SPIRITUS, on 17 Oct 1997 we continued our dialog, and you permitted me to post it at Serendip. I'm doing that now...

What is there to unlock? Why do you complicate your life? You don't have schizophrenia, and if you had you would not change things by unlocking something that is not locked but faulty. You appear to be playing with chance. I am not criticizing nor analyzing, only trying to clarify what you say in an enigmatic way. You are probably not 'battling' against yourself. But if you are, the battle is not going to help your self if you don't know what, why, and how. You might simplify matters if you devote your time to find out, rationally, why you are so sure you have to battle. The 'true me' (the self) is very complex, due --among many other reasons-- to the intangibles of changing circumstances.

I think that once again we are agreeing on the same points here, but simply choosing incongruous words with which to do it. The only point I really had there, was that all learning comes from experience, so a strong desire to learn almost tautologically equates to a strong desire to sample from all of life experiences. To limit experience is to limit learning. (Whether this is 'good' or 'bad' is a moral --and, I believe, personal-- decision...)

Too sweeping! Mostly we learn vicariously, by using our senses passively: reading and listening. A strong desire to learn leads mainly to a house of study, to books and the like. Desiring to learn by 'sampling' life experiences will teach the limited input you get from it. Pleasant, certainly can be, and if you waft through it unscathed, it may be a source of delightful memories and practical lessons. Please enlighten me on a 'sampling' experience which furnished you with essential applicable knowledge, in the strict sense of the concept. I must insist on Linguistic Analysis to convey alethic ideas capable of meaningful dialogue.

I left serotonin alone for now to discuss this.. This line of reasoning comes from 'experimental' (experiential?) evidence I gained while conducting mind experiments into the nature of what I call the 'Belief Tree'. Without boring you with too much detail, I essentially perceive that most people that we would consider of 'normal' mental health, are anchored to a definite belief structure with which they identify themselves, e.g., "I am a Christian", "I am a Jew", "I am an engineer", "I am a good person."

Experimental, indeed. Experiential too, since you were the subject. Where from did you get the credentials for experimenting scientifically? People fixated on a given immutable personality are not normal; they are rigid and cling to it for protection against anxiety, the latter being the key existential determinant of their apparently irrational behavior.

If this structure is not challenged significantly in any way, it gains strength and becomes a consistent 'ground plane' from which this person may act comfortably and securely. Problems for this person only arise if this structure is challenged in some significant way. If the structure is too 'rigid,' it may not withstand change without breaking entirely. If the challenge is to a subconscious or "core belief" -- it is usually responded to with some form of primal 'fight or flight mechanism.

Well put! Compare with my words immediately above: yours are the same ideas, expressed in plain language, employing quotes instead of pompously saying: 'people who appear to be within the range of mental normalcy,' or saying 'core belief' instead of 'fixation.' Using the terms 'subconscious' and 'unconscious' is fraught with dangers, since they are quite different in meaning. 'Fight or flight': correct, and they are the mechanisms of response to the anxiety aroused by the challenge you mention.

So, after spending our entire lives building this belief tree (which basically consists of a series of interrelated decisions, with 'generations' of decisions based on parents' and grandparents' decisions etc.), what happens, if we successfully challenge and overthrow one (or more) of the fundamental (core) beliefs near the top of the tree? The answer is, that all childhood beliefs not anchored to another unchallenged 'sibling' belief, potentially become invalidated, or at very least, warrant reexamination. Hence we have 'puberty blues', 'midlife crises', 'menopause', and a whole range of other 'change of life' psychological illnesses. So, what does this have to do with schizophrenia and ego-states and their like?

"...building this belief tree..." Are you sure? Isn't the tree being built without our being aware? How can we challenge-- and less, overthrow--- unconsciously created fixations? What I'd like to add is that perhaps a "Low Serotonin Mental Status" has much to do with the liability to falling into psychoneurotic personality problems. This is a rather new concept of mine, I believe, which would lead to early diagnoses and supplemental preventive measures. As for adults now, supplements after correct diagnosis might prevent the 'blues' and other mental suffering related to 'transition states'.

Well, if you hadn't already guessed, a strong ego results from firm identification with one of these core beliefs (and hence, with its associated 'siblings').

'Strong' applied to the ego is not the correct adjective. Preferably, 'robust.' There is a contradiction here, since a 'core' belief is actually an abnormality, termed 'fixation.' A robust ego allows for flexibility.

Multiple ego states result from changing identification with different core beliefs. If the change is high up in the tree and the associated 'siblings' are quite unique to that particular branch (i.e., there are no, or few, cross links to other branches), then we might see the kind of drastic behavioral swings we associate with 'multiple personality' phenomena (I'm loathe to blanket them with the word 'disorder'). At a smaller scale we all shift beliefs regularly on a daily basis, as we 'change hats' to suit our situation, 'Doctor', 'Father, 'Husband', 'Teacher', 'Pupil', 'Judge', 'Lover'....

A 'strong' ego actually doesn't identify with a given personality. Such identification is a defense mechanism. An unconstrained --robust-- ego automatically adopts the 'hat' required for the given circumstances. I would think that the basis for 'multiple egos' is biological, with special life circumstances creating the problem, which then can be psychoanalytically reversed, although the biological basis remains.

Good points! I shot all this from the hip (so to speak) and it did turn into more of a rant than I intended...It was supposed to be a simple description of a human response structure that I have observed, but the act of describing it was not as simple as I thought! Perhaps I should replace the word 'strong' with 'stable' (relatively 'constant/unchanging'). People who tend to have most of their answers already decided upon and to do things 'by the book' (at least their own edition of it, anyway), are perhaps the sort we may refer to as 'narrow-minded'.
I'm happy with your definition of unconstrained ego, though it was not what I had meant by'strong', but what I believe to be the 'ideal'. A situation where we do not hang blindly by a single set of universal beliefs but rather intelligently, adopting changing beliefs that are appropriate to each situation as it arises. Nature's shining model is evolution and change, so why do so many of us strive to be static?

'Strive' together with 'static'? An oxymoron! TO BE CONTINUED... In the mean time: Spiritus, would you be willing to rewrite your ideas, in case you tend to accept some of my observations? Another point: I believe you have not been specific on what you do for a living at the present; it is related to engineering, and yet your intellect is tuned to matters of the mind! If you are not happy and are financially independent, what about studying medicine at this 'late' age, to become an expert in mind matters, vulgarly called psychiatry?