How much control does the mind have over its actions?

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How much control does the mind have over its actions?

A lot of the time people think that they can control all of their thoughts if they put enough effort into it. However they also think that some thoughts have necessary consequences like sex thoughts induce feelings of pleasure or vice versa etc.

Now both cannot be true ,obviously for then no thought would have a necessary consequent but all would be subject to the will.

Therefore I ask do you have total control over your mind or are there some things which are not under your control?

And this has many practical applications for instance, is it possible to will yourself to never experience self-delusion that is, to always be sincere with yourself. If you control all your thoughts then yes that is possible but if no then it is impossible.

Likewise can you will to always be happy or to never feel fear or to be bored at the sight of the opposite sex or to always be mindful?

Such answers to moral questions can be achieved through the answer to the speculative question of “do we control all our thoughts”?

I would opine that we don’t control all of our thoughts since then we could control whether we would like to except the truth of self-evident statements. However we cannot so control ourselves, since once we know something to be self-evident we automatically agree with it.
And so I ask that question.
 
I would say that you are your mind. Thus, unless you are schizophrenic, you do have absolute control over it, for that is what you are. The soul is contained within the mind, and cannot be without the mind in this physical realm.
 
You can control your thoughts, to some extent, by forcing yourself to think about something else, by closing a web browser window, leaving a room, etc. But there are times when you love someone or are worried about something, that your mind keeps drifting to those subjects.

But you cannot control what other people do, or the events that go on around you. You can only control yourself. So you cannot “will” yourself to always feel happy because someone or something might upset you, cause you to have fear, etc. Your feelings are affected by what goes on around you and what happens to you.
 
You control your deliberate actions. There are things such as ideas or images popping into our minds that can be unchosen, and these we may not have control over, but acts of the will are free.
 
davidv said:
Nop. They can interfere with your ability to carry out you will. However, they cannot force you to make a choice, unless you allow them to do so.
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This is the key. Say someone is trying to make a religious newpaper, and someone else is trying to mess that up. That someone else is intefering with the “carrying out” of the first persons will, but the second person cannot make the first not want to make the newspaper.

pretty bad example, but yeah.
 
Paul_Infirdigno said:
This is the key. Say someone is trying to make a religious newpaper, and someone else is trying to mess that up. That someone else is intefering with the “carrying out” of the first persons will, but the second person cannot make the first not want to make the newspaper.

pretty bad example, but yeah.
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I’m not sure why it’s a bad example?

Anyways, it’s true that no one can actually cause someone to make a choice I should add that they can so influence this choice so that one is not totally responsible for every choice you make.
 
davidv said:
Nop. They can interfere with your ability to carry out you will. However, they cannot force you to make a choice, unless you allow them to do so.
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Oh, okay. Thanks for clearing things up.
 
stephe1987 said:
You can control your thoughts, to some extent, by forcing yourself to think about something else, by closing a web browser window, leaving a room, etc. But there are times when you love someone or are worried about something, that your mind keeps drifting to those subjects.

But you cannot control what other people do, or the events that go on around you. You can only control yourself. So you cannot “will” yourself to always feel happy because someone or something might upset you, cause you to have fear, etc. Your feelings are affected by what goes on around you and what happens to you.
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👍 Indisputable - unless some one is unreasonable! 😉
 
Justinian_III said:
Then can others interfere with our free will?
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Some one can influence your voluntary behaviour. Th effectiveness with which one can do so will depend on their ability to predict some one’s behaviour and theit limits on feeding the manipulated person’s situation and the flow of information to some one.

Note: I avoided using the phrase “free will” in my reply because there’s not total agreement on what is meant by that phrase. There’s a recent thread called “Definition of free will” in which you can see the range of disagreement.
 
fakename said:
How much control does the mind have over its actions?

A lot of the time people think that they can control all of their thoughts if they put enough effort into it. However they also think that some thoughts have necessary consequences like sex thoughts induce feelings of pleasure or vice versa etc.

