Ego-- harmful delusion or pragmatic necessity?

[Mudhammam]

What I take from all of this:

We tend to place a higher value on objectivity because it grants us enlightenment about the world in which we are inessential participants, and therefore, more freedom insofar as it allows us to measure our present situation and the probability of future outcomes with greater precision. However, in regards to the particulars that comprise the bulk of our inner lives, from qualia to lofty ideals of purpose and morality, all we have to proceed from is speculation informed by the theoretical and practical reasons that prove most fruitful in the aforementioned nonpartisan framework.

[Angrboda]

The problem is that such people have attained a certain result by the practice, but have adopted fanciful explanations for what that result is and why it is.  The fact that different brands of woo layered on top seem not to matter one whit to the result suggests that the woo is an extraneous imposition — the woo doesn't matter, it's the practice.  But the woo has become embedded in our culture(s) to the effect that the explanation that the practice rids you of ego — which is part of the woo — is the reality.  It's mistaking metaphysics about the practice, which is likely wrong, for the nature of the result.  The explanation — which is just religious horse hockey — has come to be mistaken for the reality.

I'm interested in meditation because of the possible effects on the brain.  But those effects are unlikely to be as the mystics describe them.  What the actual brain / psychological effects are is still largely unknown.  I don't think adopting a woo filled explanation of it gets us any closer to that goal, except as a descriptive report of the subjective experience.

Yes, I agree with this very much.  However, looking at quotations or teachings of both the Buddha and subsequent buddhists, I think it's easy enough to determine which are purely treatises on mental experience and the nature of delusion, and which are speculative BS about karma and rebirth etc.

I'm not talking solely about karma and rebirth. I think many of the treatises on mental experience are woo filled as well, making reference to the doctrine of Anatta or no self, dependent origination, the two truths doctrine of Nagarjuna, even innocent sounding stuff like the Kalama sutra are based on error and speculation (if not outright mystical dogma). There is evidence that during deep meditation, the 'executive' functions in the temporal lobes shuts down, but that's a far cry from being able to conclude that this shift in terms of brain function is "egoless". (Subjective reports have deep meditators 'feeling' a sense of oneness and boundlessness, but as you can well understand, I don't trust subjective reports; similar things happen in DMT trips, but whether the substance of the report is a metaphysical fact or just an emotional delusion, who can say?)

[bennyboy]

Hmmmm. Anatta sounds a lot like the OP.

I wonder now what ego is. Is it just the awareness that with sights and sounds, "someone" is watching those sights and sounds? Is it a world view where memories and concepts are attached to a name? Is it an expression of selfish instincts? Or is it another word that gets too slippery to hold much meaning upon close observation?

[Mudhammam]

Hmmmm.  Anatta sounds a lot like the OP.

I wonder now what ego is.  Is it just the awareness that with sights and sounds, "someone" is watching those sights and sounds?  Is it a world view where memories and concepts are attached to a name?  Is it an expression of selfish instincts?  Or is it another word that gets too slippery to hold much meaning upon close observation?

"Someone" is defined by boundaries established through mechanisms that typically extend beyond the self-awareness that "someone" has of their "self." It's an arbitrary distinction in the end, but useful, or necessary, as a means of survival and---perhaps by a fortunate accident---so much more which the mammalian brain is enabled to achieve for itself as a result.

[robvalue]

Isn't ego the part of your brain that wants stuff all the time?

Child ego: I want this mummy and this and this!

Adult ego: I want this, and this and this...
Rest of adult brain gags ego and leaves it locked in the cellar after accepting the drudgery of life and blows its brains out.

OK that was a bit stronger than I intended. I meant to say we accept we can't just have what we want

[bennyboy]

Yeah, I don't know. When I made the OP, I was thinking more in terms of the world view, in which the ego is the central nexus to which all other ideas must necessarily connect, which would mean that almost all inquisitive acts would suffer from some kind of bias. But certainly in Buddhist philosophy, the wanting self is something that is considered paradoxical: the self is defined by the wanting, and the wanting causes the self suffering.

[Edwardo Piet]

Harmful delusional and useful. Maybe not a necessity but depends how you define it. Best to minimize harmful and delusional aspects as much as possible. Don't think it's intrinsically delusional and harmful it just correlates that way.

[The Grand Nudger]

If ego is the "central nexus", then there's no point in removing it in order to remove bias - as you'll have removed inquisitive acts by default.  That all inquisitive acts have some kind of bias is hardly a revelation, even machine sensory has bias (sans ego...presumably).  However, if ego is a central nexus, then ego is required in order to acknowledge and overcome potential biases......so there's that.   

I'm not entirely sure what the distilled bias of ego may be in your estimation, but  -as central nexus alone-, I would say that it sounds something like a bias towards intelligibility (granted, the universe need and may not operate in a manner that is intelligible to us).  I'm not sure if that's a problem we'd want to solve...... It just does't seem like a problem, this ego business, if ego is the central nexus of our ideas.

I don't think that it is, I think that ego is magic....I'm just playing with the idea. Full disclosure..lol.

[Edwardo Piet]

No Cartesian Theatre though.