Extracts from Dr. Thomas Campbell's My Big TOE: a trilogy unifying Philosophy, Physics and Metaphysics Part I

(From "My Big TOE" By Thomas Campbell, Chapter 8 pp. 113 - 118)

Ego and Intellect, humility, compassion and love

Now that we are talking about feelings, personality, and ways of being, a discussion on the role and function of ego and its relationship to fear will be helpful. To understand ego you must first understand fear. At the deepest level, fear is generated by ignorance within a consciousness of low quality. Fear and high entropy are mutually supportive - one creates and encourages the other. 

Earlier we mentioned that evolutionary pressure was at the root of the four major motivators of humankind: 1) survival and material success, 2) male-female relationship and sex, 3) influence, control and power and 4)  self-improvement, love and fear. The first three are the direct result of physical evolution whereas the last is a product of consciousness evolution. All four are uniquely blended together within each individual. It is this motivational mixture that drives the bulk of our choices.

Whenever an individual perceives that he or she is seriously lacking any of the first three, fear is generated, especially if the consciousness quality is low. Additionally, fear arises from incomplete knowledge or understanding - it leaps up in dread of unknown possibilities. Worry, anxiety or feelings of inadequacy breed insecurity and fear. Ignorance fanning the flames of fear can quickly whip itself into a blaze of insecurities building one upon the other.Many of us have experienced this unhealthy degenerative process when a loved one becomes unexpectedly ill, hurt or is unaccounted for and we do not know how the situation is going to turn out. 

Fear resides in the intent or motivation, not in the action. For example, purposely avoiding trouble may be an act of good judgement and not necessarily an act motivated by fear. Fear as a product of intent represents a state or condition of consciosuness. Fear is like mind-cancer; it is a disease of consciounsess, a dysfunctional condition of ignorance trapped in a little picture [as oppose to a Big Picture view] Fear is expressed by a high entropy intent driving action that reflects neither understanding or vision. Like a biological cancer, fear is debilitating and destructive of the system in which it grows. 

Ego is the the direct result of fear. Needs, wants, expectations and desires are generated by the ego as part  of its short-sighted strategy to reduce the anxiety produced by fear. Desire is generated by wants and needs, but not all desire is fear-based or counter-productive. Basic (lower level) desires such as sex and hunger are not necessarily fear-based, and the desire to improve yourself (if the motivation is correct) can be a strong positive incentive. In general, when I speak of desire, I am referring to the desire that arises in response to the needs of the ego.

The ego and intellect are expressions of the individual being; they reflect the quality of the consciousness of that being. Fear is the reaction of that being to the perception of a vulnerability, problem or difficulty. The ego lives and works between the fears and desires on one side, and the intellect on the other. It is a trusted advisor to the intellect with the special job of neutralizing the dysfunctional effects of the fear, as well as defining and focusing on things desired (wants, needs and expectations).

A simple example of a fear-desire pair is the fear of being inadequate coupled to a need of appearing to be inadequate.  The ego-need is usually satisfied by any contrivance that appears to deny the existence of, or compensate for, the fear - regardless of how superficial or transparent this strategy is to others. The ego is hard pressed to create a viewpoint that decreases the anxiety produced by the fear - any viewpoint that works and works quickly is satisfactory. Holes and discrepancies in the rationality of the ego's viewpoint are quickly filled by convenient beliefs. It is the ego's job to reduce anxiety and discomfort by sweeping disconcerting fears under the rug. The ruling principle is out of sight, out of mind; or equivalently, out of awareness; out of personal reality. 

An individual's ego and intellect work together to develop and justify those wants, needs, desires, expectations and belief that are required to prevent fear from adversely affecting the functional (operative) awareness of the individual - their mission is to make sure the individual always feels good about him or her self. No ploy or deceit, as long as it can be suitably justified, is off limits. This dynamic-duo's most useful strategy is to maintain a fantasy of power, significance, importance, adequacy, correctness, competancy, invulnerability, superiority, righteousness, or whatever it takes to allay the anxiety produced by the fear. 

Fantasy or delusion is integrated into the perceived reality of the individual by that individual's interpretation of the experience. Of the three (fear, ego and intellect) the fear is the only one that is fundamentally powerful. The others, like the Wizard Of Oz, derive most of their power from illusion and trickery. 