Now both cannot be true ,obviously for then no thought would have a necessary consequent but all would be subject to the will.

Therefore I ask do you have total control over your mind or are there some things which are not under your control?

And this has many practical applications for instance, is it possible to will yourself to never experience self-delusion that is, to always be sincere with yourself. If you control all your thoughts then yes that is possible but if no then it is impossible.

Likewise can you will to always be happy or to never feel fear or to be bored at the sight of the opposite sex or to always be mindful?

Such answers to moral questions can be achieved through the answer to the speculative question of “do we control all our thoughts”?

I would opine that we don’t control all of our thoughts since then we could control whether we would like to except the truth of self-evident statements. However we cannot so control ourselves, since once we know something to be self-evident we automatically agree with it.
And so I ask that question.
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Fakename:

A short read: Here

God bless,
jd
 
JDaniel said:
Fakename:

A short read: Here

God bless,
jd
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Are you saying that I have to trust God more or are you saying something relating God’s will and his self-control to ours in someway?

(I do trust God, but I like to ask questions so you got what you want if that’s what you want, thanks though).
 
Okay, what about this?
Someone kills you prematurely.
Your free will cannot be exercised, and thus does not exist, because you are dead from then on. You have no free will in the physical realm when you die.
 
Justinian_III said:
Okay, what about this?
Someone kills you prematurely.
Your free will cannot be exercised, and thus does not exist, because you are dead from then on. You have no free will in the physical realm when you die.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t follow that if free will cannot be exercised in the physical realm it ceases to exist… How about Satan?
 
fakename said:
How much control does the mind have over its actions?

A lot of the time people think that they can control all of their thoughts if they put enough effort into it. However they also think that some thoughts have necessary consequences like sex thoughts induce feelings of pleasure or vice versa etc.

Now both cannot be true ,obviously for then no thought would have a necessary consequent but all would be subject to the will.

Therefore I ask do you have total control over your mind or are there some things which are not under your control?

And this has many practical applications for instance, is it possible to will yourself to never experience self-delusion that is, to always be sincere with yourself. If you control all your thoughts then yes that is possible but if no then it is impossible.

Likewise can you will to always be happy or to never feel fear or to be bored at the sight of the opposite sex or to always be mindful?

Such answers to moral questions can be achieved through the answer to the speculative question of “do we control all our thoughts”?

I would opine that we don’t control all of our thoughts since then we could control whether we would like to except the truth of self-evident statements. However we cannot so control ourselves, since once we know something to be self-evident we automatically agree with it.
And so I ask that question.
Click to expand...
t is an excellent question! Thoughts, whateverthey are, come to us indescriminatley. So when someone says “I can control my thoughts” they more likely mean that they are not controled by them. They understand them to some degree or other as serving suggestions, not commands.

More subtly, many people identify their “self” or "I: with their thoughts and memories. This is not accurate. If you see your thought, how can you be the thought? It is contents, not substance. So if a thought comes, you can lend it substance by sustaining it in your attention. If you are making art, or love, or creating somehow, that is great. But id a “serving suggestion” is disunitive, or divisive, it is simpluy a matter of not giving it attention. The mind, like a baby distracted by the next object, will drop it and go on. And this is where habits are important, and the idea of watching your thoughts, so that you can discriminate as to which you want to be yours.

When you get good at that, good things are in store. You can strt asking some fasicnating quesitons about the nature of the mind, and Mind as God’s Mind. but first, it is good to know that thoughts are serving suggestions, and may or may not correspond to what is.
 
Justinian_III said:
Okay, what about this?
Someone kills you prematurely.
Your free will cannot be exercised, and thus does not exist, because you are dead from then on. You have no free will in the physical realm when you die.
Click to expand...
When I speak of free will, I am speaking of it strictly in the physical realm.
Besides, Isnt free will acting upon something, thus willing something to happen? Will is not thinking about doing something. It is doing something. So, if someone ties you to a chair and you can’t escape, you do not have complete free will. You cannot get a glass of water.
 
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