The Ego and its Logic

Just as the motions of the heavenly bodies follow an inviolate and repetitive pattern, so does the perturbations of the embodied mind.

One of my favorite psychological maxims: "Every behavior is meaningful.” Even the seemingly reckless and thoughtless ones. And this is by no means a novel insight.

Let’s start with some couple of psychological axioms about the abstraction called Ego.

1. Every ego (a Freudian fancy term for the part of the self that knows it exists independently from other existing or dead selves) has its own logic (that is, the way it sees and thinks about reality and the world).

2. No two separate egos, no matter how closely related, possess the same internal logic (‘schema’ would seem the cognate term in cognitive science parlance). It simply means no two individuals have the same perceptual outlook.

3. The logic of any given ego always makes sense in and of itself even when it manifests such counterintuitive properties as self-sabotage or self-harm.

4. The strength and functional dynamics of any ego rest upon the primal concoction of ‘ids’ (impulses, urges, desires, needs, feelings) it has to contend with plus the moral principles it progressively develops, encounters and imbibes in the course of its developmental career. The more normal and moderate the former the better, and the more liberal and flexible the latter the better.

However, this post is written primarily to address the third axiom which is a slight elaboration on the first. I won’t bother to further specify what we usually mean when we talk about “the ego” beyond what I already specified in the first axiom. For the purpose of this essay, an exact definition (which is impossible for such a notoriously abstract and controversial concept) is not necessary. So that even if there's hopelessly no consensus as to what the ‘ego’ means, there's near consensus as to the set of qualities/phenomena that the term is often used to denote, eg, self-consciousness, self-awareness, meta-cognition, impulse-control, subjectivity, decision-making, the faculty of judgment, reality testing etc. All of these phenomena/concepts are circumscribed by the much broader concept of the ego.

But what does it mean for the ego to have a logic? Do animals have ego or its equivalent? Ego is a Latin word that translates in English to ‘I’ in the subjective linguistic form, and to ‘Me’ in the objective linguistic form. Semantic example: “I am hungry” (ego as the subject of hunger) or “Hunger is draining me” (ego as the direct object of hunger). In both cases, however, there is an experience, an experiencing subject or the experience target-object, and a sensation of the experience.

Why Leopards Are Not Egotists

Every animal, indeed, every living object, is capable of all three psychophysiological processes described in the last paragraph. Yet, it’d be absurd to apply our concept of ‘the ego’ to, say, a Snail. Why not? Afterall, a Snail is equally capable of feeling hunger (id), ‘knowing’ itself to be hungry (sensation) and acting in order to rid itself of the physiological discomfort it occasions (purposeful action). Yet, why can’t we say things like; ‘The Leopard has a cunny ego’ even though we could (and have said) something like ‘The Leopard is cunny’? I think this is because in humans, between the sensory registration of an urge/impulse and the initiation of an action/response there exists a region/gap occupied by thought (or information processing) which is neither automatic nor merely reactive (even though it could assume both qualities). This thought process which bridges the gap between stimulus and response in higher animals thus has the additional qualities of being active (it could be summoned to the very forefront of consciousness right when it's still happening rather than merely operating in the background) and being a potential (it is neither always present nor active as there are conditions where it may be underdeveloped, absent, blocked, suppressed, or impaired). It is this vital gap (between what is felt/sensed and what is done in response to that feeling/sensation), occupied by deliberate thinking (as opposed to the automatic type), that makes the concept of ‘the ego’ very applicable to humans and less to animals. Hence, between the Leopard and the totality of its behavioral responses judged as ‘cunny’ there is no mediating ‘I’ or subject, only mediating objects or processes (such as automaticity, climatic condition, intensity of stimulus, competing animals, the prey etc.)

Thus, even when we perceive the Leopard’s behavior as ‘cunny’, we do not think its cunny a product of a systematic, complex, deliberately cultivated thinking processes, nor do we think it is aware of the full range of motive behind its behavior, nor can it answer the query: why the hell did you do that? Or maybe it can if it’s capable of speech. But I doubt this very much because the behavior of an adult human incapable of speech is still qualitatively different from that of any animal in terms of its unpredictability and lack of full automaticity - which seems to me the two properties of behavior that could be offered as proofs of the presence of as well as the capacity for behavior-mediating thinking processes (the ego) in any living system. And because this thinking capacity is never present fully formed but merely as a potential, it has to be cultivated from birth through active but automatic processing of external experiences relative to internal states from a perspective that necessarily extends outwards (inside-out). It also entails the far less automatic process of processing internal experiences which takes a longer developmental time and resources to mature. The first is what guarantees our capacity for systematically responding to our external environment, while the second process guarantees our capacity for systematically responding to our internal environment. These two mutually exclusive but highly complementary brain processes, the second of which its absence in animals is more pronounced, together define the concept of ‘the ego’, its development as well as its accidents.

