Is Stoicism incompatible with the Absolute lack of Free Will ?

[SamueLSD]

There may be no free will, but did you not appear to chose to create this post?

Even if free will is an illusion, so is everything in experience. You are still going to have the illusion of making choices, lol. Personally, I'd say a certain degree of stoicism is necessary for this path. It is a grounded and open-minded philosophy. It promotes yellow-stage / holistic thinking.

Also, I'm surprised that out of all the implications of no free-will, you are mostly concerned about what it means for a certain philosophy. 

[Ryan R]

@BlurryBoi Great Question! First, please understand that the ancient Stoics were pioneeringly deterministic. The dichotomy of control is deterministic philosophy. What must be differentiated between is external and internal causation. Externals are seen as completely out of one's control, completely deterministic. Internals are seen as deterministic but less so because a human mind can be prepared in advance by disciplining it to a virtuous character with wisdom, reason, ethics, and courage that will enable high quality responses to adversity rather than inflamed emotional reactions. There may be the appearance of contol of mental impressions and they may even be spoken of conventionally as controllable relative to externals, and while more controllable than externals, internals are still ultimately determined... except....

...The most advanced teaching on this subject is that in paradoxically giving up all illusions of control the divine Logos can express itself through the highest Nature of a human to grant a contol of Mind so powerful that nothing can disturb its peace.

Happy Stoic studies my friend

Edited March 20, 2021 by Ryan R
Edited seconds after posting for a one careless misspelling of "deterministic"... spelling hmm

[EnlightenmentBlog]

16 hours ago, Mason Riggle said:

Survival for the Lion is Death for the Antelope. 

Tell me, when the Lion eats the Antelope, is that productive, or counter-productive?

It's funny how we look at things abstractly and deceive ourselves of higher truths because we're comfortable.  When hard survival knocks on your door all morals and philosophy will be gone. And We'll see if productivity won't be a thing then. Why don't you become homeless if you despise that duality so much?

[Nahm]

On 3/15/2021 at 8:11 AM, BlurryBoi said:

How can one apply the Dichotomy of Control if "Control" has never existed in the first place ?

I've been thinking about it for days, it's kinda  mind bending really.

Stoicism is a powerful way of living, but I feel stuck in some kind of cognitive dissonance right now..

The dissonance is two. There is no control or not-control, there are the thoughts that there is or isn’t, control. ‘Dichotomy’ is the wool for the eyes to believe the dualistic finite mind. One appears as t?. 

[BlurryBoi]

@Ryan R WOW man what a great response !! 

 

I got it now : The Dichotomy of Control is NOT about using some sort of willpower to "choose" how you respond to every situation.

The D.O.C. is about Shaping your Internal Environment so that your deterministic mind follows the virtuous path effortlessly, "acting" from it's virtuous shape/identity without any need to use "control". 

 

There is no cognitive dissonance, everything falls into place. 

I've been thinking about this for a week now, damn this feels AWESOME ?

[BlurryBoi]

I see the Stoic philosophy as a way to use the illusion to Build a strong and beautiful Ego from a state of fear and weakness (as Leo mentioned in his video), to take 100% Responsability, to build a Virtuous Shape of mind without giving up the illusion (as its often too hard to swallow when you start the journey).

Before ultimately fully Letting Go of the illusion.

 

A transitional, powerful way for Self-Actualization.

[StarStruck]

Lack of free will can be seen as an autopilot of an airliner. You are just there in the cockpit to observe the dashboard and do nothing else.

Stoicism on the other hand is very pragmatic. It shouldn't be taken to literally.

How I see it is like this: the software called "stoicism" can be uploaded to your auto-pilot so it is up-to-date and can function better.

[Ryan R]

@BlurryBoi Yep, you've got it!

 Happy to help.

[lmfao]

@BlurryBoi I won't try to sift through the myriad of associations and impressions near stoicism, and find out what the "true form" is of stoicism. Putting that aside and talking simply.

It can feel like there is dichotomy between control and letting go. What side or advice I (or you) should carry out is hard for me to discern. There's almost no such thing as a good piece of advice in a vacuum. One person might hear X advice which helps them, another person however needs to hear the opposite of X advice and it helps them.
It's not just a function of the content of the advice that determines when X or not-X is appropriate, it's about how it's interpreted and contextualised/held, acted on, etc. 
____
Loads of stoics are just hyper masculine edgy emos, or stoicism can act as a defence mechanism from true spirituality, feeling and femininity. I think that I myself have sometimes glorified pain or suffering with images associated with stoicism. [ Insert qualifying statement about how there's plenty of nuance and great stoicism out there, blah blah]


Suppose I'm watching someone running, they're getting tired and I cheer them to keep running, need there be any philosophy for this situation to happen? Do ideas of free will and control matter? Does reality care or reference what dichotomies I mentally create?