serious condition involves the person developing self-awareness to a sufficient degree, and this may not be feasible for all persons. Developing self-awareness is the necessary first step towards solving psychological problems.
Sub - Headings
Ego and Consciousness
Cycles of Consciousness
Relativity of Consciousness
The Nature of Relativity
A Relative Life
A Philosophical View