# Is volitional restraint bad?
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998
**Category:** Psychology and Mind
**Created:** [September 13, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998 "2016-09-13T01:07:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/41 "2016-10-05T20:53:51Z")
Ability comes from the verb “able”. It’s something one is able to do. Something one can, but does not have to, do. It is thus the same thing as potential.
In order to create room within one’s “nervous space”, for example, one must possess the potential to do so.
Potential, in this sense, is stored action that can be realized using another action.
I am still unsure what your point is.
What is “open-ended” potential?
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/42 "2016-10-05T21:21:47Z")
I don’t think you’ve understood my response.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/43 "2016-10-06T08:29:32Z")
That’s what I am saying.
I still don’t understand what your reasons for doubting the existence of “nervous space” are.
What does “nervous space” refers to?
It refers to how many actions you can do at the same time without producing confusion.
I think this is a very real phenomenon.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 11:07am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/44 "2016-10-06T11:07:45Z")
Let’s say that your “nervous space” is limited to 3 nervous actions. This means that at any moment you can run at most 3 nervous actions without losing control over them.
Suppose that there are nervous actions A, B and C.
Suppose that your “nervous space” is empty at this point. Suppose also that it receives no input from any source other than your own will. This means that your “nervous space” will remain empty until you fill it with some nervous action using your own will.
Now, suppose you decide to put nervous action A in it. The state of your “nervous space” will now change from being empty to containing nervous action A. Let symbol “A” be a representation of such a state. The state of your “nervous space” will remain as such, which means “A”, until the next time you decide to change it, say by removing the nervous action A from it or by adding another nervous action to it.
That a state of an object remains to be what you have configured it to be until the next time you decide to reconfigure it is what it means “to have control over the object”.
In our case, this object is “nervous space”. Therefore, our control is control over our “nervous space” which is what is meant by the phrase “to have control over ourselves”.
We can now change the state of our “nervous space” to “AB”, indicating that it contains nervous actions A and B, or “ABC”, indicating that it contains all three nervous actions. In both cases, we will remain in control of our “nervous space”, because in both cases, the maximum number of nervous actions our “nervous space” can contain is not exceeded.
To be in control, remember, means that the state remains the way we have configured it. This means that it remains “ABC” if we have configured it to be “ABC”.
Now, suppose there is another nervous action “D” that we want to add on top of A, B and C such that the new state is “ABCD”.
But this is an attempt to insert 4 elements within a space that can only contain 3 elements.
So what happens then?
The same thing that happens to a cup full of water when you try to add more water: it overflows.
By forcing nervous action D within your “nervous space” that is at full capacity, you can make sure that nervous action D finds its place within it, but the rest will have to accommodate to that by removing one nervous action.
Which one, you may ask. Any one. The action to be removed is determined randomly.
So instead of “ABCD” you will get some combination of “xyD”. Either “ABD”, "ACD"or “BCD”.
Instead of what you want (e.g. “ABCD”) you will get an imitation of what you want (e.g. “ABD”.)
This is what it means to lose control over yourself. Instead of deciding what’s going out and what’s staying in, you are simply throwing a dice.
In our example, the capacity of our “nervous space” is 3 nervous actions, but in reality, the number is far greater than that.
Where numbers are larger, there loss of control is worse.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 11:26am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/45 "2016-10-06T11:26:14Z")
> [@Magnus Anderson](#):
>
> Let’s say that your “nervous space” is limited to 3 nervous actions. This means that at any moment you can run at most 3 nervous actions without losing control over them.
>
> Suppose that there are nervous actions A, B and C.
>
> Suppose that your “nervous space” is empty at this point.
