Why is everyone so infatuated with the idea of ego death?

>one can not exist WITH the other

Typo

The main idea is that Ego is outgrown.

Isn't ego just what you fucking are? Awareness?
If ego is equated with being selfish, yeah sure, but that's not what ego is.

Ego death is just death.

Except it is not.
Is your awareness a social construct?
Fuck off.

Funny. I'm not even religious and I always thought most religions turned on beatitude--that is, an exaltation of self. That its attainment consists of placing others before oneself, or of denying 'the way things are' outright is merely 'the rule of opposites' style of its achievement, if at all really possible.

So what?
I don't get this idea.

>durr ur also like kinda the things around you

No you aren't? Sure everything affects everything else. Big whoop, taoist sage. How profound. You always have a backdrop. Amazing.
But that doesn't mean that you don't really exist. You obviously do.

>yeh but ur transient

Smart observation. But kindly fuck off. Consciousness, however brief, is still undeniably real.

Can you awareness be defined without things to be aware off, dumbo?

Sollipsism is the only position that makes sense. You can't live by it, totally, but at the end of the day it is all you got.

But religions and political ideologies love to turn it upside down and make you the unreal element.
Of course, most of Veeky Forums buys that. Because they're all alt right fascists or collectivists with hard-ons for bug chasing Foucault and what not. To even give the individual a tiny fraction of relevance would undermine their need for obedient infantry.

you exist but you don't exist as person individually from society

>awareness is only real when it is defined

Wew. Look how fucking spooked this nigger is.

Actually you can.
You don't magically stop existing if you go innawoods. Tons have done it before.
What is this Marxist crap?

>stirnerite
Oh shit I'm sorry, I didn't realise that I was talking to a mentally disabled.

Fuck off with the "social creature" meme. Fuck you

"ego death" comes from the German Idealists, it was Schelling or Schlegel or Schillegel, one of the -egels or -ings. Hippies ressurected it and projected onto Eastern philosophy.

You're gonna have to do better than call me names, commissar.

>Is your awareness a social construct?
Yes. Ever seen a feral child before?

>rejects God
>believes in Ego
The cognitive dissonance on some people

>how does present tense work
>forest weirdos are sociologically relevant
>forests aren't part of society in capitalism
>you wouldn't still be defined by the society you came from

>go innawoods
And see 'trees', concept taught to you by society
And feel 'grass', concept taught to you by society
And hear 'birds', and perceive it through the sense of beauty imprinted upon you by society

It's not a meme dipshit. Just because you don't have any friends doesn't change the facts of brain chemistry

You think the first humans sat there like "Man I love being a free-thinking, independent being. What should I name myself? It is so nice to be exerting free will finally."?

Self-awareness is a mental faculty, something not many animals demonstrate. And the way in which we think about ourselves, even how we "talk" to ourselves is certainly socially and historically constructed.

It's easy to say "you can't leave society" when you define "Society" as "Everything."

Whose ego? To believe in absolute ego while rejecting god is more or less the foundation of capitalism, but to not believe in one's own ego (e.g. my own ego) is a recipe for delusion and unhappiness.

No one said it was hard.

>It's easy to say "you can't leave society" when you define "Society" as "Everything."
You're welcome to name ONE part of your mind that wasn't taught to you by your social experiences

That's still not an argument for your reductionism.
Obviously humans are equiped in such a way that they can become social. When not utilized, it just turns them into savages.
Fine.
Does that suddenly make that creature not conscious. It doesn't have an "ego" all of a sudden, because it eats banana's and thirsts for white wimmin?

Veeky Forums is really a time machine. I feel like I'm debating some frog in a wig sometimes.

Are you honestly going to tell me that you can't see trees if no one taught you about it?
Go back to your "what the bleep do we know" docu, faggot.

You're acting like it's some kind of profound truth in the same way the Chalcedonian Catholic clergy haughtily told sinners "God is Everything, so even in the depths of sin, one cannot stray from God," and other such nonsense.

how to blink

no

>the mind doesn't happen without social experiences

This is some chicken and egg bullshit.
How did society ever come to be if we all start as unaware creatures blasting our dicks in invisible space?

