Why Did We Develop An Ego ?

[Orange]

It's in the title. Animals don't have an ego, why do we have one?

Or do animals have an ego as well?

Because the ego does not lead us to anything good in terms of fulfillement and peace- hapiness so why did evolution 'produce' human beings with an ego?

[Harvey]

@Orange i think there is a two type of ego unhealthy and  healthy ego which is good just like helping others and unselfish love. 

[Orange]

@Wormon Blatburm thanks! I'll go check

[Christian]

@Orange

I think the essence of why the first ego was created was to understand and make sense of the unexplainable field of nothingness that objective reality is constructed out of and to gain a false sense of certainty and aliveness. And to create a false idea of a self to improve itself and create certain boundaries upon what is right and wrong to serve its self agenda. And this has then let to the spreading of more ego's and since our parents have these, they program us with a very alive-feeling illusion that makes us 100% believe that we exist as people in the real world. To what? Serve us; it is not ideal to live in a society with no boundaries  for the ego and to prevent this, they give us these norms that we shall live up to make us more aware of how the world works to make us survive in "the matrix" and possibly even thrive if we get really good at understanding the dynamics.

Pretty crazy to think about..

[FindingPeace]

I would say that the ego is actually developed from a combination of language, memory and social conditioning. Things which humans have that few other animals have. The ego is a story, told to us from childhood that we then take on and develop further for the rest of our lives. It's tied in with our self-image/self-agenda. It's that part of our psyche that desperately craves for a sense of purpose, meaning and identity, and goes to any length to maintain those things, even self-deception.

I don't think it developed as a purposeful aspect of evolution, rather than developed as a side-effect of our higher-reasoning and ability to conceptualise abstract thoughts through language and memory.

As soon as you start referencing the developing mind and body, as a 'self' with a story, with likes and dislikes, with beliefs and values, with inherent value and aproval etc you start building an ego in it. I would propose that if you did an experiment whereby you took a human child and raised it in such a way that you never referenced it as an 'individual', as a 'self', then it would be unlikely to develop an ego at all.

It's as though, once we developed the ability in our evolution to conceptualise and abstract reality and describe it as a story (which is all our thoughts and memories really are), then we suddenly had the ability to conceptualise the question "who am I? and what's my purpose?". And hence the ego could be born.

17 minutes ago, Harvey said:

 healthy ego which is good just like helping others and unselfish love

There's no such thing. The ego only has self-interest. Any interest in helping others ultimately comes back to some sense of validation and approval of the self. And 'unselfish love' doesn't come from any kind of ego. It comes from what remains when you put the ego aside.

24 minutes ago, Orange said:

Or do animals have an ego as well?

That's a difficult question to answer. Some seem to exhibit egoic behaviour, but sometimes this is purely stimulus-response defensive behaviour. Some animals are as intelligent as humans (but manifest it differently), such as perhaps dolphins and even magpies. Do they have an ego? We'll never know. I would say not, as I feel that the key ingredients of language, memory and the higher reasoning of being able to conceptualise and abstract are necessary. The ability to have a 'sense of self' in terms of the 'story' that a being has of itself.

[Harvey]

@FindingPeace

 Any interest in helping others ultimately comes back to some sense of validation and approval of the self. 

isn't  sense of validation/ approval part of ego?

[Siim Land]

I would think it walked hand in hand with the development of our brain. 

The most primitive part of our brain is the basal ganglia, or the "reptilian brain." It's function is to be solely concerned with the most fundamental physiological requirements for survival, such as food and shelter.

As a crocodile in the wild, or as a hunter in the savannah, everything in the environment is a potential danger. Death and uncertainty lurks behind every corner. You can't stop being cautios because otherwise...BANG... the heavy fist of natural selection will divebomb on your head.  Those who were more careful simply were cycled out by chance and adaptation.

The key for survival and being more alert was to think of your surroundings as distinct from yourself - this "us vs them" notion. Afterwards, this duality got reinforced with the development of the mammalian brain as well. The limbic system is the social brain that covers social hierarchies and emotions. Another useful adaptation for survival.

Our unconscious "ego" is simply suffering from a severe case of evolutionary time-lag.

[MIARIVEL]

@Orange Ego doesn't necessarily need to be a bad thing. Although it does get in the way of having anything good or seeing things rationally, an ego can (if used in a controlled way) be good for one's self worth and confidence in themselves.

So many times we look to external forces to boost or compliment our ego when really we need to challenge ourselves to try and control it. We can control our ego from becoming something nasty and it being something healthy. It all starts with what we tell ourselves and what we believe to be true and our perception of things. Choose the positive over the negative.