Do we have a goal-driven psyche?

[Quartile]

The question is stated pretty well in the thread title, but I'll try to go deeper.

 

I would like to make the distinction between reaching a goal for the purpose of satisfaction and reaching a goal for the purpose of personal continuation. There are goals that must be attained for survival such as feeding oneself enough food to stay nourished, but I think that these goals are few and far between when compared to the things that people strive to attain through goals that would bring immediate and/or short-lasting pleasure. So there are many unnecessary goals manufactured by the personal psyche to bring short-lasting happiness and there are few inherently necessary goals that are required for self-sustainment.

 

This also brings in the question of an individual's necessary goals to satisfy self-sustainment in a systematic society like is being developed in urban areas around the world. Do biological goals change depending on where a human being lives? In other words, is it necessary to get a job if the only food you can find costs money? There are more ways to obtain food in an urban setting than through the front door of your local grocery store, but they are seemingly difficult.

 

Do conscious and healthy-minded human beings function primarily to reach physiological/psychological goals in order to feel satisfaction? If so, where can the line be drawn between necessary and unnecessary goals? Is the blurring of the line perhaps the cause of so much unhappiness in the world (individuals feeling that multitudes of things must be accomplished over long periods of time in order to have a clear and happy conscious experience)? How often do people think to themselves "I just need to do this and then I'll be happy"?

[justin]

i think that the only purpose that we have as a whole is to understand as much as we possibly can with out dying , simultaineously breaking through. goals and such are simply here to distract us from the infainite.if happyness consist on one's ability to achieve goals then we would have world full of regresion.

[ecoli]

i think that the only purpose that we have as a whole is to understand as much as we possibly can with out dying ,

From an evolutionary standpoint, that's not true. If 'understanding as much as we possibly can' increases Darwinian fitness, than such a trait could be selected for, but that doesn't seem to be the case among non-human animals, for example.

But even for humans, this can't be our 'only purpose' (again from an evolution perspective) because there are other things we can do that increases our fitness as well.

[thedarkshade]

It's always toward a better naturally selected condition!

[justin]

well of course is.To understand is to adapt and to survive,isn't it?

[Mr Skeptic]

There's other objectives people need to have, like having children, to be evolutionarily fit. But we do seem to be made to want to survive and perpetuate our genes. Occasionally, we want something that reduces our fitness, like suicide or perhaps smoking.

[Paralith]

The question is stated pretty well in the thread title, but I'll try to go deeper.

 

I would like to make the distinction between reaching a goal for the purpose of satisfaction and reaching a goal for the purpose of personal continuation. There are goals that must be attained for survival such as feeding oneself enough food to stay nourished, but I think that these goals are few and far between when compared to the things that people strive to attain through goals that would bring immediate and/or short-lasting pleasure.

...

Do conscious and healthy-minded human beings function primarily to reach physiological/psychological goals in order to feel satisfaction? If so, where can the line be drawn between necessary and unnecessary goals?

 

The question I would pose to you at this point is why do certain things bring us pleasure, no matter how short-lasting, and other things do not? Pleasure is a reward fed into your brain, making you feel good and instilling a desire in you to continue whatever behavior it was that caused such a feeling. This is a highly adaptive mechanism for encouraging you to engage in behaviors that increase reproductive success.

 

I agree that drawing the line between being motivated by your genes and being motivated by your own personal preferences is definitely not easy. It's basically trying to determine how strongly we are influenced by the genetic component of our behavior, and how much of that genetic influence we can counteract via free will. It's a very difficult question, and one that at that science currently doesn't have the knowledge to fully answer.

 

Based on what I know about human behavior, my opinion is that the genetic component of behavior is much stronger than most people realize. Obviously the ultimate goal from our genes' point of view is to increase reproductive success. How to go about accomplishing that goal, however, is a complex process that no doubt varies from person to person. Behaviors that may seem, on the surface, unrelated to reproduction, often are. Resource acquirement, social status, forming cooperative relationships with other members of your group, caring for your kin, etc etc - success in these areas is often accompanied by success in the reproduction of your genes.

 

Do biological goals change depending on where a human being lives? In other words, is it necessary to get a job if the only food you can find costs money?

