Wisdom Notes on Philosophy

The Ego and Relativity

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Then I remembered the television programme on Nietzsche. From that moment I began a period of intense study of his books. Nietzsche was my introduction to a realistic analysis of social and moral values.

A Dream

The second event was a dream I had around the same time. During my 40s my holidays were always a mixture of intellectual study and leisurely walking on nearby hills. On one holiday in Wales my readings were the books of Paul Brunton, who was an advocate of philosophical Idealism. One night I had a dream of relativity. A voice said that there were two concepts of relativity, and one of them was wrong. That was the substance of the dream. I recorded the dream in my notebook and forgot about it for over 30 years. In point of fact, I subsequently worked out my idea of relativity before I re-read my notebooks.

Nietzsche

When I turned to Nietzsche, I found that he had investigated cultural relativity in depth. In his pursuit of truth he was prepared to analyse and criticise his own ethical standards and to expose the self-deception within his own religious sensibility. This is a rare quality in an intellectual and led him to an understanding of morality that surpassed that of any other nineteenth-century thinker.

Nietzsche compared “noble” and “slave” moralities in ancient times. The “noble” morality of the patricians in ancient Greece vanished long ago, whilst the “slave” morality of the early Christians is the only morality still prevalent in the West. He showed that the basis of Christian morality is derived from resentment and other negative emotions. Therefore, for an advanced thinker, such a morality cannot be used as the pathway to a good and noble life. A better morality has to be found. He proclaimed that the task for the modern thinker is the revaluation of all values.

As I understood Nietzsche, relativity shows that all goodness has its roots in evil (Nietzsche did not focus on the other half of the cycle, that evil has its roots in the good). Relativity turns the ethical life into dust. This is the psychological terminus of Nietzsche’s critique. How can we surmount it?

Later, when I began to analyse consciousness itself, I saw that he had only dissected half of it. When consciousness and relativity are seen in their totality, the problem changes.

In my early 50s I began to analyse the problem of good and evil. This was the most distressing period of my life, as I tried to make sense of all the confusion in my mind. I let phantasies of good and evil play out in my mind, analysing both the good and the bad aspects of these dreary dramas. What I eventually understood is that the basis of good and evil arises from the manner in which the ego is created. The analysis of consciousness leads to the correct understanding of relativity, because the ego itself is a relative construction.

My route to relativity was via the analysis of perception and then semiology (the theory of signs). In this article I begin with perception in order to derive the basic form of relativity.

Consciousness

First I outline my basic model of consciousness. Consciousness is traditionally split into three parts: the will, the mind, and the emotions or feelings. A variation of this model is to split consciousness into action/ behaviour, mind, and sensibility. Consciousness by itself does not do anything, because it is a static structure. The ego, or personality, is the agent that does things. Hence the ego is the agent of consciousness.

The mind itself has two main parts: the ordinary mind of which we are aware and which we feel is us, and a hidden part that we are not usually aware of. From my exploration of my mind, it appears that there are two broad layers within the hidden part of mind. The reason that I believe there are two layers is that one of the hidden layers is focused on what is personal and specific to each person, whilst the other hidden layer is focused on what is universal to everyone.

The terminology that I have adopted is that the hidden personal mind I call the subconscious mind, whilst the hidden universal mind I call the unconscious mind. 

For example, emotions are universal to everyone and so they come from the unconscious mind. My prejudices, preferences and abilities are personal to me and so come from the subconscious mind. Although we are aware of being emotional, we cannot usually identify what emotions we are experiencing (except for a few such as fear and anger). When we cannot identify something about ourself, then that something remains part of the hidden mind. [ My articles on Emotion are listed on the Home page].

Conceptual Confusion

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. How does this split or dichotomy arise? In a static, unchanging world then subject and object can blend together into a unity – this is the psychological process of absorption (or identification). The young child identifies with the parent; the mystic is absorbed into union with God. However, the process of change destabilises unity.

Even during meditation the meditator cannot remain indefinitely in his state of trance, of absorption, of unity with the object of his meditation; nor can the mystic who is absorbed in his divine ecstasy. Neither the meditator nor the mystic can halt the process of change. Therefore, in my view, it is the process of change that creates the subject-object dichotomy.

The subject-object dichotomy is created during the early life of each new-born child. How does this happen? The subject-object dichotomy is related to relativity.

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 it would be able to speak and talk 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 infant is usually held close to the mother, so that the aura of the mother overlaps the aura of the infant. Because of this overlap, emotions pass freely from the mother to the child. In psychological language, the infant introjects emotions from the mother. These emotions 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 Being. Relativity is the ground of all Being.

Therefore the ego is a relative construction.

A relative arrangement has existence but no 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 on planet Earth 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 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 (or soul). The higher self can be considered to be essence, but not the ego].

I summarise these Ideas.
It is the process of change that creates the subject-object dichotomy, and this change is always relative. The relativity of the ego is the ground of the relativity of all values and all beliefs.
A person is a relative being. As such he has existence but no essence. For a relative being there is only change.