Magnus, I am not yet read to make these suppositions with you. I have already sought to address your concerns in the two immediately preceding posts earlier. Here was the post: [http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=191223#p2631690](http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=191223#p2631690). You seem to have only responded to one aspect which we then further discussed which brought us to our misunderstanding. I think rather than going further in this way we have to be sure what was said all along is understood, because I do not feel that everything spoken of has been sufficiently addressed.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 11:44am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/46 "2016-10-06T11:44:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Even if a given stimulus through one of the senses is in one case present and in another absent we are speaking of a qualitative difference in the state of seeing rather than an activity of seeing versus not seeing.
Seeing is what the eyes does.
When you close your eyes, you are still seeing, though what you’re seeing is rather vague and dark.
But when you cut the connection between your nervous system and your eye, you are no longer seeing.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 11:57am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/47 "2016-10-06T11:57:04Z")
Do you consider something like cutting the connection between your nervous system and eye to be part of what you were trying to describe to me as creating room? It is true by my logic one would say there is potential in the catalyst for such an act of severing, but I still do not yet see the “room”.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 12:12pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/48 "2016-10-06T12:12:11Z")
Eye is a source, one among many, of nervous activity. It is what, by listening to one aspect of external reality, which is light, creates and inserts nervous activity within “nervous space”.
By severing the connection between eye and nervous system you make sure that it no longer acts as a source of nervous activity. In other words, you make sure it no longer fills your “nervous space” with its activity.
By doing this, you make sure that sight no longer consumes your “nervous space”. This creates room for other nervous activity.
But this is not the same as dissipation. Dissipation does not cut the connection between the source and nervous system. Rather, it simply eliminates nervous activity the source creates.
This is what I mean by “creating room”.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 12:21pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/49 "2016-10-06T12:21:50Z")
I understand what you mean and I don’t have any problem with it per se. I do not think it contradicts what I’ve been saying except for that I still do not hold the space you speak of to be a concrete entity in itself.
In the case of dissipation, the preceding circumstance is that which has some energy to dissipated, and the dissipation itself marks a change of circumstance from one temporal measure to the next. If the conditions are in place that a re-expansion are to take place, those conditions are to be understood as part of the process of re-expansion. At no point in this process of growth and dissipation would there be any need for a permanently abstract space which is separate from the temporal circumstance as both measured as potentia (cause or pre-conditions) and the potentiate (here like effect or subsequential conditions), with allowance that these measures are both themselves temporal and conceptual abstractions.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/50 "2016-10-06T13:03:55Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If on the other hand you mean in the sense of multitasking, using the same faculties, like doing work and watching something, then usually the processes are done consecutively rather than simultaneously and the making room as I see of one for the other would be a change of focus.
No, what I mean is that nervous actions are running simultaneously.
The nature of simultaneity, which is a metaphysical question, is not relevant. Simultaneity, for example, might be an appearance created by dense multitasking, which is to say, by rapid change of focus from one activity to another. Whether that is true or not has no effect on what I am saying.
Suppose that is true. Suppose that simultaneity is just a rapid change of focus. Would that not prove your point that there is no such a thing as room and that there is only change of focus?
No.
In such a case, creating room would simply mean slowing down the rate at which one’s focus changes.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/51 "2016-10-06T13:12:03Z")
> [@Magnus Andersson](#):
>
> In such a case, creating room would simply mean slowing down the rate at which one’s focus changes.
If creating room means what you say I have no problem with it because where my issue lied was in understanding something such as room as a constant space rather than one which changes with characteristics of mutations. The latter case really the space is really something like the quantity of activity measured at any given point.
Do you mean to say that, rather than restraining an unwanted impulse by doing (something else), one would do it best by slowing down the rate at one one’s focus changes?
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/52 "2016-10-06T13:42:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Do you mean to say that, rather than restraining an unwanted impulse by doing (something else), one would do it best by slowing down the rate at one one’s focus changes?
If all you want to do is restrain your impulse, then there is no better way to do it than by slowing it down.
Why would you want to restrain it by doing something else? Why would you do something else when all you want to do is restrain your impulse?
On the other hand, if you want to do something, rather than merely restrain yourself, then it would be better if you could change your focus immediately, but only under the condition you are not going to overwhelm yourself.
