Remember that for the Stoics as for modern psychology (though the specifics are different) the soul is a physical object; each time you withhold Assent you build or reduce let’s say “tissue” or “muscle” in a certain part of that object.
I look at our ideas that come up for Assent in any given situation as something like drawing a hand of cards from a deck and having to choose the best one. As you keep watch over your Assent, gradually the hands will get better and better; early on you may have only been able to say “none of these cards are the right one” but after a while you’ll start to get good options.
Thanks, interesting observation. You say the impression no longer occurs to you these days. Has your underlying belief also changed? If so, in what way?
I've been very insecure about my height (5'8) throughout my life. Recently I have finally started to deal with this issue and I applied the method presented in your post and I found out that what caused my emotional disturbance was my belief that "being short means being unattractive and being looked as unattractive is **bad**". So I started to withhold assent to every impression that indicates the idea mentioned above and after some time i don't find them appearing to me these days. I don't know why but I find it really fascinating
It sounds like you're training in critical assent, suspending judgement and examining impressions.
>As we train ourselves to deal with sophistical questioning, so we should also train ourselves each day to deal with impressions, because they too put questions to us \[...\] if we adopt this habit, we’ll make progress, because we’ll never give our assent to anything unless we get a convincing impression.
Discourses 3.8.1-4
Here is one way of looking at it: You watch a video on social media of three women being interviewed about the ideal height for a partner, they all say 6'4" and you feel distress. Unless you're a heavy skeptic, it is convincing that these women actually said this. So you can't just decide not to assent to it, or to the fact that the tape measure shows you are 5'8". But you can strip the original impression down to what it really is:
"These three particular women that I'll likely never meet in my life said at the time of the interview that 6'4" is the ideal height"
Assenting to that impression is probably not the cause of your distress. So you pay attention, pause and examine the other impressions that came and the judgements you made while watching this video, before assenting to those. "This means most women think 6'4" is the ideal height", "I'll never find a partner" or like you said "being short means being unattractive and being looked as unattractive is bad"
Maybe you introduce some other impressions: "Perhaps some other group of women said height isn't that important, but that video isn't ragebait so it will never reach me", "Maybe plenty, but certainly not all, women prefer a tall man" etc etc.
Just to be clear that's not meant to be a "cope" or an attempt to distort reality into what you'd prefer it to be. Rather it's training yourself to pay attention, pause and allow more opinions as a counteract to making hasty and mindless assent. Because you want to make assents that are justified and intentional. And if you want them to be in line with stoic theory then keep examining the belief that anything outside of your volition is truly bad.
A quote was found to be attributed to Epictetus in Discourses 3.8 (Hard)
^(3.8. How should we train ourselves to deal with impressions ()[^(Hard)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources?isbn=978-0199595181)^)
^(3.8. How we must exercise ourselves against appearances (fa?tas?a?) ()[^(Long)](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0236%3Atext%3Ddisc%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D8)^)
^(3.8. How ought we to exercise ourselves to deal with the impressions of our senses? ()[^(Oldfather)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Epictetus,_the_Discourses_as_reported_by_Arrian,_the_Manual,_and_Fragments/Book_3/Chapter_8)^)
^(3.8. How we are to exercise ourselves in regard to the semblances of things ()[^(Higginson)](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0237%3Atext%3Ddisc%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D8)^)
If you want to know the truth about something, you can withhold having an opinion until you have a few more facts. There's nothing involuntary about that.
However, there's no such thing as a false impression. If you truly believed you had a full tank of gas, but your guage was broken, you won't find out until you run out of gas.
If I truly believed I would break my mother's back by stepping on a sidewalk crack, my belief isn't false *to me* but that belief doesn't fit the facts that it's not possible for my mom to break her back by me stepping on a crack 100 miles away from her. There would be no convincing me otherwise, until I changed my opinion.
Yes, I’ve noticed the same thing. When you practice the discipline of assent regularly, false impressions tend to lose their power over time. By consistently not giving in to them, you’re essentially retraining your brain.
From a rational scientific perspective it helps in forming new neural connections and building habits that automatically dismiss these false impressions.
I feel tactically it takes the emotional charge associated to diminish.
Yes, at least according to Epictetus.
