Yea im finding it hard to conceptualize what exactly a value is and what distinguishes it from desire in particular. I think maybe they are different types of objects entirely, desire a mental action where as value a mental object - an abstract concept (spirituality, critical thinking, healthiness, cleanliness) that acts as a grounding for guiding principles of action. It's a grounding because it's value is intrinsic. I hope that makes sense — aporiap

Yeah, that makes sense to me, at least. I get what you're saying that values are mental objects that have attained a status of significance to a person, possibly through higher-order volitions. But, the term 'mental object' bugs me, and seems redundant. Can a higher-order volition itself become a value? I think so...

People who are very hungry will eat whatever they can find: grass, bugs, boot leather. But one would not generally say that they desire these things. Their desire is more likely for steak and chips, macaroni cheese, and ice-cream, or whatever their cultural equivalents are. — unenlightened

There is a problem with this issue though. If we are all just autonomic responses and nothing more than that, then where is our free will? It's the choice we have to entertain alternative desires, that gives rise to a compatabilist conception of a free will and not determinism. But, I get what you're aiming at, or I think I do. Namely, you think that if we had all our desires laid out in simple terms, then there would be no conflict. Yet, you, of all, would know that we have conflicting desires. Thus, this gives me pause to think that there are higher order desires that we have, at least at some level.

Desire is for what one does not have. It is an attractive image to be realised, or not. When I say image, I mean any form of representation that may be also verbal, tactile, olfactory, etc, not strictly visual. — unenlightened

I get this; but, this isn't relevant. We are trying to talk about different conceptions of desire. One can be to eat something or have a drink of water; but, I have a family that needs to be fed, so their interests (hopefully) come before my own. That's a higher-order volition, which stems from love or care for a significant other. Confusing the two isn't a good idea and only leads to confusion.

Mental life is in the business of representations, and seemingly inevitably, I represent myself to myself, and thereby am able to form desires for an imagined self. "I wish I was young, handsome, intelligent, rich, talented and loved by everyone." This seems to be what wiki means by 'higher-order volitions'. — unenlightened

Well, a higher order volition stems, most often, from a feeling (most often love, or most appropriately). What you're describing is the entertainment of fantasy or wishful thinking, not a higher-order volition.

I feel like I'm at an impasse here, creative. I don't know how to carry on this discussion with so much misunderstanding.

Rudimentary as in - is not existentially dependent upon our awareness that they exist. — creativesoul

But they're a sine qua non, they just are.

Nothing at the baseline of all thought and belief is a given, on my view. Unless by "given" you mean something like pre-dating human existence. — creativesoul

But thought and belief are just given, one cannot doubt that one is doubting.

I'm working from an unspoken premise. At conception, there is no thought and belief. Belief must begin. There is no reason to suppose that complex thought and belief can be formed by a creature prior to more simple, given what we know about our own knowledge base. Therefore, thought and belief begin simply and grow in complexity. — creativesoul

But this is confusing. Belief and thought cannot be talked about before their existence. It would be as if one we're to talk about thinking without ever having a thought to begin with. Simply futile?

What part would like to see elaborated upon? The rest of the thread has been slowly and steadily elaborating upon exactly those things... — creativesoul

I'm uncertain about what kinds of things are those which are so rudimentary even need discovering. They just are given. Anyhow, I don't want to bug you down with my uncertainties, so I'll just re-read this sometime again and things might click then. Sorry for bothering.

Some things are not created/invented by us, but are - most certainly - existentially dependent upon us. However, these things are also discovered by us. They also exist, in their entirety prior to our discovery of them. Rudimentary level human thought, belief, emotion, wants, and needs are all fine examples of these sorts of things. These are the sorts of things I'm interested in. — creativesoul

Can you expand on this?

How does that particular Witt phrase apply? — creativesoul

Well, I feel as though the limits of what can be said, via sensory information or input, is what you seem to be talking about. Or to pose the question otherwise if a tree falls down and no sensory apparatuses are around to percieve it falling, then nothing can be said about the tree.

Dunno if that helped or was detrimental...

So, I read it all; but, no question was posited. I can't but help as though the grand conclusion is that whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent?

Or that existentially independent entities entail noumenal features and that those noumenal features are justified through the incompleteness of our sensory apparatuses.

So, for example love can be a higher order volition. But, that higher order volition has intrinsic value that can't be ever be fully objectified.

Favorite topic?

Wittgenstein.

I think vales are a different subject, although values are pretty close to higher order volition's. The difference it would seem is that values are static, where higher order volitions are more inclined to be dynamic. Or in other words, values obtain from higher order volitions, I think.

