Your mind is a very complicated entity. It has been suggested that looking at it as a network (or an ecology) of multiple agents is a more useful view than thinking about it as something monolithic.
In particular, your reasoning consciousness is very much not the only agent in your mind and is not the only controller. An early example of such analysis is Freud’s distinction between the id, the ego, and the superego.
Usually, though, your conscious self has sufficient control in day-to-day activities. This control breaks down, for example, under severe emotional stress. Or it can be subverted (cf. problems with maintaining diets). The point is that it’s not absolute and you can have more of it or less of it. People with less are often described as having “poor impulse control” but that’s not the only mode. Addiction would be another example.
So what I mean here is that the part of your mind that you think of as “I”, the one that does conscious reasoning, will have less control over yourself.
So what I mean here is that the part of your mind that you think of as “I”, the one that does conscious reasoning, will have less control over yourself.
So you mean having less willpower and impulse control?
For example someone who is having hallucinations is usually powerless to stop them. She lost control and it’s not exactly an issue of willpower.
If you’re scared your body dumped a lot of adrenaline in your blood and you are shaking, your hands are trembling and you can’t think straight. You’re on the verge of losing control and again it’s not really a matter of controlling your impulses.
An entirely literal reading of that phrase.
So you mean that you are something that’s separate from your mind? If so, what’s you and how does it control the mind?
Your mind is a very complicated entity. It has been suggested that looking at it as a network (or an ecology) of multiple agents is a more useful view than thinking about it as something monolithic.
In particular, your reasoning consciousness is very much not the only agent in your mind and is not the only controller. An early example of such analysis is Freud’s distinction between the id, the ego, and the superego.
Usually, though, your conscious self has sufficient control in day-to-day activities. This control breaks down, for example, under severe emotional stress. Or it can be subverted (cf. problems with maintaining diets). The point is that it’s not absolute and you can have more of it or less of it. People with less are often described as having “poor impulse control” but that’s not the only mode. Addiction would be another example.
So what I mean here is that the part of your mind that you think of as “I”, the one that does conscious reasoning, will have less control over yourself.
So you mean having less willpower and impulse control?
Not only, I mean a wider loss of control.
For example someone who is having hallucinations is usually powerless to stop them. She lost control and it’s not exactly an issue of willpower.
If you’re scared your body dumped a lot of adrenaline in your blood and you are shaking, your hands are trembling and you can’t think straight. You’re on the verge of losing control and again it’s not really a matter of controlling your impulses.
My understanding is that in the case of tulpas, the hallucinations are voluntary and can be stopped and started at will.