In the case that the change of focus is overwhelming, then you need to create as much room as you can by slowing down the rate of your neural activity. Then, you have to take steps that are of sufficient size, not too big and not too small (i.e. you must control the speed of your neural activity in order to make sure it’s within limits.)
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/53 "2016-10-06T13:49:31Z")
I consider any act of volitional restraint to itself be an action, so a mode of doing, engaging a change of behaviour.
It could be helpful if you described a circumstance, one you have particularly in mind, and we will see whether at the point when restraint is necessary, some change in the action is also necessary or not.
> [@Magnus Anderson](#):
>
> …you need to create as much room as you can by slowing down the rate of your neural activity. Then, you have to take steps that are sufficient size (i.e. you must control the speed of your neural activity .)
What you describe above are instances of doing. “You need to… you have to…” This is how I understand doing and this is why I said that one restrains oneself by doing.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/54 "2016-10-06T14:50:50Z")
Yes, they are actions. Here is a question for you: is there anything in the universe that is itself not a form of action?
Inanimate objects that we consider to be inactive are active too just not in the manner that we expect them to be. This becomes evident when you take a closer look.
I am not sure why you’re placing so much emphasis on the fact that both doing and not-doing are actions.
The point is that they are different types of actions.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/55 "2016-10-06T16:00:34Z")
I did not deny that there are different types of actions. I replied to the question you posed earlier in the thread with the answer that one foregoes by doing. The reason we were talking about human actions in particular as opposed to those of inanimate objects is because the question is about volition. I don’t think we are in a fundamental disagreement, but perhaps some disagreement about terminology.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2016, 8:44pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/56 "2016-10-06T20:44:35Z")
Is it really necessary to emphasize that both doing and foregoing are actions?
I see no reason that it is.
The question posed in my OP is whether it is better to forego by doing (non-volitional restraint) or forego without doing (volitional restraint.)
The fact that both doing and foregoing are actions does not resolve this question.
These are two different techniques. The aim of this thread is to compare them, which means, to determine their trade-off’s, their pro’s and con’s, whether their value is independent from or dependent on situations, thus whether their value can be described in binary terms, as either good or bad, and so on and so forth.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2016, 8:05am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/57 "2016-10-07T08:05:39Z")
> [@Magnus Anderson](#):
>
> The question posed in my OP is whether it is better to forego by doing (non-volitional restraint) or forego without doing (volitional restraint.)
> The fact that both doing and foregoing are actions does not resolve this question.
It is the fact that they are both forms of doing, not one of doing and the other of not doing.
> [@Magnus Anderson](#):
>
> The question posed in my OP is whether it is better to forego by doing (non-volitional restraint) or forego without doing (volitional restraint.)
Can you describe an example of “non-volitional restraint”?
Considering the definition of volitional, wouldn’t acting (doing) be volitional?
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2016, 9:17am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/58 "2016-10-07T09:17:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> It is the fact that they are both forms of doing, not one of doing and the other of not doing.
You are forcing me to repeat myself.
The fact that they are both forms of doing (= action) does not resolve the question. It is thus irrelevant remark. The point is that they are different forms of doing. Because they are different, they can be compared. The aim of this thread is to compare them.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2016, 11:09am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/59 "2016-10-07T11:09:37Z")
It is significant because the characteristics of what is being compared influences how one compares them. The implication is that whether one acts by choosing an entirely new activity or by slowing down an occuring one or engaging in rest (which may well be activity) would depend on the situation or individual which calls for restraint and so perhaps cannot be compared on the basis of ideal types.
Also, you did not give an example of a non-volitional restraint.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2016, 11:58am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/60 "2016-10-07T11:58:13Z")
The fact that they are both actions says almost nothing about the two techniques.
It’s a given, a common-sense, that they are actions.
When you’re comparing cars you are not going to emphasize the fact that both cars are . . . cars. It’s already known that they are cars.
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