Hello Earl, thanks for the careful and thoughtful reading, and for the thought-provoking response.
I think it would be fair to say that a traditional psychoanalytic view of "ego" is that it involves certain information processing functions - as you say, "discriminating sensory data, memories, etc and make decisions upon them." You might say it's our interface with the world.
You go on to say that "Self is taking all that data and sifting through it in such a way as to draw up a 'picture' of ourselves, a conclusion about ourselves centered around an 'identity.'"
Agreed. I notice that view of ego fits in well with your rendering of the self as "taking all that data and sifting through it in such a way as to draw up a 'picture" of ourselves, a conclusion about ourselves centered around an 'identity.'" I see the self as a highlighted area in the data stream of consistently/reliably re-curring sensory experiences and relatively constant mental objects. I would say the main value of memories is that they provide a schema for interpreting and organizing current experiences.
Actually my understanding is that Budha spoke of the self not ego of course, as, before Freud there was no such term as ego.
True. Arguably there was as ego, but they didn't call it that.
I would emphasize that the self as you describe it perhaps not really a picture because it is in flux: it is modulated situationally in the word of forms like any other reactive monkey mind phenomena. It might seemingly have the quality of being a clear-cut and vivid "still-life" picture. I would suggest that it tends to reference a stable and readily recognized subset of sensory experiences and mental objects (specific perceptions and cognitions), as well as more commonly used ego functions that are called for by our social roles and other forms of adaptation.
I agree with you (again) that unless severely disabled humans will always have an intact ego. For one thing, We need it to track a physical body in order to coordinate with the physical world in time and space.
What we see in "transformational experiences" is (1) a shift in the sense of self - no longer identifying the self in terms of the usual cognitive and sensory modalities because of a spiritualized way of seeing things; (2) a significant reduction or even a temporary cessation of some of the usual cognitive functions as new spiritual functions become operative; and (3) a re-organization of ego functions within a new spiritual context, i.e., with reference to a new set of motivational directives and goals (e.g., a Christian love ethic, compassion, wish for others' happiness, etc.).
The cognitive functions may be pretty much the same as before. The sensory and mental apparatus may not change either, but the frame of reference for their operation has changed. What Paul calls the "new man" would appear to be the old man whose functioning has been re-organized by the addition of some new spiritual qualities that were previously dormant, with a subsequent change in the frame of reference. The re-organization would likely involve the ego functions becoming increasingly directed by newly internalized spiritual interests.
In Buddhism, you see descriptions of how the person structures their idea of self in terms sensory impressions and mental "fabrications." The person's idea of self is kept in place by the person's belief that the composite of sensory impressions and mental "fabrications" that we think is self has permanence. The Buddhists see this belief as delusional because there is no such thing as a stable "self." Indeed, it does not make much sense to think of the self as being stable once you see it as an aspect of a data stream.
From the perspective of Buddhist Emptiness doctrine, "ego dissolution" is a misnomer. There is no 'new self' and no 'old self,' as seen in the New Testament. There is only a change in the frame of reference that leads to a shift in attitudes and a new understanding of responsibility.