And So…

Because the ego ‘thinks’, we are permitted to speak of “the ego and its logic”. The ego, however, because of the nature and variety of materials it works with, cannot be logical in its thinking processes in the most objective sense. In fact, this isn't necessary for it to discharge its primary function. The only instance the ego is capable of what approaches pure objective thinking (though inconsistently so) is perhaps when it engages a material that is wholly inanimate (e.g. iron, stones, numbers, water, etc.) or when thinking about largely mechanical processes (e.g. washing, weeding, cooking, walking, etc.). The ego is necessarily and fundamentally compromised by the very highest function it exists to serve - judgement by thinking. When pondering animated subjects (humans, animals, heavenly bodies, time, stories, etc.) it cannot help but project and superimpose itself on its subject matter. But even within this compulsively subjective universe, the ego, in its logic, makes up for what it lacks in objectivity with internal consistency.

Albeit, and unfortunately, the ego’s lack of external objectivity is easier and quicker to be perceived than its internal consistency. Hence the accumulation of impressive empirical and theoretical volumes on cognitive biases, implicit biases, stereotype threat, cognitive distortions, blind spots, and the likes. Yet, one would be hard press to come across any material that recognizes and praises the ego (the subjective self) for its remarkable and often predictable internal consistency. This is partially because of the narrowness (or strictness in higher chambers of learning) of the popular understanding of what it means for something to be logical. But it is also due to the inherent limitation of the mind doing the logic - it is but a weak apparatus. According to the scientifically acceptable definition of ‘logic’, a logical string of statements or a logical argument, among other criteria, does not admit of contradiction(s) among its constituent elements. Also, students of philosophy know very well that an argument may not be true yet valid as long as it has a sound structure. But the logic of the ego does not (indeed, cannot) follow these general rules of logic chiefly because; first, it operates within an egocentric (self-enclosed) universe. In other words, the rules of logic (internal consistency, structural validity, falsifiability, parsimony, testability, etc.) only apply in the scientific (objective) universe. Second, the chief task of an ego is not to find what is true and verifiable but to establish what is real, determine what is threatening, and to defend to the death the life and dignity of its owner. In fulfilling this most sacred and highest of duties, truth is often sacrificed and replaced with the more expedient ‘real’ - for the ego, it is not about what is true and valid, but what feels real and, therefore, valid. Hence, the accurate Freudian conception of the primary ego function being “reality testing”. In other words, the ego does not necessarily operate by the principle of consensus; what is true and real for one ego can be false and imaginary for another.

Internal Consistency

The logic of the ego begins and ends with Internal Consistency. Every other function is subjugated by, and to, this principle. This is all that matters when trying to make sense of an individual’s behaviors/choices. But what does it mean for an ego to be possessed with a logic capable of and indeed characterized by internal consistency? What does it mean for something to have internal consistency? This is how Wikipedia explains it:

In statistics and research, internal consistency is typically a measure based on the correlations between different items on the same test (or the same subscale on a larger test). It measures whether several items that propose to measure the same general construct produce similar scores. For example, if a respondent expressed agreement with the statements "I like to ride bicycles" and "I've enjoyed riding bicycles in the past", and disagreement with the statement "I hate bicycles", this would be indicative of good internal consistency of the test.