Perception

Now I turn to 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 consciousness 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, or, the size of the object as seen by the observer is dependent on the size of the observer. For example, a tree will appear larger to an insect than to a human. Hence relativity determines the format within which subjectivity functions (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). In addition, the physical eye is an objective factor of perception, and so is a factor of relativity as well. In this example of perceiving a tree, I have associated together relativity, subjectivity and objectivity.

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, the apparent change in its size will be the same for both of them. 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, the three issues of subjectivity, objectivity and relativity all link 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 ordinarily tied to our beliefs and values. We do not usually perceive the world in a neutral frame of mind, apart from the background (unless we are practising the Buddhist technique of mindfulness). We only notice what interests us. We only notice what has value for us. Perception is a value-laden process and begins from birth. All values are based on perception, and all values are thereby relative. This means that all values have both a subjective component and an objective one too. 

The new-born baby engages in relativity the moment that it opens its eyes, and never ceases from this process during life.

Creation of the Ego

When does the ego begin to be created and how long does this process take?  In the creation of consciousness out of subconsciousness and unconsciousness there are only events and no dates. Linear time (or clock time) is not a part of the subconscious and unconscious minds; memories of events in these minds can only be attached to definite dates if they are associated with particular objective events whose dates are known, such as birthdays.

A deep psycho-analysis can reach back to the time when the ego was in the process of creation, but the psycho-analysis does not reveal any dates for this process. So we have to depend on making inferences of the time period of ego formation from the infant’s reactions and achievements, using the results of psychological studies.

There are two limitations to the time period that I accept as indicating the formation of an ego. First, I limit myself to an average period. Precocious children are likely to develop an ego earlier than I suppose, and slow learners later. Secondly, we have to avoid depending on automatic responses. When the infant responds to the mother’s smile, this is usually a subconscious reaction and does not necessarily indicate full consciousness.

We have to put weight on unusual responses, such as the beginning of language formation and the fear of strangers. Language formation denotes linear (or logical) thinking, and hence requires an ego. 

Fear is a dominant feature of man’s consciousness, but is usually hidden in the adult by compensatory effects, such as the ease by which anger is generated (anger usually arises in order to mask fear) and the adoption of a conservative attitude to life. But fear is hidden far more consistently and effectively by a layer of guilt, so that the fear is not an obvious component of adult consciousness. It is this primary reality of fear that provides the susceptibility to trauma in infancy (that is, psychological trauma that usually arises from the child’s negative interpretations of emotional experiences). Therefore the ego will show this fear once it begins to be formed (especially if sensitivity had been developed in previous incarnations or lives on Earth). 

According to Schaffer (quoted in Gross, page 550) the infant will gradually develop attachments to significant people over a prolonged period of time. However, the onset of separation distress and fear of contact with strangers is usually quite rapid – this fear becomes evident at about seven or eight months of age. This response of fear to people is a more certain indicator that the ego is forming than the responses of attachment formation. If the infant’s life is happy, then in its attachment formation the transition from subconsciousness to consciousness will be slow and indistinct. But the presence of fear creates sharp boundaries. Therefore, in my view, the creation of the ego in an average infant begins at around seven or eight months of age.

In order to decide when the infant’s ego is fully formed, in terms of a structure of basic beliefs, I turn to ideas on language development.

The period from birth to 12 months of age is usually the pre-linguistic stage of the child. The term “pre-linguistic” is used to indicate that the child has no public, or objective, language – its thinking uses only a purely subjective and private language, which is indicated by babbling.

The period from 12-18 months is usually the one-word stage. The child uses one word at a time. Its first words are usually private ones and it uses them to label things: it makes up its own words for the teddy bear, the toys and other objects. After a time it begins to use these words consistently – the same word for the same object. Then it slowly begins to acquire a public language: it begins to label things by the words that the parents use to label them. This ability indicates the tentative accomplishment of full consciousness.

On average, a child will acquire a 10 word objective language by the age of 15 months (Nelson, quoted in Gross, page 662). This growth in the development of objective language indicates that the ego has been formed and can now consciously react to its environment. Therefore the ego is fully formed by the time that it is between 12-15 months of age. From now on the ego begins its long process of development and expansion.

The period of about 7 - 15 months of age is the time in which the average ego is created. What is the value of assuming this period for ego creation?  This period is a critical one for the infant. During this time the fledgling ego is vulnerable to certain forms of psychological disturbance or trauma.

So infant care needs to be at its very best during this time in order to allow the infant to form a stable ego. It is within this period that infancy trauma can most easily occur and provide the conditions for later adult psychosis. Episodes of madness in adulthood usually indicate that the infant did not create a fully-stable ego. 

In the creation of consciousness from subconsciousness and unconsciousness each relative ego can view reality from two complementary perspectives. These are the focus on being an individual, and the focus on being a social person. In this way the infant creates both an individual identity and a social identity. Both identities arise together in the infant. The subjective nature of individuality always interacts with the objectivity of social roles as each person creates their relative relationships.

A person is a relative being. What does this imply?  The subjective reality of the person has no boundaries; he can be what he likes. However, the objective reality of his being lies in his social relationships. These relationships create boundaries. The future for mankind lies in its expansion of mind, in its expansion of consciousness. As the person’s subjective reality grows so he will continually create new relationships; he will continually push his objective boundaries in ever-new directions. As mankind evolves, so relationships must evolve in tandem too.

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