How does an atheist define the ego?

Christian said:
I'm curious to know if an atheist finds any definition of the ego useful or relevant.
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I'm an atheist. I've also studied linguistics a bit in grad school. I can tell you that the meaning of words is by convention, so atheists use the same conventional definitions as anyone else. The word ego, as with many words, has several meanings. There's Freud's psychological meaning, there's the more common usage of "ego" meaning self-centeredness or arrogance, and so on. I find all these definitions useful because if I rejected any conventional definition, I'd have a more difficult time communicating with people about these concepts.

One's lack of belief in a deity shouldn't change the way one defines words--even words like "God" or "soul" or "heaven". I don't reject the conventional definitions of them, even though I don't believe any of these things exist.

Does a theist find any definition of "Thor" or "leprechaun" useful or relevant?
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I'm an atheist. I've also studied linguistics a bit in grad school. I can tell you that the meaning of words is by convention, so atheists use the same conventional definitions as anyone else. The word ego, as with many words, has several meanings. There's Freud's psychological meaning, there's the more common usage of "ego" meaning self-centeredness or arrogance, and so on. I find all these definitions useful because if I rejected any conventional definition, I'd have a more difficult time communicating with people about these concepts.

One's lack of belief in a deity shouldn't change the way one defines words--even words like "God" or "soul" or "heaven". I don't reject the conventional definitions of them, even though I don't believe any of these things exist.

Does a theist find any definition of "Thor" or "leprechaun" useful or relevant?
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Great answer, Joe.
 
Others have tried, I shall try.

Christian, forget "ego" for a moment. Consider a super-repressed society that more or less refuses to discuss emotions. So, in their language, they have no words for "angy", "sad", "happy", "troubled", "antsy" - anything smacking of of an emotion. Instead, they put that all under the umbrella term "off". As in: "My daughter won the marathon yesterday after training for three years. I'm a bit off over it."

Okay, silly, but bear with me.

Now you, being from that country, come to America/England/whereever, and ask us for a definition of "off". Having never thought about the different emotions much, you consider "off" the only real human emotion. How would we ever communicate? All we can say is that "off" actually refers to many different things, and that it does not correspond to any specific brain state or process. It's a muddled, unclear, undefinable concept.

Yet you persist. "But I think it's a useful line of questioning. Surely you must mean something by it - I heard Joe say the other day after eating the oysters that he was starting to feel 'off'". So, what brain state are you emotionalists referring to?"

Etc.

You can see no progress can be made in that case.

Now back to ego. Despite your repeated statements, 'ego' means nothing in modern science. It's a muddled term referring to nothing in particular that the brain does, just like there is no 'off' emotion. We've discarded the term 'ego' as any kind of scientific term, which of course does not mean that it will not show up in colloquial conversation. I can feel 'off' after eating oysters, but everyone understands that is just sort of a inarticulate blanket term to describe the onset of nausea, maybe skin prickles, sweats, etc. If you went to the doctor and said "I feel off", you really haven't told him anything. He'd have to ask you a long series of questions to figure out how you really feel.

Likewise, if you say somebody has a big ego, or whatever, you aren't saying anything scientific. As a casual conversation element, it's fine I guess, but it isn't saying anything definitive. As scientists, we don't thing there is anything in the brain corresponding to 'ego'. It's just all the scientific terms for things that do exist haven't yet fully trickled down to our everyday language. So, we say 'ego' sometimes. It ain't real, just like 'off' ain't a real emotion with well defined, measurable physiological events.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I'm an atheist. I've also studied linguistics a bit in grad school. I can tell you that the meaning of words is by convention, so atheists use the same conventional definitions as anyone else.
Click to expand...

Words mean different things to different people based on various criteria.

JoeTheJuggler said:
The word ego, as with many words, has several meanings. There's Freud's psychological meaning, there's the more common usage of "ego" meaning self-centeredness or arrogance, and so on. I find all these definitions useful because if I rejected any conventional definition, I'd have a more difficult time communicating with people about these concepts.
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You have to consider some definitions might be mutually exclusive from one person to another.