Yes, but I don't want to create the impression that desires are battling for attention in the back of ones mind or ones unconscious. Higher order volition's just attain a greater significance than first order volition's. How that comes to be is a mystery to me still... Any thoughts?

Yes, but having higher order volition's means that some inconsistency will eventually arise. No?

I think it's interesting you identify love, envy, jealousy -- i.e. emotions as higher order volitions. — aporiap

They can be. Not necessarily so.

I would've taken higher order volition to mean a desire derived from a deeply held value. Say spirituality is a value for me, then desires to meditate, pray, fast would be higher order volitions. — aporiap

I agree, and think you're right.

The motivation doesn't necessarily comes from pleasure or some other basic non-rational motivator, but it comes from a desire for self consistency. — aporiap

I don't know what you mean by that. Self consistency?

In what sense would a best social environment have nuclear families? Isn't that a big part of the problem? — apokrisis

I don't know what you're implying here; but, I figure what your advocating for is an earlier age to maturity or at least treating individuals as mature?

You are very pessimistic. Social science tells otherwise. Moving to another country likewise. — apokrisis

There's nothing pessimistic about saying that traits are highly individualistic or at least not as plastic as you think they are. Up to a certain age at least. But, you might be able to teach an old dog new tricks.

Now you are very optimistic. I agree that this is all possible. But how do you explain Trump, for instance. The smarter we need to be, the dumber we are prepared to vote. — apokrisis

Trump is just a passing president. The economy doesn't really care about him that much. I might be wrong though.

As for the unseen magic of the markets, the world has run off the road into the muddy ditch and is spinning its wheels with the accelerator rammed to the floor. Vast debt, zero interest rates. In a year, everywhere you know could be Venezuela. — apokrisis

Now you are being pessimistic. I don't think there's anything like that happening in the near future. I could be wrong.

Most psychologists would say it is down to a loving childhood environment. It is only the lack of that means you would have to make an effort on your own. — apokrisis

Yes, but it comes down to the nuclear family, and those conditions. The best social environment doesn't matter if the nuclear family is dysfunctional.

You don't argue with them. You construct suitable habits that give them useful employment. — apokrisis

So, you're talking about incentive's for good behaviour, no? There's some limit to doing that in my mind. The cultivation of good traits, though, is highly individualistic, and hard to persuade otherwise.

We need to be thinking really selfishly to continue the way we are behaving. And so that is the culture we have created. One that ensures we won't suddenly turn nutty and green. — apokrisis

I agree, but, if you ask my generation, the Millennial, they'll tell you that behaving selfishly is *ucked, and has lead to their current predicament or the predicament we will face in the future. Also, consumer behaviour is changing dramatically. People, on the grassroots scale, are more aware of the problem that climate change entails than on the macro scale, which is lagging as much as it can due to special interest groups and others. Besides, *it's the economy stupid*, that is changing minds. Electric vehicles are simply superior to gas powered automobiles. Solar panels, are *cool* and people want them. So, I would say that some semblance of a higher-order volition for the world is at play. At worst it's the economy working its magic in unseen ways.

Chicken or egg?

Are they wholly self-cultivated? They are supposedly top of the national school curriculum where I live. They are a basis of a healthy education and a healthy society. — apokrisis

Well, self-love is almost entirely self cultivated. But, it can be encouraged through education and such to a person. I take it you live in some Scandinavian country? Great place to be for yourself and your kids.

So sure, there are higher order thoughts about our desires. But it is constructing that conscious hierarchy that is point. It is a basic skill we need to learn. And schools are meant to institutionalise that. — apokrisis

I'm not too sure about that. The Hume saying of reason being the handmaiden to the passions comes to mind here. I don't quite know how malleable are passions and desires, through reasoning to them.

Loving your fellow humans and a shared environment also seem pretty important. Self-love would be part of the balanced mix. — apokrisis

Yes, certainly.

I think it is clear it has run out of control and taken on a life of its own. Society starts to exist for its own sake. Or worse yet, for the sake of a privileged elite.

But it is hard to push social democracy once a muddled philosophy of the human condition has become as pervasive in popular global culture as it has. — apokrisis

Care to expand on that last part a little more?

I am saying this is the socially constructed aspect of human voluntary behaviour. We are taught that we have to be in charge of our every action. That then cashes out as learning to pay attention where that seems necessary. — apokrisis

Well, yes. To some extent we can be programmed and told what volition is desirable for society or otherwise. To have a new car, a family, procreate-have kids, save for retirement and so on. But, a higher-order volition seems to be something else in some manner. Speaking of falling in love or being a good citizen or such, aren't reflexive attitudes towards reality; but, wholly self-cultivated. Thus, them being of a higher-order. Self-love is perhaps, as per Harry Frankfurt, the highest of volitions one can have.

