Symbolic
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Identities are created in the mind by the Thinking-I, as alternatives to the Ego. An example of a pure Identity might be like an opera singer, as something totally created given a specific talent. Any number of Identities can be created and are usually based on objectives, such as driving, playing sports, professions, hobbies, action-activities, or intellectual pursuits and achievements. Identities can be based on being rich, on sexual preference, moral, religious, racial or national Identities. Identities can be completely dissimilar from others, such as the dentist from the artist, and the creation of dissimilar Identities is the origin of most human conflict. Identities are categories of associations that pertain to particular predilections of the mind.
The Interpretive Context of the Ego is those associations that most affect the body. One interprets the Rosebush, according to how it affects one's senses, the thorns, allergies, or if one just loves the smell. Interpretive associations may involve what one likes to eat, how to sleep, dangerous situations, the affects of weather, or one's liking for the opposite sex. One may interpret another's car by its comfort, rather than its looks or speed based on the Identities of car enthusiast or speed driver.
It could be said that based on the Interpretive Context of the Ego, that everyone knows and should be able communicate with everyone else, in the sense that everyone shares a similar sensory system and commonalities of experience. It could also be said that the facility of empathy derives from the associational affinities of the Ego interpretation, as opposed to the necessity for the creation of an empathetic Identity, as particularly many religious doctrines would have us believe. An empathetic Identity is necessary when the Ego is suppressed as the primary means of interpretation.
Metaphysical Psychology One (3 of 22)
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