"marika"
gmail.com> wrote in message
news:WuednX2vGupgkFLVnZ2dnUVZ_oHinZ2d@rcn.net...>
> "Tom"
comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:MaCdnd1HF-eMDlDVnZ2dnUVZ_jadnZ2d@comcast.com...
>>> It's not simply a "belief". It's a considered judgment.
>>
>> Please read "How the Mind Works", by Dr. Steven Pinker, Psychology Dept.
>> Harvard University, as an introduction to how this judgment arose.
>>
You didn't ask him any questions, according to your "citation". You admit
quite freely that you weren't paying any attention to anything he was saying
and that you couldn't think of any intelligent questions to ask at all.
Perhaps you should sit down and think of some now.
>>> is the point then that people who are say mentally ill enough to be
>>> locked up, are their egos broken, or would they be even more successful
>>> if say there were no societal controls that require their lock up
>>
>> "Mentally ill" covers a wide variety of cognitive, perceptual, emotional,
>> and behavioral problems. It's incredibly simplistic to describe all
>> people with mental illnesses as having "broken egos".
>
> I didn't say that they all have broken egos, I asked if they did.
Obviously, the answer is "No, that isn't the point". Perhaps that answer
is not to your satisfaction either.
> Maybe they have more efficient egos and we just don't get it and lock them
> up because it interferes with our concept of what egos should be doing.
All of them? Or only some of them? As I say, "mental illness" covers a
wide variety of problems. It's incredibly simplistic to try to lump all of
them together. Is there any one particular person who you would like to
cite as an example of how a "more efficient ego" gets one locked up as
mentally ill?
>> Many organic survival mechanisms are either a fault or a plus depending
>> on the situation.
>
> well yeah but that means that you can explain anything with anything with
> words.
No, it doesn't. Perhaps you're just hungry and not paying attention again.
> How come animals didn't develop ego as a survival mechanism, or did they
> and we just can't talk good enough to determine that they did?
I'd say that any animal that is aware that it exists has an ego. Some
animals, when seeing themselves in a mirror are unable to recognize that the
image they see is their own reflection. Others can. So far, only magpies
have been shown to have this trait among birds. Chimpanzees display this
ability in about 75%% of the subjects studied. Other ape species succeed
less often. The trick is in the development of the fore-brain. Birds and
apes developed their forebrains differently, but in some respects they seem
to do pretty close to the same things. In humans, the forebrain is
drastically larger and more complex than in any other species, which
accounts for the drastically more complex egos we display.
> I can't see well to read for long periods, anymore. But I did make some
> inroads into some of Dawkins. He asked some questions in the book that
> made me wonder,. He pointed out that alot of mammals survived dinosaur
> times because they became nocturnal, and developed eyes that work really
> well at night enabling them to hunt better when they aren't so much prey
> as predator. I think night vision would have been more useful than ego.
> If in fact it is a survival mechanism. So many entities appear to
> survive just fine without it.
Your logic is faulty. Back to birds again for an example. Many species
survive just fine without wings to fly away from danger. That doesn't mean
that, just because some animals can't fly, wings are not a survival
mechanism.
> ego's just a definition of a very vague concept that maybe even doesn't
> exist, sorta like god.
There are lots of different usages to the term "ego". It helps if you can
arrive at an mutually acceptable definition before trying to argue with
someone about it. If you prefer to keep the term vague, then clearly there
isn't much ground for a thoughtful conversation between us.
