I think that the ego must derive from the reptile brain, because we so early are capable of feeling emotions and pain, and I presume that the ego is connected with our feelings. I believe so because every higher animal on the evolutional latter has an ego, and the only part we have in common is the evolutionary early parts of the brain. Animals feel pain and emotions too but they largely lack the ability to reason. Then what is pain? Pain is a highly subjective feeling. What is it that feels pain? Even if we could construct a super computer, which is connected to a nerve system, the computer would not be able to feel pain, because pain is an influence on the ego. Without ego, no pain – It doesn´t seem like the ego is reduced with intelligence (within humanity) – so the reptile brain must be an essential part of our ego, but the cerebral cortex is not necessarily an essential part of our ego. And our status as leaders or followers in our group consists of the reptile brains tolerance to stress in an emergency situation. In a critical moment the reptile brain overrides the cerebral cortex and tells us to either flee, or stay and fight, according to our ”status” by DNA. Our courage is literally located in our upper backbone (or neck), so to speak. But, we are still susceptible to psyking via cerebral cortex which can still beget fleeing – or if we use it to our gain, it can encourage us and/or discourage our opponent. The nazis did not seem to think that courage is universal, but I believe that it is, even though it is impossible to measure between individuals at war standing on opposite sides. But there is nothing that prevents one from estimating as a bystander, if one have all the basic background facts. In war, courage as a morale factor tends to level out between the participants after a while, particularly at the front lines. Other factors override when your life is at stake in an isolating environment like the front, I am talking about insight, leadership, armor, domestic or foreign environment, not to mention cultural upbringing and of course- luck, et cetera. So in that perspective, cerebral cortex makes all the difference. Psychological warfare, both domestic and foreign (for any participant), is a ruling factor in all warfare at all times. We are mind over ape (till a certain somatic limit). The Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick has speculated that the consciousness and the ego doesn´t have a center. He says that consciousness arise when different parts of the brain sends its impulses coherent, like in a choir with different voices. He says that every single voice by it self hardly is comprehensible, but when the voices are coherent something new is created – an entity that only exists in the complete experience and which can not derive from a specific point in the choir. The fault with this way of approaching the problem is that people whom for instance have Downs syndrome or other intellectual disabilities with reduced but not damaged functions of the brain, with this way of thinking – that intelligence is part of the ego – would have a lesser ego and therefore would not be able to feel pain or emotions to the same extent. Because pain and emotions are connected with the ego (or the reptile brain as I claim). And if they were not, people with Downs syndromes scarce intelligence would reduce their humanity, and humanity in them. In any case it would mean that evolutionary higher standing animals in the food chain, particularly mammals, would not be able to feel pain as intense as humans, and as clear as I understand that is not the case. The ego can be more complex in humans, and even interact with the cerebral cortex, but the reactions are similar. The most basic needs should be connected with the reptile brain and I think that the ego is closely connected with it, as mentioned above. But the reptile brain is not a thinking part of the brain – here the use of the rest of the brain comes in, because experience and analytical thinking at least, influences the reptile brain, or maybe even over-bridges it. For instance, you can come to the conclusion that a certain female would not suit you emotionally in a relationship, even though there is a possibility to impregnate a woman, which the primitive part of my brain perhaps tells me to do. Not to mention the above about over-bridging the ego with psychological warfare. Another Nobel Prize winner is the American Gerald Edelman, whom also dismisses the thought of a distinct control center. He suggests that it is our memories which create our ego. In every moment, he says, new sensations are compared with old memory senses. In the memories are instinctive values of pleasance, danger etc. This cooperation between new inputs and memory, he thinks, is our ego. From this we are capable off creating impressions and make decisions. But it only exists as long as our memories do. The latter example of thinking is more appealing to me. But our memories can not alone consist in our ego. It has to be connected with the emotions and instincts with every single memory precisely as he says. Then suddenly we have some kind of control center anyway, just not intelligent, because emotional life and instincts have a place in the brain. Our ego is ruled by our genes as well as the environment we grow up in, therefore the ego can not be localized to our memories alone. It must also include – either other parts of the cerebral cortex, or the reptile brain as I claim. If you wish to speculate, build further on Edelman´s ideas, it could be that our dreams adjust with earlier memories and new inputs in a highly subjective way, so that our memories becomes an unbroken line for any given situation in the past and into the future (after our limited comprehension abilities). Surely the memories also adjust to the whole picture. I believe that the consciousness and the ego are partially separated from each other. While the ego always has the same intensity, consciousness varies with intelligence. With consciousness I mean the analytical thinking or the perception of the world. Our consciousness and the physical world are the same, the human brain is mathematical and capable of doing handcraft which requires logical thinking – that and theoretic mathematical thinking, because the world is regulated by law. The consciousness (as in thinking) can not completely be separated from the ego. The cerebral cortex obviously has something to do with consciousness, and apparently personality alterations can follow from brain damage in the cerebral cortex. But that doesn´t mean that the ego is located to the thinking part of the brain (the cerebral cortex), because animals ego doesn´t differ from ours, despite differences in intelligence (at least when it comes to feelings like pain and sexual pleasure, since they are observable). Though, it is like I say in this writing, that humans ego may be more complicated than animals ego. But I mean that every single thought or calculation connects to the reptile brain in some way, is that not a reasonable conclusion? Otherwise thought would hang in the mind and never lead to emotional interaction in real life! Consciousness, though, is logical thinking, but without the self there is not anything which can percept the consciousness. Consciousness is so to say an extension of the ego (or reptile brain). Therefore everybody are subjective even when they think logical, as the case can be when two persons argue about a scientific dilemma, or when two philosophers both lays down a good case that contradicts each other*. I think that even very few experiences can form an ego with the primitive parts of the brain, like the case is with very small newborn (or unborn) infants. (But you have got to remember that also the memory, which is not localized in the reptile brain, but that every higher specie have, contributes to the ego, as Edelman says.) But with more pictures on each other the ego gets more complex, not only ”I´m hungry”, ”It´s burning”, like with the infants. It doesn´t mean that mentally handicapped individuals gets a weaker ego, because we all have experiences independent from intelligence. My theory is pertinent to Freud´s ideas that we are ruled by our sexual instincts, but only you can add survival instinct, thirst, hunger and a few other things like pain and emotional senses, apart from sex. Of course, intelligence puts its marks on the ego and becomes part of our personality. And I am aware of that I leave the field open for speculations of whether the ego is reinforced by intelligence, despite the fact that we feel an equal amount of pain with an IQ 85, as with an IQ 200. I don´t think that ego is reinforced by intelligence myself. Intelligence is everything and nothing in humanity, it is merely a tool to reach ones goal, but it makes us humans, not only capsules of ego.
