The center of consciousness

[HydrogenBond]

I would like to discuss the center of the conscious mind. The avoid confusion I am calling it the ego, although the definition I will present may be slightly different from the traditional definition of the ego. To begin, if one was to have amnesia, such that their working memory became disconnected, one would still have a point of reference connected to the sensory systems and the body. The loss of memory would remove a sense of context for what one is seeing. This basic foundation of reference is what I call the ego.

 

If the memory came back, the point of view of the ego would now also have a type of prism by which one can gain perspective for what they are perceiving. With the amnesia, a tree is an object that is new, without definitive parameters. With the memory in place, it becomes a tree that can no longer walk around or talk, since its paramters are carefully defined by science and long term observation. This prism of memory is connected to what i will call the personal unconscious.

 

If the ego looks at the tree from its central reference, through the prism of memory in the personal unconscious, it can see different things based on whether the ego is focusing far sighted or near sighted, with respect to the prism. For example, if focus is farsighted, one sees the sensory reality of the tree with science data filling in perspective. If focus is near sighted, one may only see a fuzzy image of the tree with the prism filling in the details via the imagination. For example, one may have had their first date with their wife under such a tree. That particular tree will go out of focus, instead one will be looking within the imagination aspect of the prism at those cherished memories of the good old days. The average person sort of focuses in the middle allowing a solid perception of reality mixed with personal subjectivity and imagination. The scientist attempts to maintain far-sightedness to overlap sensory data with reality. While religion is often more near-sighted opening up the imagination to things outside of cause and affect and sensory data.

 

The way the prism appears to work is connected to the brain waves. This is a theory. This very systematic firing of the brain, i.e, brain waves, is creating a continuous global firing of our memories, which creates the dynamic prism. The focus of the ego help narrows down the spectrum of active memory, that is conscious to the ego, allowing perspective and context for the ego focus.

 

There is also a deeper layer below the ego. This is connected to the central reference of the brain, which is called the inner self. The ego, as defined, is new with respect to evolution and is a human trait. This secondary reference gives us will, choice and focus apart from the central focus of instinct and the inner self. With the evolution of the ego the inner self remained as the center, with the secondary ego center on top. The inner self can still collective data, subliminally, like in any animal. While the ego center, gathers data more specific to the focus of individual. The layer position of the ego allows it to take advantage of the natural wiring, below, already established by eons of inner self development. In the case of flight/flight, the ego will often give up control to the primary wiring to take advantage of what the inner self can generate, i.e., small lady lifting a car to save a child.

 

Between the inner self and ego are the archetypes or personality software, to coin a more modern analogy. For example, if one met a person of the opposite sex and began to feel infatuated, the focus of the ego becomes sort of determined by an inner imperative. The ego can chose to ignor it or can go along with this inner driving force. The inner self may induce male or female hormones to induce the motivaiton. It also kicks out personality software, that will help express the collective human mating rituals. Although the inner self and its software is coming from within, through the ego, the software can also project onto the prism of the personal unconscious. That is why when one is in love, one often sees the world through rose colored glasses. This is a highly prized state of the prism which is beyond the ego to create for itself. It often requires twists of fate to activate the inner self and cause it to kick up the needed living software.

 

Summarizing, the ego is a center of reference that exist apart from the memories within our personal unconscious. The memories create a prism by which context can be created for the ego's focus. The prism has collective social programming like science. Freud called this the super ego. It also has personal memories. It can also contain projection affects that are created below the ego, by the inner self via personality software.

 

As a practical example, consider the terrorists. Their prism contains long term programming associated with multi-generational cultural hate. There is also a religious element that detaches the ego from the long vision of scientific objectivity. Through this prism, the ego focus is given a memory context that reinforces these beliefs via the selective perception of data the prism can create. There is also a motivational element associated with renegade personality software, that is directing the ego with hate and fanaticism using the smokey-red glasses of fire and brimstone.

[InfiniteNow]

I get the sense that you are introducing new terms, where existing terms may suffice when it comes to explaning your idea. However, that is just a matter of experience and should not limit the contect of your post. I am going to try to paraphrase your post below. I hope that you will guide me in those areas where I have misinterpreted your meaning or intent.

 

Here goes. Sorry if I'm way off base.

 

Experience, or the memories we have of our experience, acts as a lense on new experiences, and will focus what may be called pure or raw reality. As we add to our catalogue of experiences, moving toward the future with each passing moment, the lense adjusts more and more.

 

If we could take away these memories, all new experience would be pure, raw, and unaltered. We would be close to the true reality, as our filters, this "lense," would no longer alter the incoming data.

 

This "lense" which focusses our new experience is influenced by memory and by instinct. An example might be the influence of hormones and unconscious drives.

 

If this idea has merit, then it seems we never really experience pure and raw reality. All experience is some adjusted version of that reality where we have filled in any gaps using our imagination; an imagination which itself is also altered by our memories of past experiences.

 

Interestingly, we always take in new stimuli, new data, so we cannot shut off these filters. If this is true, and new information is forever becoming part of us, then we never experience pure and raw reality. The question then becomes, what then are we experiencing?

 

There appears to be an interplay between what is truly there, that pure and raw reality, our own instincts and unconscious drives, our motivations, as well as the memories we have of all past experiences. These all come together into what {HydrogenBond states} is called the ego center, which arises as a random outcome, really just the result of chance.

 

When one considers the social side of things, the issue becomes exponentially more complex, as the interplay of society as a whole is the result of the combined outcome of each individual's experience and ego center.

 

So, was I close?

[HydrogenBond]

That is pretty close. My definition of the ego is just the central raw point of view of consciousness as though we were just sensory systems without the lense of memory. The lense is traditionally attributed to the ego and affects how we interpret and react to the environment. The sum of this reaction is tradtionally called the ego. The distinction is suble but make a difference. The base reference is collectively human, the other is more defined by the uniqueness of the individual. The latter is where we all agree, while the former is the source of all our differences.

 

If we include what I called in the inner self and the personality software to the picture, minus the memory of the ego, but still using the base ego foundation or center of focus, we get natural human instinct that has evolved over eons. The software will help focus the ego center toward food objects so it will react naturally to the environment. If we add the lense of personal memory, we get relative behavior instead of natural behavior.

 

For example, without the ego's memory grid, an instinctive potential, like hunger, would lack ego-centric memory. Instead it would make direct use of the sensory systems for a natural response, i.e., sight, smell, touch, taste. With the memory in place, the ego center will also make use of the matrix of memory, in conjuction with the sensory systems and becomes biased by ego-centric conditioning.

 

Ego-centric (lense) is both good and bad. On the good side, one does not have to try and see what happens everytime they need to eat because one can remember what worked last time. Although, try and see would be useful if one was migrating into new lands where the new foods are not in the catelog of the memory. This is where instinct would make use of the spatial or right hemisphere memory to help create an intuition for food types allowing new unseen fruits to be viewed as part of the fruit family. If this works it also becomes part of the left hemipshere, differentiated data, for the next time.