Jean-Christophe decided at an early age to dedicate his life to organising the creation of greater happiness in the world. With this aim, he first trained as an economist and became a key strategist in charge of major projects at France’s largest public corporation, La Poste. He wrote Naître est-il dans l’intérêt de l’enfant? Idéologie de reproduction versus non-souffrance (2011), the result of a decades-long historical exploration of the conflict between the ethic of non-suffering and the ideology of reproduction. In 2013 he co-founded the Algosphere Alliance, a network and direct democracy for the alleviation of suffering.
Perhaps we can start with the definition of the dissolution of the ego illusion.
I’m using a little bit of what is what is said by others in particular, by Buddhists. So the central idea of Buddhism, that I take back, is that instinctively we have the feeling to be ourselves. To have an ego, that is to say, to be an entity the same and different from the others, and even the same entity over time. I was born Jean-Christophe one day and I will die Jean-Christophe at one hundred years old. So there is this idea of being oneself and different from others, that’s it. So that’s the feeling of having an ego, we’ll call it like that, the impression of having an ego, and what Buddhism said is that it’s an illusion, this impression is a mental illusion. So to come back to your question: “What is dissolving the illusion of ego?”, well it is to understand the nature of this mental illusion and to succeed little by little to make it go back.
You also told me that this illusion is very much related, if not completely identical to the illusion of free will.
So it’s extremely related, it’s not equivalent, but it’s extremely related. I mean, if someone believes in free will, then we can be sure that they believe in the ego, because for there to be free will, there would have to be an arbitrator; so someone who believes in free will is that they believe that there is an arbitrator. So what we can say is that if someone believes in free will it means that he believes in the ego. It is in this sense that the two concepts are intimately linked. Moreover, believing in free will, from my point of view, is a very strong indication that one has not understood the illusion of the ego; it is a very, very strong indication.
We have also discussed in the past that there is certain information, certain knowledge that can be understood first cognitively, and then it takes a little time or a lot of time to integrate; and that this understanding of the illusion of free will and of the ego is part of it.
I am not a specialist, I am not a specialist of the brain, so we should see with neuroscientists, to be sure, but actually according to my personal experience, between understanding something cognitively, that is to say we manage to understand a theory, I don’t know, the theory of relativity for example, where we manage to understand this phenomenon of the illusion of the ego, we manage to understand it, someone explains it to us: “Ah, ah, I understood!”But between the fact of understanding it in this way cognitively, and of integrating it well in all the facets of its representation of the world, that there can elapse much time of the years, perhaps even, always. It is indeed you who at the beginning sensitized me to this aspect of the things when you spoke to me about integration of the comprehension of the illusion of ego, I think that it is you who spoke to me about it the first, I do not know well. Indeed we can understand the phenomenon of the illusion of the ego if someone explains it to us, but it will be just a small part of our brain that we have this understanding and in fact it will be time over the days and months to gradually understand all the implications, and for example we will begin to understand after a certain time, that we have a lot of associated beliefs but at the beginning we don’t realize that they are associated beliefs, we will realize it little by little.
Exactly what I expect. So what’s been puzzling me lately? Before I start, when we communicate in a certain language like French we are limited by at least two things. The concepts that we have, the ability to express ourselves with the French language, the concepts are limited by the linguistics of the French language itself and furthermore by our understanding of certain concepts. So if I use very complex concepts like Buddha, well I have one understanding and you have another. First of all what I will propose to you is that from time to time we take the time to stop and when we have a complex term, a metaphor, where of us suspects that perhaps we do not have the same understanding that we stop that tale defines it, that you say to me that you are what it is for you and it is that it is for me. So we can align the term itself, so we can get along. Okay. This being said, I am interested in the dissolution of the illusion of the ego. I am interested in the dissolution of the illusion of the ego by all the sentient beings who have the capacity to do it, and in the time to increase the number of sentient beings who have the capacity to do it. And perhaps we can start with the definition of the dissolution of the ego illusion. What do these say to you? Okay, no, I’m using a little bit of what is what is said by others in particular, by Buddhists. So the central idea of Buddhism, that I take back, is that instinctively we have the feeling to be ourselves. To have an ego, that is to say, to be an entity the same and different from the others, and even the same entity over time. I was born Jean-Christophe one day and I will die Jean-Christophe at one hundred years old. So there is this idea of being oneself and different from others, that’s it. So that’s the feeling of having an ego, we’ll call it like that, the impression of having an ego, and what Buddhism said is that it’s an illusion, this impression is a mental illusion. So to come back to your question: “What is dissolving the illusion of ego?”, well it is to understand the nature of this mental illusion and to succeed little by little to make it go back. So from my point of view, I don’t know if it is possible to make it