JoeTheJuggler said:
One's lack of belief in a deity shouldn't change the way one defines words--even words like "God" or "soul" or "heaven". I don't reject the conventional definitions of them, even though I don't believe any of these things exist.
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Of course it changes the definition. Humans think in categories. You put God, soul and heaven in the category of imaginary things, just like unicorn. On the other hand, theists put God in the category of real things.

JoeTheJuggler said:
Does a theist find any definition of "Thor" or "leprechaun" useful or relevant?
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No, but they do find relevant the definition of soul, heaven, devil, and you probably don't.
 
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roger said:
Others have tried, I shall try.

Christian, forget "ego" for a moment. Consider a super-repressed society that more or less refuses to discuss emotions. So, in their language, they have no words for "angy", "sad", "happy", "troubled", "antsy" - anything smacking of of an emotion. Instead, they put that all under the umbrella term "off". As in: "My daughter won the marathon yesterday after training for three years. I'm a bit off over it."

Okay, silly, but bear with me.

Now you, being from that country, come to America/England/whereever, and ask us for a definition of "off". Having never thought about the different emotions much, you consider "off" the only real human emotion. How would we ever communicate? All we can say is that "off" actually refers to many different things, and that it does not correspond to any specific brain state or process. It's a muddled, unclear, undefinable concept.

Yet you persist. "But I think it's a useful line of questioning. Surely you must mean something by it - I heard Joe say the other day after eating the oysters that he was starting to feel 'off'". So, what brain state are you emotionalists referring to?"

Etc.

You can see no progress can be made in that case.

Now back to ego. Despite your repeated statements, 'ego' means nothing in modern science. It's a muddled term referring to nothing in particular that the brain does, just like there is no 'off' emotion. We've discarded the term 'ego' as any kind of scientific term, which of course does not mean that it will not show up in colloquial conversation. I can feel 'off' after eating oysters, but everyone understands that is just sort of a inarticulate blanket term to describe the onset of nausea, maybe skin prickles, sweats, etc. If you went to the doctor and said "I feel off", you really haven't told him anything. He'd have to ask you a long series of questions to figure out how you really feel.

Likewise, if you say somebody has a big ego, or whatever, you aren't saying anything scientific. As a casual conversation element, it's fine I guess, but it isn't saying anything definitive. As scientists, we don't thing there is anything in the brain corresponding to 'ego'. It's just all the scientific terms for things that do exist haven't yet fully trickled down to our everyday language. So, we say 'ego' sometimes. It ain't real, just like 'off' ain't a real emotion with well defined, measurable physiological events.
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Eckhart Tolle, in the "The Power of Now" defines ego as:

"The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind."

I think most people here would not care for this definition. As I pointed out before, ego seems to be a big word now among many theists.
 
Sledge said:
Why? Is this thread about your hypothesis not the ideal place to discuss your hypothesis?
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It's just getting messy, IMO. I want to state a position in a clearer way. This threat, for me, was not about the hypothesis but the definition of a term as defined by atheists. I think I got a lot of good information on that.
 
Christian said:
No, but they do find relevant the definition of soul, heaven, devil, and you probably don't.
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What do those words have in common with "ego?" Ego has nothing to do with religious or magical thinking.

Christian said:
Eckhart Tolle, in the "The Power of Now" defines ego as:

"The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind."

I think most people here would not care for this definition. As I pointed out before, ego seems to be a big word now among many theists.
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Do you have any evidence of this? You've got one author who has a handful of woo followers, who may have a new definition of ego, just as other authors with a larger handful of woo followers have a new definition of the word secret.

You need to distinguish the average theist (old age woo) from followers of new age woo. If you ask the average Christian, Jew, or Muslim how they would define the word ego, you would get the same answer you got from the atheists here.
 
Sun Countess said:
If you ask the average Christian, Jew, or Muslim how they would define the word ego, you would get the same answer you got from the atheists here.
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This is an interesting comment that talks about methodology. I'll bring up this point on the new thread. I don't want to continue on this one, so I'll bow out. Thanks to all.
 
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