So a narrator is us standing in for society inside our heads, running everything through that cultural filter. — apokrisis

Yes, agreed. Freud and other talk about sublimation; but, I don't think people would be able to live that way if we had a mind full of conflicting desires and needs.

An exhausting business, eh? :grin: — apokrisis

Quite.

My view is that this higher-order of choosing is the social one. And that is still so even when modern culture is supposedly all about the celebration of the self-actualising individual. — apokrisis

What do you mean?

So I definitely don't see any higher order volition in the sense of tapping into some hidden better self that lies beyond our ugly animal impulses. That is Romanticism. — apokrisis

Well, having read some of Frankfurt's works, he does talk about self love, being the highest-order volition that one can attain. I think there's some truth to that, given the self being the common denominator in every social or a-social decision.

But also, that Romantic model of the self is exactly the one which has evolved as the best way to sell pro-social modern behaviour. It maximises our individual competitive freedoms within a restraining framework of social co-operation.

So we are taught to believe this myth about the nature of human individuality. We are actually socially constructed creatures. But believing we are completely responsible for all our own successes and failures in life is the way to produce the modern citizen, completely at home in a striving, neo-liberal, self-reliant, upwardly mobile and consumerist world ... — apokrisis

Yes, the concept seems to have gotten exploited to some degree by society at large. I guess it depends on how much you value productivity and your time spent on enhancing it, heh.

The alarm goes. We just get out of bed, get to work on time. It is only when we stop to think "why?" that a conflict may be revealed, a habitual state of desire start to break down into competing impulses. — apokrisis

So, what is happening when we pause and reflect on an action before it is undertaken? Is there indeed some higher order volition operating in the background as we go by doing things? As if some narrator who wants to see things done in a certain way for some ultimate purpose? I think there is some truth to there being a higher-order volition in everyone's mind that guides us through life. Would you agree with that assessment?

But, people do have conflicting desires. Theres a conflict in the drug users mind as to how badly they want to get better. Higher order volition's seem to resolve the issue of a conflict in desire.

For instance, the drug addict can go to extremes to get his fix, and is able to set aside other desires and use reason to do so... what would disqualify it from being a higher order desire according to the wiki description? — ChatteringMonkey

The wiki points out that there is a higher order desire to get better rather than indulge in trying to get a fix. All of this seems intuitively clear. Conversely, there can be a conflict in desires as to what to do about not getting a fix. That's when a higher-order volition is the deciding factor as to how badly the drug user wants to get better or worse. The higher-order volition being that as to what to do about the drug users addiction. Whether to indulge in it or not, and for what sake? For the sake of getting better of course.

Right. I'll go and talk to wiki in your new thread.

Tomorrow. Now it's time for some wine. — unenlightened

Oh, OK.

:cool:

I'm not sure what it means to be 'higher order'. — unenlightened

Well, I started a separate thread about that here.

First, my example of wanting intoxication and not wanting the hangover; that's short term v longer term, probably not a higher order. — unenlightened

Well, surely the longer term goal is of a higher order or of greater importance than the short term goal of getting drunk? If I we're to posit that I have no higher-order volitions, then concepts such as 'acting in good faith', would be redundant or acting with a sense of sincerity. Even extending this concept of higher-order volitions outward to the realm of behaviour, then we can talk about having something in mind when we act, such as being a silly stoic who wants to preserve her indifference towards some matter or subject.

Well that's jolly nice and I don't have any conflict about it - why is that 'higher order' than wanting an ice-cream and having an ice-cream? — unenlightened

Well, you keep on reducing the scope of our volitions to trite and mundane things, like not wanting alcohol. Take for example a drug addict. They have the want to be gratified at the expense of money and health. Then if they had no higher-order volitions, such as to get better or quit their addiction, then they would be forever stuck in their destructive behaviour.

I think the idea of higher order comes from a conflict; I'd like to think, and I'd like you to think, that I am that kindly person who wants to help, but actually I just want to look good. — unenlightened

Well, yes, all of us are walking contradictions to some degree, perhaps exempt being the Buddhist monks or other spiritual people. I just think that the idea of having higher-order volitions as useful and makes sense.

So then behind this high minded kindliness, I'm in a conflict between wanting to look like a kindly fellow, and being an arrogant idler who is fed up with post's endless confusions... — unenlightened

Oh, Posty is just always confused. That's his nature. Sorry!

