Undirected Intentionality
What is intent? How much of intent is linked with willpower? Willpower seems like an active process, where intent can be passive.
My main question is about undirected intentionality. These seem to be the passive aspect of willpower, like having a goal in the back of one's mind and working towards it.
For example, a deep mood that can be depression means that someone lacks the willpower to get better. I will stipulate here that this is 'undirected intentionality'.
So, how is intent shaped and formed to become a goal?
My main question is about undirected intentionality. These seem to be the passive aspect of willpower, like having a goal in the back of one's mind and working towards it.
For example, a deep mood that can be depression means that someone lacks the willpower to get better. I will stipulate here that this is 'undirected intentionality'.
So, how is intent shaped and formed to become a goal?
Comments (52)
That's a good question, and I'm sure it deserves a very complex answer. But I think the answer is unknown so you probably won't get much of an answer at all.
It is a term I invented for the sake of discussion. Any thoughts about it?
Intent is a goal. What you intend is the goal you have in mind.
Your willpower would the magnitude of the goal in your mind and how it determines your actions over other actions for other goals that you have in mind.
Intent seems separate from a goal. For example, intent to do harm is something separate from a goal? More like a motivation or emotion?
What about if that intent is undirected? Then do we count it as a desire or some form of willpower?
Sometimes what you intended isnt what happens. You didn't intend to cause harm. It wasn't your goal to cause harm. Intent and goals are predictions. You didnt predict that your action would cause harm. We can use these words interchangeably without any meaning anything different.
I dont think most people understand their own desires, and so are not actually capable of acting in a direct manner, but that could rightfully considered presumptuous of me )
What if the intent is undirected? I am depressed and I want to get better but don't know how to. Then what?
What do you mean that all intents are misdirected? It would seem to me that intent without a goal is un/misdirected? How do you correct that feature of intentionality?
So, is it desire that's the issue here, or intent? I never really knew how to differentiate Buddhism from Zen or Taoism.
https://www.yofiel.com/images/nidana.jpeg
So, it's not only intent? What comes first, desire, then intent, yes?
Then what is intent (back to square one)?
Lacking "the willpower to get better" may not be a helpful way to frame the matter. It separates intention from agency in terms that are self defeating. The desire to change is resisted by the structure that keeps recurring. Something new has to be introduced for the structure to change. The new isn't a war upon the old, it replaces a portion of it.
I agree with M.J. Mahoney in his Constructive Psychotherapy where he says:
"Ongoing competitions in development are neither "won" nor "lost" in reference to allegedly absolute criteria. Some competitors (i.e., impulses of activity) selected to assume temporary positions in the "driver seat" of the body. The old patterns remain as contenders, and they may "win" occasional episodes of ascendancy in future situations. Old habits are not eliminated completely, but they can be displaced by new ones."
How does it separate intention from an agency? I don't understand where the divisions in the mind are taking place?
If the intention is "undirected" because of a lack willpower, you are proposing a difference between the telos being sought and the energy or power necessary for it to become actual. I thought I was describing your model before offering an alternative.
No, it's not necessarily a lack of willpower. It can be just the case that the world of nature is preventing it from being realized. But, in regards to depression, the intent is to achieve remission, therefore I'm not sure if willpower can have anything to do with remission from depression. It seems like one of those cases where it's a no win situation and has to be endured until something external changes? Obviously, one can be supremely frustrated about the whole predicament, and hence that is a secondary undirected intentional aspect of being depressed, yes? A third aspect of this whole issue is the realization that one is powerless in the face of crippling depression if pharmacology and therapy don't help. This is when things become dire, and the intent turns against itself and suicide is thought as a viable option?
Does that sound right?
It sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In any case, you are still employing a division between intention and "power." Now your agency is even more divided than in your first formulation.
Do you have any thoughts regarding my alternative?
Very much so. Depression itself isn't unbearable. It's the thought loop and feeling of powerlessness with respect to it that is the source of frustration. Eventually you just learn to accept it and cope with it in my opinion.
Quoting Valentinus
Could you repeat it in different words. I'm not sure if I understood correctly the first time.
Thank you.
Let's talk about the thought loop. If you were to be an agent, isn't that what you would want to change?
Yes. I would want to change that. But, how?
Habits are distinct from intent. So, how does habit relate to undirected intentionality?
Your model does not permit an effective agent, it only defends a powerless one.
This is a good question.
Your ultimate intent/goal would be to get better. How you go about achieving would be several sub-goals. I can't think of a case where you wouldn't know, or at least have an idea of what to try, to get better. And if you didn't try to get better, then could you really say that you intended to get better? What do intents do? What makes an intent, an intent?
I think the source of depression is either mental/neurological, or genetic. Sometimes you can work yourself into a bout of depression just by thinking certain thoughts. Controlling the contents of your mind and finding other things to grab your attention can help in certain cases.
The object of an intent is a goal, and to intend to do something is to plan or decide to actively work toward that goal, at least that's my understanding. I don't see how intent can be passive... it can be unconscious in the sense that you may not be aware that a part of you intends to do something, but it always involves a decision of action to complete a goal
Willpower is something different, it's the capacity to consciously direct actions and behavior in order to complete an explicit goal. It's linked to the concept of self control and seems distinct from intent in that intent is not a capacity and willpower isn't linked to an explicit or specific goal.
