Quote:
Originally Posted by Elrazor
Self-control by definition is a last resort for counteracting tilt, and tilt is far from purely an issue of self-control.
Interestingly, there was a meta-analysis published showing the effects of trying to train self-control published last month. While it showed a small effect, there was another really good study published a couple of months ago where it showed self-control is not trainable.
I would be very wary of claims that a) tilt is purely a self-control issue, and; b) self-control can be trained. There is little evidence to support these assertions imo.
https://www.researchgate.net/publica..._meta-analysis
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...aining_Program
The point is not that working on self-control is the prescription for change, any more than if one was anxious talking about anxiety is the treatment, or if one is depressed that working on "being happy" is the treatment. An anorexic doesn't need a discussion of nutrition facts. The access door is almost always indirect.
Effective counsel for depression, presuming it to be short of overtly suicidal and near psychotic, is often some version of "get your ass in motion" (tailored of course to how that person might best hear it). This realizing that a body and mind in motion is by definition one not mired in the sluggishness and lack of energy, spirit, motivation and inspiration characteristic of a depressed state.
If someone is capable of playing disciplined, superior strategy poker and in spurts doesn't do it ... what would you choose to call that?? If you don't want to call it self-control - fine. There is a bit of a misnomer involved in calling it self-control, but that is the common meaning. The fact is this can be described as the shadow - of which everyone short of Christ (metaphor) has one - sitting in the drivers seat overruling/displacing one's more rational, disciplined and strategic side and capabilities. Most people have no idea under the sun why that is happening ... it comes and goes as a mystery following some incomprehensible pattern of its own ... usually under stress.
It is not solved by improved understanding of the game, but by an improved understanding of the self. The following terms -- self, self-concept, self-image, self-in-the-world, sense-of-self, false self, subself, emissary self, ego, personality, character, attitude, shadow, mentality, identity, persona -- are all playing subtly different roles in the psyche of the player, the human. It is beyond a fascinating field and probably as vast as the amount of numbers that exist.
A mathematical model that characterizes the output of these components into a shorthand look ... is a map ... and adamantly not the terrain. My grasp of math is not profound - far from it - but to ignore these contributors to behavior and characterize behavior as some kind of deterministic outcome of knowledge is, in my view, flagrantly off course.
Admittedly, I"m the guy who looked at things like 'anxiety producing kleptomania' and wondered, "WTF is going on there!??? I WILL KNOW!" ... and also looked at integral signs and basically thought, "Who cares? I will never know what that means." So, to each his own. I do think there must be a big difference between characterizing things with a mathematical model and having any idea what is actually going on in the trenches. To skip what is going on psychologically in favor of that is, to me, anathema. It doesn't compute.
That the mathematical model says something meaningful and maybe even profound about it all ... I wouldn't reject. That it helps the person under the sway of unknown forces within him or herself I do reject.
Last edited by Synchronic; 09-27-2016 at 12:34 AM.