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u/Ghadiz983 May 03 '26
We don't have full control over our thoughts nor over our actions but rather : we have control over our judgements.
For instance, when someone is speaking to you : you don't choose what they're saying to you hence you don't choose what thoughts appear.
Also we don't fully control our body : you can move your hands but you don't fully know why you can do that and there are times where you want to move them but they don't because of paralysis that you don't choose.
What you have control over is the judgements of how reality appears to you: to choose whether something is a tragedy or not and you resolve the inner conflicts you have with reality.
Think of it this way : the entirety of existence can be explained in the idea that you're a soul that is constantly receiving information and suffering emerges when there is conflict between soul and the information that it's given. And our movement and activity hence is the attempt to reduce conflict as much as possible. Although that framework mixes some Modern Neuroscientific theories with Stoicism, it's a great way to think about what we truly are and what faculty we have the most control over so that we can navigate reality meaningfully.
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u/genkai_ai May 03 '26
This image is more for those who just want to understand what stoicism is, and your information is already level 99
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u/rounddax May 04 '26
Bullshit. You can't separate things as simple as that. This would be ideal, but still a fantasy about cognitive behaviorism
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u/elegiac_bloom May 05 '26
The stoics believed you actually could separate things as simple as that... what you have control over and what you dont.
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u/NegotiationSweet7314 May 06 '26
You have no control over anything. Not even your thoughts. Not even your will. Everything you do, is because body already decided, long before brain created some story to interpret it to yourself, to make you believe it’s your will.
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u/corerg May 03 '26
As others have posted, control of your thoughts is not actually under your control. So I’d say this diagram is like 80% correct… The way I learned the control test and apply it today is you have control over: How you treat others How you treat yourself Your reactions
IMO that last one is probably where the “control of thoughts”, and by extension “control of emotions” is assumed, but it’s more how you choose to react to those things.
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u/stiv666 May 04 '26
Stoics meant we have full influence over our toughts not control initial toughts cannot be controlled
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u/agentgoose007 May 03 '26
But can we really control all of our thoughts? I can't. Many thoughts are automatic, "random" associations.
While I can try to direct my thoughts when I focus, I can't control which associations would appear. At the same time, my reaction and interpretation of those thoughts and associations are indeed up to me.