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0 pointslarkery8y ago0 comments

In zen there is the question, who is in control of these feelings? Where is the locus of control, and what kind of a thing is it?

Where is the boundary between things inside your mind and things outside of your mind? Where does control get inserted into the process of things arising and falling away?

One way of thinking about this produces a realisation that nobody is in control, but nobody has been denied or robbed of control either. Instead, the idea of control appears to be a kind of misapplied concept.

I think this is a realistic interpretation of the evidence which does not lead to a depressive fugue, but only when it's absorbed beyond a textual description (a bit like how reading a program is different to running one, in HN-friendly terms).

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lisper8y ago

I think this is exactly right. Even the conscious part of you, the part you perceive as being "in control" isn't really. Free will is an illusion (but a very compelling one!) This realization, too, can help you make better decisions. For example: I've found it helpful in reducing my consumption of sugar. I didn't decide to love the taste of sugar. That's something that just happened to me, like depression. So it's easier for me to resist the urge to snack if I think of the cravings as an attempt by an "external" agent to control my actions, even though that agent is physically located inside my own brain.

This idea even comes with a catchy slogan: sometimes your brain has a mind of its own :-)

thinkfurther8y ago

> In zen there is the question, who is in control of these feelings? Where is the locus of control, and what kind of a thing is it?

> The exterior things touch the soul in no way. They have no access to it and neither can change the mood of the soul nor move it. Rather it gives itself its mood and movement, and according to its judgements that it makes about its own dignity, it also values the exterior objects higher or lower.

-- Marcus Aurelius

larkeryOP8y ago

I think it would be remarkably weird if the state inside me were entirely uncoupled from 'exterior things'.

In the zen view, the 'trick' is that there are no exterior things because the distinction between the exterior and interior is artificial. Processes of change may reach across that boundary just as they cross any other boundary we care to draw, so there is no absolutely self-governed component.

Assuming (perhaps wrongly, let me know if I'm overreaching) that you see your self as a stoic or happy to interpret them, what do you think the Aurelius quote above means? What is the soul which it's talking about?

We can identify patterns that remain stable for a bit, so you might say that my soul is whatever essential features or patterns remain unchanged, but on the long span I find it hard to imagine such features. After all I will be eaten by worms or incinerated sooner or later.

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