My Hero Epictetus and his Solution, from a Behavioral Point of View:
This stoic separated mind from mechanical movement, drawing a line between a
cognitive result of an “impression” and the pre-cognitive impact of the
“impression” itself. He has not merely taken a cognitively imposed line between
“cause and effect” and stretched his imagination to insert a new illusion of
self-consequence. (Any “gap” between cause and consequence is no more brought
into existence than before.) Rather, with the act of staring at a cognitive
interpretation, he has added a different awareness
to the condition … to the ‘mix’ and
has thus altered the consequence: his
own cognition is different.
Within our “modern” behavioral view, the ever-present, nearly invisible, dominance-projector never stops. Epictetus must recognize two categories of thought, disconnecting the sense of a higher personal rank from actions “normally” associated with a lower rank. He must relieve this pressure of having inherited a mental framework of adequate social rank while having to play out an obviously subordinate role. Recognizing an impression, as such, is his solution within a disadvantaged struggle for social dominance. It is a higher awareness … which however comes into existence only by way of the humiliating condition -- it has that mark against it. This social promotion is however rationally and mechanically consistent with itself: Being aware of the human dominance-projector is superior to being duped by it. (As I’ve said before, the dominance-projector never stops.)