Obviously there had to be a self-conscious mind to ever reach such complexities. To learn and improve upon.

>Are you honestly going to tell me that you can't see trees if no one taught you about it?
How the fuck do you read my post and come to this conclusion?

Define "mind."

Stay in denial, then.

denial of what

Well said my dude, but I don't think people who haven't experienced this will understand what you mean.

Do you stop existing though when you love? No you don't.
You don't lose awareness.
You're still there. You're still conscious. That's your ego.

You're really conflating ego with egoism/selfishness.

The premise of the post you said "no" to.

But if I define the concept of 'mind' for you, it will be as you got that knowledge through social transaction, which would undermine the point of such strong, independant, cosmic will as yours, which should be perfectly capable of grasping compex ideas out of thin air. Surprise me.

There's no premise and conclusion in that post it just states a claim.

happens in different ways to most people though not all as they get older, more it slips away into an obscure place less accessed. its the way grandparents seem more caring and older people seem to be able to deal with things that younger ones find embarrassing. one of the things you learn as you experience i expect.

I didn't ask you to be an uppity faggot, I asked you to provide ME with YOUR definition of "mind" so that WE can continue. I could define it myself, but you would probably say it's wrong, hence your faggotry

>humans, like most creatures, start with families
>"aha! awareness is therefore social"

That's not how it works, kiddo.
Sure, some skill sets you have to learn, and for humans that's especially the case.
But where the fuck do you get this idea from that there can't be a mind if there isn't a group of people around?

Premise: Society is not "everything," society is society.
Conclusion: People who say "society is everything" behave in the same way as people who say "God is everything."

wow you suck at logic

>says your personality exists independently of society around you
>literally bases his definition of "self" on something someone else told him

really makes u think dont it

Except no one is doing that.

Next thing you know, you're gonna claim that the fact we're using the English language is proof the mind doesn't exist because this is somehow telepathy of the collective body oooooohm

>I a-am an individual o-okay!
>I am SPECIAL
>y-you guys are all s-spooks
>ubermen!
Fucking hilarious

>I argue a position
>hahaha what a baby

Go do some extra hours, you social body cell.

What the fuck are you on about?

1) Smoke some DUDE
2) Feel good
3) Become immune to embarrassment
4) Conquer the world
5) Receive blowjobs from your harem of supermodels
6) Feel good

>Religions hail it. Submission and selflessness is the highest virtue.

Obedience is the highest virtue to these, that's why. Same with Marxism except it's an ideology, the new religion.

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

>Obedience is the highest virtue to these
>Same with Marxism except it's an ideology, the new religion

???

What about civilization and basic social norms? How is obedience anything other than ubiquitous?

If I made a long post of cringy bullshit and then capped it with pic of my asshole, every response would be telling me to fuck off. My fucking faggot roommate is playing his music too loud right now and I would tell him to shut it off if I wasn't such a pussy. There are infinite rules and we all subject ourselves to them out of fear and convenience.

We're all obedient, we're all religious

>The Peregrine
Read this recently and it's my favorite book of the year so far. Really vivid and beautiful prose.
Does anyone here have any thoughts on it?

>nietzsche perhap

In relegion these 'virtues' are camouflaged metaphors, disguises, they mean obedience, loyalty to the faith, rebellion and putting it into question is undesirable, therefor individual strength is a sin not to be pursued, it is 'evil' because it is not in the interest of the faith.

Marxism and it's evolutions operate very much like a religion, it has virtues and sins that are not to be violated lest you be shamed and drowned in guilt for being 'hateful' or 'intolerant'. Again the aim is obedience to a phantom, an ideal world, a phantasm that will never be.

>we are all obedient, we're all religious

You describe obedience to fear and comfort, this obedience will not result in a fulfilled life, if you are indifferent to that than by all means.

>egoism
Egoism is perhaps the most childish philosophy, if you can even call it a philosophy. It sees the human condition, and the entire world's philosophic and religious canon, and throws it aside like a rebellious child only to indulge in the self. Humans have known since their dawn that being a selfish bitch won't make you happy and is a net loss for everyone involved; trying to justify it with weak rhetoric is like putting makeup on a pig.