The bold sounds more like an unconscious intention verses a willpower. I still don't understand how an intention can be undirected since it seems by definition to always be directed toward the completion of a goal.
I think, that isn't true. A powerless agent can get better under the circumstances that willpower has no say in the matter. Intentionality is undirected and futile. The immediate responses are resignation, frustration, and perpetuation of depressive affect. Now, I don't know how to get out of that loop, that many people face when confronted with crippling depression.
This seems to introduce a paradox. When is an intent realized or conceived and when it is not? Does this reduce the issue to what is an intent? Hence, we're perpetually stuck in never knowing what we really want?
Yes, but, again taking the example of "depression". I have the intent to get better but it is undirected, otherwise, people would be able to simply will themselves out of that state of mind, which is quite rare. Hence, what do you think about this "undirected" aspect of intent? It seems more like, as you mentioned, and an unconscious thing that is in the background and never entirely realized unless some goal is accomplished unknowingly.
Unless the condition changes without your help, your model is part of the problem.
No, it can encompass helping yourself. But, this isn't something that can be done alone or simply will oneself out of it. Anyway, when one is depressed or otherwise known as "learned helplessness", then what is required to realize the intent to get better, then?
I have the undirected intentionality to get better; but, I don't know how to realize it. Thus, what is left to do?
But, harping on the example of "depression", it isn't a habit. Just a state of mind. Anyway, to want to get better one has to will it. But, if that will is undirected or disorganized, then how do you know when you get better if you don't know how-to. Does that make remission spontaneous?
I did not say that depression is just a habit. It is very much a combination of factors, many of them beyond one's direct control. I don't know anything about "spontaneous remission"
I do think the "thought loop" does involve habits and it is one of the doors open to something new.
I think in the depression example the person has decided or intended to get better [decide or intend are synonymous] but has not put his decision into action because he lacks the willpower or has low capacity to direct his behavior toward his goals -- his ruminative and self-sabotaging habits are too ingrained for him to overcome at the moment.
So the intention is still 'directed' toward the goal of getting better, but is not put into action
OK, I understand. But, what is so difficult in the case of "depression", that people get stuck in it? Why is it so self-reinforcing?
Are they?
Quoting aporiap
Then, what is the deciding factor in getting better? The intent is still undirected. One doesn't know how the fly gets out of the bottle it is stuck in. Is it a matter of trial and error to try different methods of getting better or is the outcome of this undirected intentionality, manifest in trial and error, spontaneous? This would make "intent" somewhat synonymous with "willpower". But, the two aren't the same.
I'd say yes. The minimum you need for an intention is a decision to complete a goal. What else do you feel you'd need in order for an intention?
I'd say willpower.
Hmm, so I'm unsure what you are linking the directedness of an intention to. I am linking it to the goal of the intention - 'get out of the bottle' in the fly case, 'get better' in the human case. In that sense all intentions are directed. It doesn't matter the course of action or the way in which the goal is realized, only that a person or animal has decided - consciously or unconsciously- to complete a goal.
I'm not quite sure; but, there is a distinction I want to draw out between willpower and intentionality. Intentionality stands above willpower in that motivation and willpower is directed at some goal. But, here I go on about "depression". When the way out of the bottle is unknown to the fly, then willpower seems like the only thing that intent can resort to. So, yeah, willpower, willpower, willpower.
That is a good question. I will think upon it.
One of the things I like about Mahoney is that he explores how the automatic quality becomes a way to distinguish other things against it. It helps me with my darkness.
Hmm, I think the way you make sense of willpower is different than me. I don't think, for example, willpower or motivation is directed at a goal. You can get up 'feeling motivated', for example. In that case the motivation can be described as 'feeling driven' or 'excited/energetic'- like you are determined to get 'things' done - anything that comes in front of you not necessarily one thing in particular. Willpower, like I said before, seems like a 'capacity' or a general ability to control urges and manage actions - instead of eating a delicious pizza, deciding not to eat it.. instead of angrily lashing out at someone, showing restraint. It doesn't seem linked to a goal whereas intentions are always linked to a specific goal.. I can't think of someone saying to themself, without context or specific goal, 'I have intention'.. where as it makes sense for a person to say 'I have a lot of willpower' or 'I am/feel motivated'
I mentioned earlier that our intent to get better is a result of the experience of pain. We don't experience the intent to get better when we feel good - only when we feel bad. Intent could simply be a mental/neurological response to some stimuli.
So, can willpower bring oneself out of depression? What's your take on that issue?
Interesting, care to expand?
Here's an interesting article:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00395/full
..which is part of a series of articles submitted specifically for this topic:
https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/2705/from-intentions-to-actions-psychological-and-neural-processes#articles
I think it can but it isn't necessary. Eg. you can have a family forcibly take you to a therapist every week and do the CBT homework in a case where you don't have the will to do it yourself. This can, over time, lead to a habit of going there. The willpower, which is needed most in the beginning when you need to effectively force yourself out of a habit of self-seclusion and negative self-talk, is not needed as much once it's become a habit to go to the therapist and work on the exercises.
But if one has the willpower to do it alone, then it could lead to the same effect.