And you can call that volition if you wish, the normal interaction of reason and passion. Remember, that this all relates to the general project of Hume's to disentangle morality from actuality - ought from is. Remember too, that it is passion and thus morality that is in pole position. — unenlightened

If we apply, as you say, the philosopher's imaginary friend (which I think is a useful term), then does this not entail a higher-order want/desire/passion to do what is good or moral or ethical?

And there are lots of words we can use, and there is not some separate reasoner who is without passion, which is why I called it the philosopher's imaginary friend. — unenlightened

Please elaborate. What do you mean here?

Reason can say "If you don't want a hangover more than you do want to get drunk, then do not drink lots of wine. — unenlightened

Yes,

But passion is what makes things desirable and undesirable. — unenlightened

True.

So reason never tells you what to do, unless you add in your passions. — unenlightened

So, if we add in the passions to the discussion, then isn't this talk about 'volitions' and not reason and passions operating in seemingly isolation as per this discussion?

You have to want to avoid a burned hand before reason can tell you not to touch the hot stove. — unenlightened

Yeah, so that's a volition, no?

I think it's clear passions have a strong influence on reasoning, suppressing your ability for self control, instigating rationalization process and that it's incredibly difficult to stave off that influence by sheer will-power, unless it's boosted or still at high level. — aporiap

Yes, I do agree to some degree. I think there are higher order volition's, which seems like the apt term to use; such, as 'love' or 'envy' or 'jealousy'.

So therapy of the sort mentioned is in the business of pointing out to passion, that perhaps there are more effective ways to get what it cares about that it currently uses. I drink to dull the pain, but drinking causes me pain, and I drink to dull the pain. Reason can suggest that this is an ineffective strategy. — unenlightened

So, you have said it yourself, that reason can inform the passions through none other than reason alone, that some goal is undesirable rather than another. The gist here is how do the passions get shaped or formed into something else through reason.

Hence, reason can work in tandem with the passions to achieve a better outcome than something like them operating in isolation from another. I find the separation of the two or talking about reason as opposed to the passions or the will, to be quite confusing. Hence, maybe a better terminology would be 'volition', where both are working in tandem to produce some desired result.

The US already had its Fascist period at the appropriate time, with the early 20th century Progressives. The New Deal was essentially a mildly Fascist program, very similar to Mussolini's and Hitler's ideas (both Wilson and FDR were admirers of Mussolini). And both Social Democracy and Fascism were, in a way, developments of Bismarck's original late 19th century ideas about what we now call the welfare state. — gurugeorge

I'm reading Jonah Goldberg's, Liberal Fascism, and he does make that point in the book. Where did you service your conclusion, from that book too?

Yeah, but it's not a Christian fundamentalist preaching forum. — jorndoe

It need not be. Philosophy of Religion is what this is and I think it belongs here, if people can be civil enough to discuss the topic with their o so great critical minds™.

Settle down Captain Happy.

Oh, I'm just gullible. Haha.

You scared me there for a moment. I didn't think things would be that terrible.

:fear:

Just who is this appealing to? Is his base that twisted?

#Cages4Kids

???

Yes, I know how this argument goes. But, if it helps, you can think about it being a type of brain in the vat type scenario, just that this "brain" could self optimize or be inorganic or in silicone?

If you're interested I spit off a rather proto-typical discussion about AI, which I haven't seen hereabouts yet. Your input welcome:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3828/ethical-ai

That's the main solution to the Red Button scenario : make the AI somewhat similar to a human mind in terms of "lazyness". It doesn't really matter how much processing power is available to the AI, as long as it keeps in mind a certain threshold after which researching a solution to the problem is no longer profitable, you won't end up having an AI murdering humanity because that is easier than dividing by 0.

That still wont provide the AI any form of motivation or goal-setting system. That has to be provided by the code. — Akanthinos

I read Max Tegmark's Life 3.0, and he mentions some topics which I have been thinking about myself. But, in my mind, the alignment problem can be solved if feelings can be equipped into AI. I don't know what would prevent AI from becoming psychotic, as it surely might become, based on the sheer nature of mankind; but, I suppose it might find some mechanism to preserve desirable human traits and exclude the negative one's. How to go about something that could determine such cognitive capacity is beyond me.

There is one other option that doesn't get entertained enough... Namely, what if the human mind we're simulated itself? Wouldn't then AI or general AI have or be equipped with human emotions or a sense of strife towards living itself?

I often envision this form of AI as the safest and most "human friendly" or at least relate-able to human kind.

Of course, when I talk about doing philosophy in college, I mean the whole nine yards, until finishing grad school.