In simpler terms, internal consistency is when two things (whether concepts, events, traits, statements, qualities, predictions, outcomes) agree or disagree with each other as expected. This ‘expectation’ is logically determined as in the Wikipedia example above. So that through the principle of logic, we know that an endorsement of the statement; “I like to ride bicycles” should mean a necessary endorsement of related statement “I’ve enjoyed riding bicycles in the past”. This double endorsement does not tell us whether the person is telling the truth or lying. Rather, it’s telling us that whether the person is lying or saying the truth, they are doing so consistently. Their endorsement pattern does have what we may conceive of as ‘integrity’ or ‘reliability’. The opposite of internal consistency would then seem to be internal contradiction. But in the peculiar universe of the ego, even a logic riddled with internal contradictions can still be meaningful if the internal contradictions are consistent. Thus, if there’s a consistent pattern to the way two things fail to agree or disagree with themselves, then we can still regard them as having a negative internal consistency. This principle is recognized in the design of MMPI scales VRIN (Variable Response Inconsistency) and TRIN (True Response Inconsistency) which are both regarded as the Inconsistency scales. When a respondent endorses the items in a way that is consistent, the VRIN scale is not elevated when plotted. If the endorsement pattern is inconsistent, the scale is more or less elevated depending on the degree of inconsistency. However, this elevation is not meaningless, and it has its own encoded interpretations in the test manual. Hence, in a more rigorous term, the opposite of internal consistency is not internal contradiction or internal inconsistency but inconsistent internal inconsistency or inconsistent internal consistency.

Of Humans And Judgment

One of the instincts of the human person is to judge. It is one of the necessary and fundamental functions for which the mind evolved to perform. A human person must cultivate and learn to exercise his faculty of judging in order to survive the intricacies of the physical, social, and psychological worlds. In order to act purposefully and successfully judgment is first necessary. The quality of judgment invariably determines the quality of decision which in turn determines the effectiveness of action which in turn determines the overall quality of life.

This judging function of the mind is what has been assigned the name 'superego' (the moralizing and value-rating faculty of the human mind) which is a bit conceptually different from 'executive function' in that the latter subsumes judgement as one of its executive tasks and much besides. And it's this judging function, necessary and fundamental to individual survival (via the decision and actions it stipulates), that often stands in the way of understanding another human being. In other words, it is what makes it difficult for one ego to understand the motivation and, hence, the logic of another.

A Necessarily Bounded Ego

It's difficult for an ego to exist outside its own realities without risking a dangerous dislocation with itself (think of dissociative and depersonalizing experiences associated with some psychological disorders/phenomena such as self-harm, fugue, and DID). Hence, we find a typical human so intimately entrenched in its own internal universe but possessing very little to no awareness of other psychological universes. As far as each individual human psychic universe is concerned, the geocentric (or if you like, reverse the first two letters) paradigm still reigns supreme and it's hopeless waiting for a Copernican revolution. The psychological universe is still largely a Freudian universe and would likely forever remain so.

Hence, psychologically, there are no right or wrong judgements, but there are good and bad judgements. Another way of saying this is that in psychological realms, there's no morality, only values. Morality is however a necessary metaphysical invention to protect collective egos from particular ego.

The Ego And Its Burdens

The ego is saddled with a tremendously difficult job, depending on the job description dictated by its owner’s biopsychosocial constitution. To be successful at its job, the ego has to do some things it isn't always proud of because its boss wouldn't take no for an answer. The ego has to cut corner, lie, manipulate, threaten, use violence, rationalize, justify, coerce, appeal, pretend, and sometimes even threaten to immolate itself just to protect its intermittently insecure boss: and the more insecure and tangled its owner’s psychology is, the more of these shady and terrible things it has to engage in. This is the blue-collar executive function of the mind, and it is a low dirty job compared to its elevated white collar counterpart (the executive function).

When another human being is talking about their own realities, we often necessarily listen to them through the stained lens of our own realities (internal and external) and thus encounters what I term 'clashes of realities' - sometimes, the meeting of two different realities are congruent in their mechanism of reasoning and judging. But often time, the two realities are in conflict so much that understanding of one by the other is hopelessly blocked, and in the extreme case, violently forbidden.

Yet understanding does not even remotely mean agreement with or approval of what is understood. It is just that: understanding. Or comprehension. Or appreciation. To, for example, understand that someone stays in an abusive relationship because it guarantees some psychosocial securities does not mean approval of this logic. But it means that the array of logic-bending choices and behaviours encountered suddenly make perfect sense in the context of the specific logic of the ego behind such behaviours. And with this perspective, it becomes easier to perceive the remarkable internal consistency of the ego.