But what about the power of the intellect?  The intellect of mankind is the evolutionary accomplishment of which we are most proud. Our intellect, like Samson's hair, is the source of our power both individually and as a species. It provides the evolutionary advantage that allows us to dominate other creatures and exploit the earth.

The intellect has at least some access to, and control of memory and processing power. It can perform deductive and inductive analysis and make logical assessments by employing approximately the same approach that a computer would use to accomplish the same tasks - except the human intellect is not nearly as good at logical process as a computer. Human thinking excels at data collection, interpretation and synthesis as well as creative expression but is notoriously weak at employing logical process. We have learned to use mathematics as a tool to extend our naturally diminutive logical abilities. Without mathematics to brace our lack of natural logic ability, our ascent to power would have stalled in the nineteenth century if not before. Being logical to any significant depth does not come naturally to mankind (much less to womankind) because it is not particularly important to our purpose.

We need only enough acumen for logical processing to provide the feedback required to evolve our consciousness efficiently. We excel at data collection, interpretation and synthesis because those are the abilities we need to evolve our consciousness. More often than not, what we let pass for logical thinking in personal matters simply makes our progress more difficult. Justifying our ego, wants, needs, and desires as apparently logical requirements of our continued happiness demonstrates how our intellect can become a detriment to successful consciousness evolution. By justifying our beliefs (making them appear rational) our intellect becomes part of the belief trap's trapping mechanism. Most of us believe ourselves to be much more logical than we are.

When it comes to those activities that are most profitable to the evolution of our consciousness ( personal interaction and relationship, for example)  most of us are barely rational, much less logical. We have much to learn before we are ready to take effective charge of the more important aspects of our life and existence - that is why we are enrolled in PMR [Physical Material Reality] kindergarten for young, low quality consciousness. And why the psi uncertainty principle ... is a requirement within PMR.

Did the words "low quality" in the previous paragraph prick your ego just a little? Did you feel an emotional downer or dislike the personal implication? If it did and you did, I rest my case.

Art, intuition, and creativity do not typically flow from the intellect - though the intellect aids them all with definition and process. Pattern recognition and creative synthesis, two of our more complex cerebral functions primarily lie outside the intellect's operational capability. 

As the champion tool users in PMR, our intellect is undeniably the source of our technical prowess. Our ability to use and design more powerful tools, accmulate resources and outsmart Mother Nature, each other and ourselves is a tribute to the inventiveness of our intellect, the power of our mathematics, and our irrepressible drive to control and dominate. However, in terms of consciousness, personal power refers to the power to make right choices that lead to right action. In the Big Picture of mind-space your power is derived from the quality of your consciousness, not from your ability to force issues to resolve to your satisfaction. 

In matters of importance the intellect seldom has but a tiny fraction of the truth data required for useful logical analysis. Nevertheless, the intellect offers an illusion of being logical as it creates a smokescreen of self-serving belief, need and fear-based rationale to serve the ego's needs. It is in the service of the ego that the average intellect spends most of its time and energy. There are exceptions but they are exceedingly rarer than a poll of intellectuals would indicate. Most of the exceptions belong to a relatively small and impersonal set of crank turning tasks that require some serious intellectual effort (mostly day jobs requiring a high level of analytical skills). 

The ego, being closer to the fear, has the job of building and maintaining a feel-good fantasy barrier between the fear and the intellect. The ego, in collusion with the intellect builds a complex delusional structure held together by convenient beliefs that justify an intricate web of interactive needs, wants and desires. The ego is reactive and has no power of its own, though it has great influence by virtue of its job of counter-balancing the fear.

The intellect has the job of justifying, approving, or blessing the construction materials ( beliefs, attitudes, pseudo-knowledge, and strategies) of the ego. The information processing function develops whatever analysis (reasoning) that is resuired to support the ego's needs. Developing adequate justification for the beliefs and attitudes of ego, along with developing and executing strategies and plans to support fantasy creation  and management are the intellect's primary duties. The intellect has another job: it also processes and stores the information in memory that is required to drive a car, hold a job, earn a degree, be an engineer, find your missing car keys, get out of the rain, and so on. 