* ”Inevitably, ”seeing” entails a form of subjectivity, an act of imagination, a way of looking that is necessarily in part determined by some private perspective. Its results are never simple ”facts”, amenable to ”objective” judgments, but facts or pictures that are dependent on the internal visions that generate them.” Citation: Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock 150, (1983).” ”If differences are intrinsic, then anyone can see them; if there is an objective reality, then any impartial observer can make judgments unaffected and untainted by his or her own perspective or experience. Once rules are selected, regardless of disputes over the rules themselves, a distinct aspiration is that they will be applied evenhandedly. This aspiration to impartiality, however, is just that – an aspiration rather than a description – because it may suppress the inevitability of the existence of a perspective and thus make it harder for the observer, or anyone else, to challenge the absence of objectivity. What interests us, given who we are and where we stand, affects our ability to perceive. Philosophers such as A.J. Ayer and W.V. Quine note that although we can alter the theory we use to frame our perceptions of the world, we cannot see the world unclouded by preconceptions. The impact of the observer´s perspective may be crudely oppressive. Yet we continue to believe in neutrality.” Citation: Martha Minow: Justice Engendered. Originally published in Harvard Law Review, 101. (1987)
When a musician writes a song that hits, there has got to be a denominator between the songwriter and the listener. How else could he know which notes are going to be appreciated. Is that denominator mathematics? There is an infinite amount of combinations of notes. Some of the combinations are interpreted as music. But what is it that appeals to us? We are not the only animals who sing, other animals like birds, whales and dolphins sing too. Even if there is no grammar, it is a form of communication. We to communicate with music, otherwise we wouldn´t be able to utilize it. Birds consciousness are none-existent, therefor one can suspect that music is an effect on the ego, not the consciousness. It still does not explain what music is. Music for man could still be mathematical, it doesn´t have to be like with the animals. But why can we not interpret music into equations, and how can so many people think that the same tones following on each other are pleasant? The only thing you can say with certainty is that it is an influence on the ego, an influence on the consciousness, or an influence on both. If it is an influence on the ego, music will not have to be mathematical. If it is an influence on the consciousness it has to be mathematical. And finally, if it is an influence on both, it is subjective and mathematical. If it is an influence on the consciousness, intelligent people would listen to their special music, like classical music, and mentally challenged people would have a simpler taste in music. That is partly true, but far from everybody specialize in their listening after their IQ level. But if on the other hand it was only the ego that was influenced, there would not have been any semblance to categorizing music taste, and that is not the case either. Therefor the third alternative ought to be the right one, that the influence is measurable on both the ego and the consciousness. Not necessarily at the same time, it can for example first affect the consciousness and then filtrate through the ego, which signals almost simultaneously to the pituitary gland for to release some endorphins. It is interesting how the endorphins wear off, and leave only the emotional memory of a god song, after a number of repetitions in playing that particular melody. It is like a crush on somebody. Art can be studied in the same way, and it explains how an art-critic can come to the conclusion that a certain piece of art is god art, and that other art-critics can come to the same conclusion independently from each other.
As I wrote in this letter, man is subjective even when he thinks objectively, because the consciousness (perception of the world) is an extension of the ego. Without ego, noConsciousness, but with less consciousness, still a just as big ego. Then a question arises – is God subjective? As clear as I can see, he must have an ego. God´s consciousness is infinite, but his ego doesn´t have to be bigger than an orange.
Socrates famous words: Is conduct right because the Gods command it, or does The Gods command it because it is right? Has then been answered, God are subjective and from this follows, that conduct is right because God commands it. God are not whimsical, and at the same time there is no universal law about what is good outside of God, because there is no need for a universal law. God are not whimsical (or arbitrary) because his subjectivity tells him what is right, and he values actions thereafter.
Also, The theory I present gives reason to reconsider the standpoint that it sometimes can be justified to put infants to sleep, for good, because the ego is formed early in the foetus developing process, into humans. Intelligence has little to do with it. Fortunately society has not yet taken up procedures that would obviously be barbaric when it comes to euthanasia in any other form but voluntary. Professor Peter Singer never gave any criteria for none- voluntary euthanasia but the vague assumption that intelligence is a part of our ego.
Regor Gnalk, Lund, Sweden (P.S. Regor Gnalk is an anagram)