>*an idea that is not neetzschian drivel*
>ooga booga marxisM!111

>the individualist anglo-saxon male is well-equipped to deal with the challenges of the higher ideological environment
>*something that doesn't tell you how much you rule*
>GRRRUH MARXIZM WUT IZ?1?!?!?

I'm somewhat on the left, not an anglo, and don't deny individual consciousness or the ego's existence.

Why is EVERYONE on this board such an intolerable reductionist

>catholic church deus vult xD
>ur not real, hail the proletariat!
>*sniff* pure ideology

This is some Sam Hyde tier humor that's going overboard at this point.

>>catholic church deus vult xD
>>ur not real, hail the proletariat!
>>*sniff* pure ideology
Because those are all meme. The majority of people do not believe seriously in what they meme.

>in praise of weakness

>humans have known since their dawn that being a selfish bitch won't make you happy

t. Christian who thinks being a slave to your desires is "selfishness"

It's a matter of perspective. When all being strong means is pursuing destructive self-gratification, allowing yourself to be weak could be seen as requiring strength of a different kind. That, and civilization couldn't exist if people didn't allow themselves to be weak to a certain degree. Every word you say in a social setting is you chosing to be vulnerable.

>God is not a projection of the Ego

By what I have read. On one side there are people arguing for the social nature of the CONTENT of consciousness, on the other side there is OP arguing for the socially unconditioned nature of consciousness or perception itself. But both sides are calling those different things "awareness", thus misunderstanding each other and engaging in what we are seeing.

People will tolerate truth for everything. Except for ego and love.
This thread is a clear case of otherwise smart people deluding themselves with lies. The contrary position would be too hard to bear.

ummm the part that said fuck it? when i didn't do what others wanted?

>Every word you say in a social setting is you chosing to be vulnerable.

How could believe something so fundamentally and obviously wrong?
It could be a ploy to let others show their weakness.

True. :^)
But if everyone behaved that way throwing out the bait would lose its meaning.

>it's invalid unless everyone does it

Civilization exists because it is in nearly everyone's general benefit to uphold it. Notice how that sentiment is changing now that individualism reins with religion dying in the west and the family being dismantled as desirable and worthy of personal sacrifice in favor of 'muh individuality and equality'.
All social cohesion is being removed, threats are introduced, young men find society's interest to align with theirs less and less because of it, what remains is self-aggrandizement with no more regard to others than necessary to avoid major hindrance.

>when i didn't do what others wanted?
It's nice that you're so energetic and edgy, but your choice still ultimately depended on societal values

Sure thing. People give up on individual agency and put themselves at the mercy of a state to gain strength from it as a protector. Individuals engage in social interaction with eachother and put themselves into positions of vulnerability to build relationships of trust and be able to eachother rely on eachother a certain extent. Society is built on acts of exchanging one kind of strength for another.

Ego is not synonymous with awareness you retard. It's your self concept, a sense of self. Your sense of "me" as a distinct and continuous entity. It is not the same thing as being aware of the taste of a fucking banana.

>Gee, it's almost like humans are social organisms and don't live in holes completely independent of one another!
where the fuck do you think you are, saying shit like this? Disgraceful. Retarded.

What about hermits with hidden cameras

Check mate social contractualists

So a continuous fiction that prevents fast adaptation to new environments and situations?
What if there is no continuity? Does it not form?
It sounds like you are describing identity but what's the difference?

No. It's really difficult to explain to someone who doesn't understand it and believes it to be philosophical pish-posh. Base consciousness is not ego, in fact it's the only thing that isn't ego. Ego is when you ask yourself what your place is in this world. What I'm saying, death of ego or the absence of ego, is you knowing your place and knowing it is not subjective, but relative. When I think of myself, the first image that comes into my head is not my body, not my personality, it's nothing physical. When I think of myself I think of what is seen when you really look into someone's eyes and feel their presence, if that makes sense. And I don't mean I see that in relation to my body or mind, but that "I" am surrounded by myself.