Therapy, Therapists, And The Ego Barrier

In a two-person therapeutic encounter, the therapist has two basic tasks: first is the task of ‘listening with intent’, and second is the task of ‘making sense’ of what is being revealed. The first is easy enough and can be done by any decent listener. The second is where the real difficulty lies and where most people, including many therapists (including myself) constantly fall short. Why? Because we often try to understand the other person in terms of our own ego universe (perhaps it's doomed to be this way). We instinctively try to accommodate the words of the person in communion with us into our own ego-logic rather than accommodating ourselves into the logic of the ego unravelling itself before us. In other words, to really understand another person different from us, it is necessary to partially abandon our own reality (our own customized point of view) in order for us to be able to temporarily assume the perspective of a mind external (and foreign to boot) to our own reality. Is this possible? Maybe, maybe not. However, to not do this or to be incapable of doing this is to often find the other person's reasoning truly strange or perverse or irrational. And if you ask this other person, they would perhaps find yours strange and insensible, too.

The Shortsightedness Of Insight

One of the canonical goals of psychotherapy is to help clients achieve insight into their intra- and interpersonal processes in the hope that this would subsequently provide the internal impetus for self-instigated adjustment. Under this conception, insight is seen as a one-way trip - in which the highway to insight always leads from the therapist to the client. However, there is an inherent shortcoming in this understanding: insight ought to be bidirectional. But it has always been treated as unidirectional both in professional and academic conversations about therapy. Insight is almost always treated as something the client needs to achieve. Whereas the therapist is thought to be in no need of such crude enlightenment into their own therapeutic processes (both in terms of their internal mechanics and their respective methods). In fact, the therapist is assumed to be putatively insightful about the patient’s condition and merely needs to help the patient achieve same. But is the therapist really insightful ab initio? Does the therapist always achieve Insight into the nature of the phenomenon they're engaging with? Insight into or about what or who? This may be one of the most erroneous and harmful assumptions in psychotherapy: that therapists, by virtue of their relative position as the professional helper, are in state of insight already. But this is categorically untrue.

First, full Insight, either by the therapist or the patient, can never be attained as a result of both the epistemological and psychological limits of human knowledge and knowing. The former a consequence of our collective state of knowledge about human psychology, and the latter a consequence of the limitation and self-opposing nature of the ego. Hence, the pursuit of insight is at once necessarily progressive, regressive, cumulative, and nonlinear.

The Bidirectionality Of Insight

Insight achievement is bidirectional in two senses. First, insight by the therapist about the patient's condition and their own psychological processes relative to the clinical subject before them. Second, insight by the patient: insight work ought to be engaged in by the patient about his condition; its etiology, dynamics, and implications. And that one side of the insight equation has been sufficiently resolved doesn't necessarily imply or guarantee the other is or will be: that is, that a therapist has good insight into the patient's web of conflicts does not mean the patient does too or would ever.

Insight is also bidirectional in an intrapersonal sense: that is, insight directed at the patient by the patient and insight directed towards the therapist by the therapist. The emphasis has always been on insight oriented outward compared to that oriented inward. Both senses are crucial in successful therapeutic encounters.

The Dissolution Of The Egocentric Barrier

But underlying both types of insight is the capacity for self-detachment and self-abandonment. The former makes self-awareness possible, the latter makes mental orientation towards another possible. Temporary abandonment (or at least a loosening) of the orienting core (the egocentric perspective) is a precondition for truly connecting with another egocentric entity with all its logical fallacies. To hold on unflinchingly to all the beliefs and assumptions that characterize one's own schema is to solidify the egocentric wall that necessarily defines the boundary between two individuals. Connection and understanding happen when this wall is temporarily liquified or dissolved. In other words, self-reduction or ego-shrinking is necessary for self-extension into psychic territories outside our own.

Another way to conceptualize this process of trying to understand another mind external to ours was described by Richard Gipps in a lecture titled 'What's Love Got To Do With It'. He wrote:

"The idea of love as attention has however primarily been associated with Simone Weil. I want to stress that hers is a moralized notion of attention: it’s an attention that involves getting oneself out of the way so that one can truly, receptively, take in the other in all his particularity".

Here is him quoting Simone Weil:

"Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object… Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object that is to penetrate it. (Waiting for God, p. 111-2)".

Again, he wrote:

"Essential to this attention, then, is getting oneself out of the way so that the other may truly be seen for who she is."

Now, whether it's ever possible for any human being to exist in a state of self-induced blankness of thought is debatable. However, to the extent that this is achievable, it eliminates the impurities that one ego brings while trying to comprehend another.

PS: Complement Gipps insight with John Shlien's A Counter Theory of Transference.