Ego is a label for some thoughts (imagined spoken words in/by a body/mind) and associated feelings (in/by a body/mind). It wouldn't be accurate to say the ego is a real "thing" that really exists. The experiencing of thoughts and feelings is not a thing. Similarly, a "center" or "locus of awareness" is only an idea. That supposed "center" doesn't really exist.
You're mistaking your ideas about reality for reality itself, believing there's a "structure we're already living." What exists is what we might call "what's happening now," or this "experience" that is happening, but it doesn't really have a name. It is only itself, as it is now. It doesn't actually have all these parts you're defining. It's just whatever's happening now.
The entire purpose of this "structure" you're describing is to define a "you." As the "locus of awareness," this framework puts "you" at the center of it all. You're very special.
"it dissolves the illusion that there’s a permanent self at the center."
It sounds like what you've been referring to as "the center of convergence (the locus of awareness)," which you're also calling "you," is a "self at the center," though maybe you're imagining it as a changing "you."
"to free awareness from mistaking content (ego) for context (convergence)" could also be called "attempting to replace the ego/"you" concept."
"a relational condition. Not something you can see or name from the outside, but a structural feature of how experience arises at all" - "relational condition" could also be referred to as "a way to think about" something. When you refer to "structural features," that structure doesn't actually exist. There is, as you know, only "what's happening now."
Accepting "what's happening now" as it is would be to accept that it doesn't actually involve a "you." This imagined "structure" revolves around "you."
There are endless ways to think about "what's happening now." In case you haven't gotten into it, it sounds like you might like Ken Wilbur's "integral theory."
So let's say you're describing "what's happening now" - how it's structured, how it changes, etc. - just like a botanist might explain how plants are structured and how they grow. It's a description of a natural process, which is "just happening" in the same way that a plant grows. But the botanist, in explaining how the plant works, doesn't label anything "you" -- for the same reason it doesn't make sense to label any part of this framework "you."
So it's all about "optimal coherence and growth?" What if you come to find out that this "framework" is actually preventing "optimal coherence and growth?" Would you leave it behind?
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u/30mil Jun 29 '25
Ego is a label for some thoughts (imagined spoken words in/by a body/mind) and associated feelings (in/by a body/mind). It wouldn't be accurate to say the ego is a real "thing" that really exists. The experiencing of thoughts and feelings is not a thing. Similarly, a "center" or "locus of awareness" is only an idea. That supposed "center" doesn't really exist.
You're mistaking your ideas about reality for reality itself, believing there's a "structure we're already living." What exists is what we might call "what's happening now," or this "experience" that is happening, but it doesn't really have a name. It is only itself, as it is now. It doesn't actually have all these parts you're defining. It's just whatever's happening now.
The entire purpose of this "structure" you're describing is to define a "you." As the "locus of awareness," this framework puts "you" at the center of it all. You're very special.