I think the ego is, essentially, the social model of the self. One’s sense of identity is attached to it (effectively rendering it also the Cartesian homunculus), which is why ego death feels so scary to people, but (in most cases; I further theorize that people who developed their self-conceptions top-down, being likelier to have formed a self-model at odds with reality, are worse-affected here) the traits which make up the self-model’s personality aren’t stored in the model; it’s merely a lossy description thereof and will rearise with approximately the same traits if disrupted.
I think the ego is, essentially, the social model of the self. One’s sense of identity is attached to it (effectively rendering it also the Cartesian homunculus), which is why ego death feels so scary to people, but (in most cases; I further theorize that people who developed their self-conceptions top-down, being likelier to have formed a self-model at odds with reality, are worse-affected here) the traits which make up the self-model’s personality aren’t stored in the model; it’s merely a lossy description thereof and will rearise with approximately the same traits if disrupted.