Ego-death, Cognitive Dissonance, and Confusion
What causes these phenomenon?
In some cases, a complete psychological breakdown can result in an individual experiencing these symptoms, and intense nihilistic depression will set in. I propose a philosophical answer, although it could most undoubtedly be explained by physical causes within the brain (which I do not doubt – the psychological explanation probably simultaneously coincides with the physical explanation).
I will try to avoid the question of “What causes cognitive dissonance and other neuroses?” “Is it a chemical imbalance within the brain causing it, or the result of the individual’s own psyche?”
The individual realizes that their mind has been doing nothing besides “chasing after the wind” (for those of you familiar with Ecclesiastes), and that their cognition has been running down its own self-created pleasure. There is no external pleasure, purpose, satisfaction, or meaning to be obtained – other than what the individual creates for his/herself within their own mind.
Fatalism then sets in, as the individual realizes that it would be just as fulfilling if they did absolutely nothing in life, and sat immobile in their room – the pleasure would ultimately be equivalent to the pleasure gained from actually trying in life and being productive.
They then realize that their position in existence is purely situational – they choose to get up and be productive in life because there mind has perceived it as the most viable option. On the contrary, when they choose to sit around apathetic like and not do anything, their mind has also perceived it to be the most viable option.
How does our free-will play into this? Debating the existence of free-will aside - we know that acknowledging the existence of some future event allows us to change the outcome. It is contradictory to think “we have no free-will” for a particular situation, because having knowledge of the situation gives us a vantage point for working towards an alternative - this is what our “free-will” is derived from.
So then, to respond to the dilemma of “doing something” or “not doing something”, to be apathetic or to be productive, the individual decides that it would be best to do completely one or completely the other. He/she thinks “If I have free-will, then any act of productivity in life is demonstration of this free-will, and any deviation from productivity would show my lack of free-will. Therefore, I must be productive all the time. But wait, it is impossible to exist in total productivity, I must rest when I am fatigued, and I must eat when I am hungry – so then, isn’t my productivity purely situational and beyond my control? Then where did this momentary boost of motivation come from?”
It could be concluded that the perceived “momentary boost of motivation” was actually just the sensation of the brain reaching optimal conditions – the mind is well rested, the body is well fed, and the previous sensation of apathy is eliminated as a result. Any “spontaneous burst of willpower” is actually just the result of the brain replenishing itself.
However, it could also be said that we have UNLIMITED willpower when choosing any particular course of action, and our perceived “apathy” is just our own willpower working against us. We do not like the sensation that comes with exhausting ourselves or working hard, so our own willpower had previously decided to support the decision of “being apathetic”. Therefore, whenever we feel unable to “will” ourselves into doing something productive, it is because we have also “willed” ourselves into not doing something productive. The will has worked against itself, and hence we perceive a “lack of willpower”.
This conclusion causes us to wander into the spooky proposition of “multiple selves” – How could our “one unified willpower” be set against itself in determining the outcome of a choice? How could I, myself, the sole governor of my “willpower”, be set against myself? How could I will myself towards apathy, then be unable to rebuke this “willing” when I want to be willed towards productivity?
It seems common sense, to ourselves, to our own mind, how one “self” could be willed against itself with two opposing decisions in a particular choice-- how the “one self” could be apathetic and unwilling to do something, yet the same “one self” could also want to do that particular something, and be willed in favor of doing it.
But now, imagine a foreigner to the concept of a “mind” (or at least the concept of a human mind). Would they not be baffled as to how “one self” could be willed against itself? Furthermore, would we not be baffled in our inability to find words that explain it to them? To them, this “willing against ones self” would seem to be (and rightfully so) a “schism” of that self – the “one self” could not be “one”, or at very least it could not be unified, since two opposing “wills” exist within the self.
In our attempt to try and explain this schism, we would eventually come to a point where we would suggest that our mind has a wordless “language” that it uses to communicate with itself – with this language, the two opposing “selves” willing against each other will speak to each other and determine the victor, and no amount of written/verbal language or rationality is able to persuade the outcome.
The logical and rational part of our mind might say “It is illogical and purposeless to sit idly and apathetically, not being productive and not accomplishing anything!” and albeit logical and rational and quite convincing to that part of the mind itself, it is still unable to persude the part of our mind responsible for representing physical limitations - which in a language of its own, a language of sensation (something that was never translated hitherto, and in a sense, still remains wholly undecipherable) speaks to the logical part of the mind in its native language saying “The body is weak and exhausted, and any attempt at productivity right now would be met with a horrible lag of inefficiency. I remain unpersuaded, and I still vote towards apathy.”
Although we are not met with such a voice, we are simply met with a sensation - the sensation explains to us immediately and wordlessly that the body is unwilling to be productive.