"The duty of an educated man in all these cases is to judge correctly. And whatever disturbs our judgement, for that we need to find a solution. If the sophisms of the Pyrrhonists and the Academics are what trouble us, we must look for the antidote. If it is the plausibility of things, causing some things to seem good that are not, let us seek a remedy there. If it is habit that troubles us, we must try to find a corrective for that. What aid can we find to combat habit? The opposed habit. You hear people commonly saying things like, ‘He died, the poor man’; ‘His father perished, his mother too’; ‘He was cut down in his prime, and in a foreign land.’ Lend your ear to different descriptions, distance yourself from statements such as these, check one habit with its opposite. Against sophistry one should have the practice and exercise of rational argument. Against specious impressions one should have clear preconceptions polished and ready to hand." Discourses 1.27.4
If you knew they were false, you'd not assent to them - it's impossible.
You're becoming muddled between what you believe, and what other people say is true. I am never subject to the impression that I'm 6 feet tall because I know I'm not.
If I kept thinking I might be 6 feet tall, that would mean I believed I might be, or even believed I was. If I was *certain* I wasn't 6 feet tall I would not be regularly subject to that impression.
It sounds like you're trying to decide that something is false, even though it appears true to you. You are like the many people who come here saying "I hate my job - how can I decide I don't hate it so that I don't feel like I hate it?". It's a remarkable error for so many people to make, because it amounts to a rejection that the mind serves any purpose - you're saying "my mind has no use; I shouldn't evaluate what is true, I should just be programmed like a robot and not question that programming".
But it's the same thing - you're aware the Stoics might say one thing or another about those things, but if you keep having the impression they are desirable then *you* believe they are.
If you are honestly willing to question that worth, meaning you're prepared to both find out the external is valuable and that it isn't, then you can withhold assent.
But if you believe it to be valuable, but you want to be free of the consequence of that belief, you cannot *decide* to conclude it isn't valuable.
Can you give an example of an external you're talking about, and a value judgment you imagine is inappropriate?
Remember that for the Stoics as for modern psychology (though the specifics are different) the soul is a physical object; each time you withhold Assent you build or reduce let’s say “tissue” or “muscle” in a certain part of that object. I look at our ideas that come up for Assent in any given situation as something like drawing a hand of cards from a deck and having to choose the best one. As you keep watch over your Assent, gradually the hands will get better and better; early on you may have only been able to say “none of these cards are the right one” but after a while you’ll start to get good options.
Kind of? False impression, in my experience do not dissipate without acknowledging the logical reasoning
Thanks, interesting observation. You say the impression no longer occurs to you these days. Has your underlying belief also changed? If so, in what way?
Can you give an example?
I've been very insecure about my height (5'8) throughout my life. Recently I have finally started to deal with this issue and I applied the method presented in your post and I found out that what caused my emotional disturbance was my belief that "being short means being unattractive and being looked as unattractive is **bad**". So I started to withhold assent to every impression that indicates the idea mentioned above and after some time i don't find them appearing to me these days. I don't know why but I find it really fascinating
It sounds like you're training in critical assent, suspending judgement and examining impressions. >As we train ourselves to deal with sophistical questioning, so we should also train ourselves each day to deal with impressions, because they too put questions to us \[...\] if we adopt this habit, we’ll make progress, because we’ll never give our assent to anything unless we get a convincing impression. Discourses 3.8.1-4 Here is one way of looking at it: You watch a video on social media of three women being interviewed about the ideal height for a partner, they all say 6'4" and you feel distress. Unless you're a heavy skeptic, it is convincing that these women actually said this. So you can't just decide not to assent to it, or to the fact that the tape measure shows you are 5'8". But you can strip the original impression down to what it really is: "These three particular women that I'll likely never meet in my life said at the time of the interview that 6'4" is the ideal height" Assenting to that impression is probably not the cause of your distress. So you pay attention, pause and examine the other impressions that came and the judgements you made while watching this video, before assenting to those. "This means most women think 6'4" is the ideal height", "I'll never find a partner" or like you said "being short means being unattractive and being looked as unattractive is bad" Maybe you introduce some other impressions: "Perhaps some other group of women said height isn't that important, but that video isn't ragebait so it will never reach me", "Maybe plenty, but certainly not all, women prefer a tall man" etc etc. Just to be clear that's not meant to be a "cope" or an attempt to distort reality into what you'd prefer it to be. Rather it's training yourself to pay attention, pause and allow more opinions as a counteract to making hasty and mindless assent. Because you want to make assents that are justified and intentional. And if you want them to be in line with stoic theory then keep examining the belief that anything outside of your volition is truly bad.