The intellect cannot, by itself, either love or lower entropy; nor does the intellect direct intent or will as you might imagine. Intent is a reflection of consciousness quality; will is applied intent - neither can be directed by analyzing data. Intent and will operate at a deeper level than intellect, which represent only the functions of information storage and data analysis. 

In summary, the intellect justifies and rationalizes what the ego requires to fabricatethe appropriate fantasy structure that must counterbalance each fear.Your fantasy structure is a system of finely tuned personal beliefs that are specifically designed to meet your needs, wants and desires and to mollify your fears. The intellect's justification defines and legitimizes the fantasy as a rational reality. 

The common ego attributes of arrogance, self-importance and self-righteousness are merely a few of the construction devices such as arches, vertical walls, and pitched roofs that the ego uses to build and maintain its delusion. If others evaluate an individual as egotistical, it means the fantasy built by that individual's intellect-ego reality construction team is obvious to the vision and understanding of others.  The degree to which you are capable of understanding the fantasy structures of others is dependent on your own personal fantasy structures. 

The devices you use to maintain your fantasies and delusions are largely not understood for what they are - whether they are employed by yourself or others. To see with clear vision you must first become detached and fearless in the face of ignorance. Without fear, there is no need for ego; no use for needs, wants and beliefs. What basic desires remain are natural, healthy and in consonance with right being and spiritual growth - they create no conflict. 

To complete the picture of ego, as defined above, you must be aware of its opposites: humility and compassion. Humility allows for confidence, certainty, self-assuredness, purpose and passion while carrying an underlying implication of awareness and recognition of limitations. The limitations of which humility is aware can originate inside or outside the individual (a wholly artificial distinction, but one that will aid the clarity of the explanation). 

An awareness of inside limitations recognizes the limits of individual knowledge and understanding (it acknowledges its own ignorance and is accepting of the ignorance of others).  An individual who fully appreciates the value, significance, and importance of others, as well as understands his or her own responsibility to be of service, reflects genuine humility. Humility breeds compassion and vice-versa. Outside limitations spring from an undestanding of the laws, properties, and requirements of reality. humility and compassion require an individual to understand their limited role within the Big Picture. As arrogance waxes, humility wanes.

In effect, humility and compassion are the antithesis of ego - they are what is left over when the ego is gone. As humility and compassion emerge, ego disappears and vice-versa. It is exceeedingly difficult to consciously and purposely develop humility, develop the quality of your consciousness, drop ego, or grow spirituality without some knowledge or undestanding of the Big Picture. Thus humility and compassion are the correct for ego, while knowledge and courage (open-minded skepticism in the relentless pursuit of truth) are the correcting mechanism for fear. Love is the result of the success of both corrections. 

Your capacity to love ( a measure of the entropy in your system) is inversely related to the ego and fear your being contains. Because the ego is generated in response to fear you can see that to love, to increase your capacity or ability to love, you must primarily let go of fear. Without fear there is no need for ego but without fear and with humility there is no ego. Both fearlessness and humility are required and are the byproducts of a successfully evolving consciousness.

A consciousness becomes the embodiment of love, humility and compassion as it engages its free-will to reduce its entropy toward the positive side of being. Thus increasing your quality of consciousness increases your capacity to love and allows your intents and actions to be animated by love. Love is the natural result of low entropy, high quality consciousness.

"Love" is the word we use to describe how a low entropy, high quality consciousness interacts with other individuated consciousness and other sentient or non-sentient entities. Love is the result of successful consciousness evolution. The capacity, ability and willingness of an individual to love is a function of how much entropy their individuated consciousness contains. Love capacity is a direct measure of entropy within consciousness. I bet you never thought you would ever see a technical definition of love.

While we are being both technical and surprising, let's give the concept of spirituality a technical definition as well. Spirituality, as it is used in this book, is equivalent to consciousness quality. You become more spiritual, demonstrate a higher spiritual quality and make progress on a spiritual growth path by lowering the entropy of your consciousness. A consciousness with lower entropy produces a consciousness of higher quality. In other words, the level of spirituality ( or degree of consciousness quality) of an individual is inversely related to the entropy the individuated consciousness contains. It is obvious that an individual's spiritual quality is directly related to his or her capacity and willingness to love.


PART II will follow sometime this month...