egocentrism

According to buddhism people don't have souls. This religion says the basic problem of humanity is this misunderstanding; The feeling of a self is an illusion. In reality there's only a continuous changing flux of thought, sensation and emotion. From this perspective it's really stupid to be egocentric. You're trying to cherish something which doesn't exist.

Let's go over this in more detail. First of all, the question whether things like souls exist is rather complex. I'm going to skip it and focus on the introspective part of the story. Every (healthy) human has the idea of a self, of a 'me'. He or she is somebody and this somebody is more or less constant. Sometimes our bodies change, sometimes our opinions, or even our whole emotional life changes. There is one constant factor: it all happens to ourselves. In a certain sense we're still the person we were in our childhood.

Character is a pretty stable thing also. The way we response to other people may be quite comparable to our responses when we were a lot younger. This is very interesting, but there's something which is even more stable than our character. It's the sense of being ourselves. The problem with this is that it's not quite locatable. Also, it's not the same as the ongoing flux of thought, sensation and emotion. One step more subtle is saying: the self is actually the experience of this ongoing flux.

Experiences come extremely fast, but one at a time. Our attention is continuously attracted by all sorts of things. People seem to have a certain 'control center' which decides what thought, sensation or emotion is important enough for a moment of consciousness. The strange thing is, now and then we have awareness of this proces, which is not fragmented (like the experiences) but continuous. In our most conscious moments we seem to be able to follow the functioning of the control center; we are aware of the things which attract our attention. So actually there are two things; experiences, and awareness of experiences. I'd say this awareness ~is~ our sense of self. This is the 'me' who is continuously experiencing all these things. The me is not the same as these experiences.

Back to the main problem. What about this awareness? I think it's strange to say it's an illusion. It's probably not a material thing, nor some soul kind of thing which exists in a metaphysical dimension. The point is, this doesn't make it less real. This awareness can't be denied; It exists. It just doesn't exist as a thing.

From this perspective egocentrism is not so strange anymore. It seems humans have a special faculty which places themselves in the center of all subjective experience. This doesn't seem to go away so easily. We can drink a lot of alcohol, or take drugs, which lessens it strength (and of course, while we are asleep there's not much to be experienced). In a healthy condition the sense of self is strongest. When people are tired or ill they're also less aware. This makes wanting to get rid of this self even more unlogical. Secondly, from a pragmatic point of view it's good to have a strong awareness. If the sense of self is stronger people have also a stronger inclination to do something about their problems.

note I've discussed the rationale of egocentrism on the level of the self. There's also something like egocentrism on the level of character. Please don't confuse these two.