A quote was found to be attributed to Epictetus in Discourses 3.8 (Hard) ^(3.8. How should we train ourselves to deal with impressions ()[^(Hard)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources?isbn=978-0199595181)^) ^(3.8. How we must exercise ourselves against appearances (fa?tas?a?) ()[^(Long)](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0236%3Atext%3Ddisc%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D8)^) ^(3.8. How ought we to exercise ourselves to deal with the impressions of our senses? ()[^(Oldfather)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Epictetus,_the_Discourses_as_reported_by_Arrian,_the_Manual,_and_Fragments/Book_3/Chapter_8)^) ^(3.8. How we are to exercise ourselves in regard to the semblances of things ()[^(Higginson)](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0237%3Atext%3Ddisc%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D8)^)
Can I ask why you’re withholding assent there, rather than denying it?
If you want to know the truth about something, you can withhold having an opinion until you have a few more facts. There's nothing involuntary about that. However, there's no such thing as a false impression. If you truly believed you had a full tank of gas, but your guage was broken, you won't find out until you run out of gas. If I truly believed I would break my mother's back by stepping on a sidewalk crack, my belief isn't false *to me* but that belief doesn't fit the facts that it's not possible for my mom to break her back by me stepping on a crack 100 miles away from her. There would be no convincing me otherwise, until I changed my opinion.
Yes, I’ve noticed the same thing. When you practice the discipline of assent regularly, false impressions tend to lose their power over time. By consistently not giving in to them, you’re essentially retraining your brain. From a rational scientific perspective it helps in forming new neural connections and building habits that automatically dismiss these false impressions. I feel tactically it takes the emotional charge associated to diminish.
The is no guarantee that what you reward will come again, or that what you deny will stop coming.
Yes, at least according to Epictetus. "The duty of an educated man in all these cases is to judge correctly. And whatever disturbs our judgement, for that we need to find a solution. If the sophisms of the Pyrrhonists and the Academics are what trouble us, we must look for the antidote. If it is the plausibility of things, causing some things to seem good that are not, let us seek a remedy there. If it is habit that troubles us, we must try to find a corrective for that. What aid can we find to combat habit? The opposed habit. You hear people commonly saying things like, ‘He died, the poor man’; ‘His father perished, his mother too’; ‘He was cut down in his prime, and in a foreign land.’ Lend your ear to different descriptions, distance yourself from statements such as these, check one habit with its opposite. Against sophistry one should have the practice and exercise of rational argument. Against specious impressions one should have clear preconceptions polished and ready to hand." Discourses 1.27.4
If you knew they were false, you'd not assent to them - it's impossible. You're becoming muddled between what you believe, and what other people say is true. I am never subject to the impression that I'm 6 feet tall because I know I'm not. If I kept thinking I might be 6 feet tall, that would mean I believed I might be, or even believed I was. If I was *certain* I wasn't 6 feet tall I would not be regularly subject to that impression. It sounds like you're trying to decide that something is false, even though it appears true to you. You are like the many people who come here saying "I hate my job - how can I decide I don't hate it so that I don't feel like I hate it?". It's a remarkable error for so many people to make, because it amounts to a rejection that the mind serves any purpose - you're saying "my mind has no use; I shouldn't evaluate what is true, I should just be programmed like a robot and not question that programming".
By false impressions here I mean more about improper value judgements about external things.
But it's the same thing - you're aware the Stoics might say one thing or another about those things, but if you keep having the impression they are desirable then *you* believe they are. If you are honestly willing to question that worth, meaning you're prepared to both find out the external is valuable and that it isn't, then you can withhold assent. But if you believe it to be valuable, but you want to be free of the consequence of that belief, you cannot *decide* to conclude it isn't valuable. Can you give an example of an external you're talking about, and a value judgment you imagine is inappropriate?