[AcGold]

My thoughts:

Spoiler!

The writers are purposefully trying to make it confusing. Reality and illusion are the most common themes in the show. The conflict between Mr. Robot and Elliot is intended to mirror the conflict between fsociety and the economic structure it intends to attack. The symbolism means to create a parallel between the modern debt system and the fake ego people construct around their given names. Elliot is the illusion, his existence in the economic structure as a named and numbered entity is the same as debt created through fractional reserve banking using fiat currency. Mr. Robot is his shadow, his deep down emotions personified as his father (maybe not actually his father, we'll see). Good proof of this is how Mr. Robot says people see Mr. Robot sometimes indicating Elliot has an artificial personality. The crux of it is that Elliot has no identity anymore, he has no identifying features about his ego besides the ones which are part of his mental illnesses.

The purpose is to make the viewer question reality and feel as though it's nearly impossible to decipher reality from illusion. His laughing fit was a symptom of him suffering the worst form of schizophrenia as well as dissociative identity disorder (quite possibly the worst psycholigical illness combo there is and it's generally incurable). The show will play on his two major illnesses because his ego conflict is meant to mirror societies ego conflict, as above so below if you will. When Gideon gets taken out and he's called a crisis actor this is what I mean, it's a statement that creates illusion and confusion if you understand the theory of what a crisis actor is. By definition he couldn't be a crisis actor but he was called that and it makes no sense whatsoever, much the same as with Elliots personality.