This is our “true” self – the self of sensation. The other “self”, that is, the logical and rational self, is something which emerged solely as a result of socialization. We needed a method of communicating with other human beings, and our “logical self” (or, our “ego”) serves as the translator. It is nothing more than a “story” which we invent to aid our communication with other people. Sometimes, it has the nasty side-effect of carrying over into our actual train of thought, to become an “opposing self” within our own minds - a voice that constantly speaks against our choice of actions. Since the ego is nothing more than a mask, an illusion that is limited to whichever language it is expressed in (be it English, body language, facial expressions, eye contact, etc) – with these limitations (and since its sole purpose may be to accuse others of their wrongdoings), its presence within the mind can cause nothing but trouble - posing as a constant obstactle for our true inner self, that of “sensation”.
To be honest and clear, our true “inner” self wants nothing besides food, homeostasis (shelter, clothing, breathing, sleeping, etc), sex, and power. The purpose of the latter is simply to help aid the individual as he/she seeks to obtain the former.
Cognitive dissonance then, is indeed the product of over-socialization - as suspected. The over-socialized individual has given too much authority to the ego, and as a result, every attempted action needs a moral justification before permission is granted.
However, when such authority is given, an ocean of endless uncertainty is encountered. Morality, and “justified righteousness”, are relative to the individual perceiving them - to an extent, they are always incommunicable and their existences unproveable. Within the mind of a philosopher (which is almost always an individual who is oversocialized, since an unfulfilled desire to connect with others is what caused them to undertake the task of contemplating philosophy, such as to give themselves ego-credentials), this endless uncertainty is taken as an indication that no actions can be justifiable – insecurities begin accumulating, and the “shadow” of the ego begins to emerge. With no action being “justifiable”, the individual comes across as insecure and anxious to anybody he meets in conversation. The result is, that no one is able to believe the individual and in fact they are repelled by the individual, and the individual sinks deeper into the downward spiral.
The uncertainty forms a psychological scab - all attempts to solve the uncertainty only end up pulling the individual into sessions of cognitive dissonance. Only when the individual manages to “stop picking at the scab”, or shifts into a new perspective, will the cognitive dissonance cease. Hopefully, the individual will forget about the scab, and eventually never think about it again (or atleast when they do think about it, they will think it was foolish to worry about such trivial things).
Or the individual must come to terms with uncertainty being a necessity. Or, the individual must come to terms with his/her own thoughts as being immoral and rightfully selfish.
The individual views it as problematic that all thoughts and actions are created simply due to personal wants and desires.
The individual must accept that although their perception of others is completely subjective (and other people’s perception of the individual are completely subjective), and there is no objective “justification” for validating anyone’s decisions. The only thing that can “justify” and “validate” decisions is the individual themselves, and they will just have to rely on their better judgment as being “true” (or at least as true as it can get) for all practical purposes.
On a slightly unrelated subject, I want to tell you about what I’ve observed in those who argue about the existence of free-will"
People who don’t believe in free-will are correct. In their minds, they have worked the situation into an ultimatum, where their very definition of “free will” does not allow for its existence. When broken down, their thoughts on the matter are:
“Free will could not exist”
which translates to
“Independent action not governed by external influences could not exist”
which then translates to
“Something that could not exist, could not exist”
Their very definition of “Free Will” does not allow for its existence. They define free-will as “the ability of an independent subject to interact with external phenomenon while not being influenced by external phenomenon”. Their argument is then “How could something interact with external phenomenon without having been influenced by external phenomenon? If they were influenced by external phenomenon, then they are not an independent subject, and could not exercise free-will.”
People who do believe in free-will are correct. In their minds, any argument against free-will would be self-contradictory in nature - or total blasphemy. They think “You are choosing to deny the existence of free-will, and you are choosing to read this right now, and you could choose not to choose, but you would have made a choice in the process of not choosing. You can choose to move your hands for no apparent reason, or get up out of your seat and do something completely arbitrary, obscure, and meaningless. There was no external influence causing you to do those things, other than an influence from within your own mind. If you were to say that you can not choose to do any of those things, then you are knowingly a liar. Your denial of free will’s existence stems out of your lack of being able to understand it. Just because you are unable to understand something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.”
Then, the two opposing parties, both presenting equally valid arguments, will clash at each other and argue about rhetorical contradictions that are rooted in the nature of the very foundation of the English language (and indeed all languages) themselves.
We could just reach the conclusion if everyone were to tell themselves:
“I know that I am able to make decisions and choices, and it is ‘I’ that does the decision making - I know that my own willpower exists beyond a reasonable doubt (excluding bizarre scenarios or sophist proposition), although I am unable to grasp the mechanics of how it exists.”
Besides, we all know that people who deny free-will only do so because they have the motive of shutting the world out, and hiding behind a wall of their self-sustained misery. “That guy who picked on me in high school isn’t better than me, because he doesn’t even realize that he has no free-will! Haha, I’m better than him!”