go away completely without becoming totally schizophrenic, without having a big problem of depersonalization, I don’t know about that, but what I do know is that it is possible to make this illusion go away more and more over the years. But it remains there in my case, in any case it remains there. In my case, in any case, it is constantly there, simply I can put it at a little distance, I can I can make in spite of this illusion, there you go. You also told me that this illusion is very much related, if not completely identical to the illusion of free will. Is that correct? So it’s extremely related, it’s not equivalent, but it’s extremely related. I mean, if someone believes in free will, then we can be sure that they believe in the ego, because for there to be free will, there would have to be an arbitrator; so someone who believes in free will is that they believe that there is an arbitrator. So what we can say is that if someone believes in free will it means that he believes in the ego. It is in this sense that the two concepts are intimately linked. Moreover, believing in free will, from my point of view, is a very strong indication that one has not understood the illusion of the ego; it is a very, very strong indication. What is curious by the way is that Matthieu Ricard for reasons that I don’t explain to myself at all, I don’t understand, I imagine that he does it on purpose, but first we have to talk with him, Matthieu Ricard understands perfectly the illusion of the ego which is the basis of Buddhism, and yet in a book that he has co-written with Wolf Singer, who is a famous German neurobiologist, Wolf Singer also the same, they have a whole chapter which explains the illusion of the ego, so they are completely in agreement on that, on the other hand, there is a chapter on free will where Matthieu Ricard claims that there would be a free will whereas Wolf Singer debates if there is no ego how could there be a free will. So this is something that I don’t explain, the fear of Matthieu Ricard. So for you the illusion of free will is an indication that the person still believes in the illusion of the ego and is not someone who is on the path of dissolution. We have also discussed in the past that there is certain information, certain knowledge that can be understood first cognitively, and then it takes a little time or a lot of time to integrate; and that this understanding of the illusion of free will and of the ego is part of it. I understand what it means, the words you just said, but after that to apply it, to apply it pragmatically in our lives, it can take a whole life or we will not succeed until the end of the life. I am not a specialist, I am not a specialist of the brain, so we should see with neuroscientists, to be sure, but actually according to my personal experience, between understanding something cognitively, that is to say we manage to understand a theory, I don’t know, the theory of relativity for example, where we manage to understand this phenomenon of the illusion of the ego, we manage to understand it, someone explains it to us: “Ah, ah, I understood!”But between the fact of understanding it in this way cognitively, and of integrating it well in all the facets of its representation of the world, that there can elapse time much time of the years, perhaps even, always. It is indeed you who at the beginning sensitized me to this aspect of the things when you spoke to me about integration of the comprehension of the illusion of ego, I think that it is you who spoke to me about it the first, I do not know well. Indeed we can understand the phenomenon of the illusion of the ego if someone explains it to us, but it will be just a small part of our brain that we have this understanding and in fact it will be time over the days and months to gradually understand all the implications, and for example we will begin to understand after a certain time, that we have a lot of associated beliefs but at the beginning we don’t realize that they are associated beliefs, we will realize it little by little. For example, I will say very, very quickly. If we look at the essential of the contemporary philosophical production, all the great authors, Peter Singer, the current ethicists, we realize that they all believe in the ego! We take any book of philosophy or, or ethicists of the animal cause, for example, for example, all those who believe in sentience, for example, so there are many people who are persuaded that sentience is something other than being sensitive. I believe that Yves Bonnardel still says it in a recent article in the Amorce. But it’s the same if we look at the concept of sentience, it clings to the idea that there is an ego, for example that they will be the beings of the project of a whole life or then when we see philosophers who speak about interests the being as if the being it existed! So as soon as we are a little bit sensitized and that we understand in depth the illusion of the ego we realize that almost 99 % of the contemporary philosophical production is false! What is incredible is what is really incredible! And it is all the more incredible that the contemporary western philosophers know, know this problem of the illusion of the ego which has another name in philosophy but usually we call it the problem of the personal identity through time: that’s how we talk about it in philosophy since the Greeks since the antiquity, that’s how we talk about it and all the western philosophers are trained to it. During their studies they were taught that there was no identity of the person over time, which is almost the same as saying that there is an illusion of the ego. So they are trained in this, they know it, but inexplicably as soon as they move on to another subject, they have completely forgotten, they have completely forgotten, so they explain to you that there are beings who have interests. You think, it’s the being at the moment “t” or the being an hour later, because they can have different interests. So there you have it, it’s just a small illustration that shows to what extent even for professionals, the intellectual elites of our world, can’t integrate this knowledge. It’s crazy. It’s completely crazy!
