The human will is an interesting thing…I can understand intellectually that something is twisted, messed up, evil, harmful, dangerous, unwise…and yet still feel a deep longing to do it.
Which doesn’t mean I will. Obviously I also have significant survival impulses deterring me from more destructive courses of action.
But knowing I’m not going to act on a desire doesn’t make it go away. Instead it just torments me all the more. The longer you deny an urge, the larger it becomes in your psyche.
The question then arises…how do I stop wanting this thing that cannot be acted upon, that is causing me pain? To which there seems to be no clear answer.
Can I choose to enjoy the taste of beetroot, and no longer crave chocolate? Can I choose to enjoy all social interaction, and no longer experience crippling anxiety? Can I choose to find skin irritation or bowel discomfort pleasurable?
If the will is free, then how does one go about changing it? How do you stop wanting what you want?
16 comments
Free will is one of those things that you technically have but don’t really get to do. Only your intellect, and the actions you take are (somewhat) free.
But your desires, those aren’t free.
And let’s just say that humans are much more emotional than rational, so your intellectual free will is constantly overpowered by the whims of the biological organism you know as your body.
Oh god, that’s even more confusing! I can recognise that my actions can be more or less constrained, depending on circumstance (if I’m in chains, then I’m meaningfully less free to move.) But in what sense is my intellect free?
Am I free to choose to believe that which seems false to me? Am I free to consider that which does not naturally occur to me? How would that happen?
I wish there were more focus on this in psychology. It seems to me that most of my problems arise from conflicting motivations.
Also, in your view does the free intellect freely choose to allow itself to be overpowered by biological whims? Why would it do so?
I think the intellect is somewhat free…. I mean it’s easier to change your mind than to change your desires.
And the intellect doesn’t exactly allow itself to be overridden, it just simply isn’t much of a match for your carnal impulses. You’re much more of a base organism than you are a rational, conscious superbeing.
That’s how I see it, anyway.
But when you change you mind…do you consciously, freely choose to change your mind? Or does your view on something change, and then you identify that change? In other words, do ‘you’ change your mind, or does your mind change and you experience that change?
Haha, the latter of course.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the mind is more reasonable than the body, instead of more free than the body. I mean, your mind will change for a good arguement, but your body wants what it wants regardless of any sound argument to the contrary.
Yes, that sounds right. Although I’m not sure whether desire fits in ‘the body’ rather than ‘the mind’. It does seem to be immune to logical argument, unlike the intellect. But many complex desires also seem to involve a lot of mental aspects, and do seem liable to change over time (just maybe not freely/consciously?)
Also, “you” are not seperate from your mind and body.
Except if you’re religious, “you” are nothing but your mind and body. So it’s almost pointless to worry whether your mind is changing by itself or if you are changing it, because in the end it’s really all the same.
Oh no, that’s even trickier to get my head around! I suppose I agree that ‘my’ conscious experience of things is effectively the same as ‘my’ mind. And my experience of my body is a part of that conscious experience.
But I do think it’s significant whether or not the thoughts/opinions/whatever I mentally experience are changed by my somehow freely intending to do so beforehand (not sure how if I’m the same as them?), or whether the change results from processes I’m not consciously aware of (physical brain states etc.) If that makes any sense?
If ‘I’ am the conscious experience of ‘my’ mind, is it the conscious experience that is changing the mind, or the mind/brain that is changing the conscious experience?
lol idk, this is getting too deep for me hahaha. I guess there’s much more that I don’t understand than I do.
Too deep for me too really. I seem to have enough intelligence to wonder about this sort of thing, but not enough to actually reach a clear understanding.
haha that is the curse of it, knowing enough to know that you can’t really know anything for sure 🙁
lol yes, I may steal that way of putting it for future use 🙂
Yes, no need to get stuck in a mind/ body duality.
Desire can be of the body and the mind – the mind is conterminous with the brain after all, which is a part of the body.
My head just exploded. 😉
HI TheHusk,
“How to stop wanting the wrong things?”
I’m just rambling.
I don’t have the answers but I thought I’d through out a few ways that apply to different situations.
A. “By getting them” Sometimes we want the wrong things then get them, and discover we really didn’t want them or their consequences.
B. “Thinking in terms of reality” I want to hit the lotto really bad! So I buy a ticket but my chances are a 500 million to 1, My chances of getting hit by lightning about 15 times in a row are probably better so even though I bought a ticket I’m not going to think about winning that much.
In the end wanting things like a hamburger are easily obtained, wanting things like Ferrari are hard to obtain, what ever you want has to be within reach and realistic.
Talking about the wrong things, the word wrong should be thought about seriously and desire should be placed on the right things.
I want a lot of the wrong things myself, I think about them like I’m dreaming of driving that Ferrari, then come back to reality, I don’t have the money, I don’t want that Ferrari that bad to work my ass off for it, so my dream turns into OH WELL THINK I’LL GET A HAMBURGER! 🙂