 

One of the hallmarks of human beings is flexibility. Flexibility and the ability to adapt within one lifetime to the requirements of the environment has enabled human beings to live all over the planet. In your example, the goal is to acquire resources. We have the emotion, the desire to gather resources. As you grow up you learn exactly what it takes to successfully acquire resources in your environment. For most modern day humans, that means getting a good job, or finding some way to make lots of money.

 

Is the blurring of the line perhaps the cause of so much unhappiness in the world (individuals feeling that multitudes of things must be accomplished over long periods of time in order to have a clear and happy conscious experience)? How often do people think to themselves "I just need to do this and then I'll be happy"?

 

Perhaps, though I think I'm looking at it in a different way than you are. You see, the genetic component of our behaviors evolved in an environment very different from the world as it is today, especially in industrialized countries. Consciously we can learn how this new world works, and rationalize what is important and what isn't. But that doesn't change the innate desires instilled in us by our genes, desires that may or may not be capable of being realistically fulfilled in the modern world. We are highly flexible, but not infinitely flexible. We probably have limits, though I couldn't say I know what they are.

[Quartile]

Thanks everyone, and nice post Paralith.

 

The question I would pose to you at this point is why do certain things bring us pleasure, no matter how short-lasting, and other things do not?

 

Things bringing pleasure would have to be a product of the evolutionary process, but certain things would have to be a product of experience. Somewhere in the mind is a tally sheet that places importance to things. Sometimes tallies are made with thick black permanent markers, other times with white pencils (if you catch my drift). Emotional experience is definitely a large part of general experience, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with the tallying process.

 

What is reproductive success worth to the human race in the era we live in today? I would say there are more than enough humans on the planet to ensure the survival of humanity even through a catastrophic event like an asteroid collision. I understand that the drive to achieve reproductive success still exists in each individual and I believe that therein lies a problem: how to reconcile our evolutionary past with a semipermanent future. Realizing that happiness can be found without piecing one's life together from goal to goal is a large step toward finding personal well-being and freedom. Often it is an aura of personal freedom coming from a person, simply being happy and sharing happiness, that attracts the opposite sex these days. The things you mentioned are still big players, but the most attractive personality seems to be the one that loves openly.

 

In your example, the goal is to acquire resources.

 

In fact, the goal I was referring to in my example was acquiring only the resources necessary for self-sustainment. Currently I don't have enough money to do the things that I want to or think I need to do, but I have more than enough money to live. I don't currently have my own place to call home nor would I need one if my goal was simply self-sustainment.

[Paralith]

Thanks everyone, and nice post Paralith.

 

Things bringing pleasure would have to be a product of the evolutionary process, but certain things would have to be a product of experience. Somewhere in the mind is a tally sheet that places importance to things. Sometimes tallies are made with thick black permanent markers, other times with white pencils (if you catch my drift). Emotional experience is definitely a large part of general experience, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with the tallying process.

 

Thank you; and yes, the expression of emotions is a complicated process involving both your genetic influences and your personal experience. They both definitely play a part, I just think people tend to underplay the genetic influence.

 

What is reproductive success worth to the human race in the era we live in today? I would say there are more than enough humans on the planet to ensure the survival of humanity even through a catastrophic event like an asteroid collision. I understand that the drive to achieve reproductive success still exists in each individual and I believe that therein lies a problem: how to reconcile our evolutionary past with a semipermanent future. Realizing that happiness can be found without piecing one's life together from goal to goal is a large step toward finding personal well-being and freedom. Often it is an aura of personal freedom coming from a person, simply being happy and sharing happiness, that attracts the opposite sex these days. The things you mentioned are still big players, but the most attractive personality seems to be the one that loves openly.

 

Can happiness be found without piecing one's life together from goal to goal? For the billions of years that life has been on this planet reproductive success has always been the ultimate goal; things related to bringing us reproductive success have always brought us great pleasure. Modern human life has only existed for a blink of an eye in terms of evolutionary timelines; how much can our basic needs for happiness have changed? I'm playing the devil's advocate here, because I'm unsure of the answer to this question myself.

 

Think about it: the most attractive personality seems to be the one that loves openly. A mate who will be loving and committed, a mate who will be generous with what they have and what they give, a mate who is loved by all around them and thus has great social ties. This sounds like a pretty good deal when it comes to finding a partner to raise offspring with. I repeat, things that may seem unrelated to reproductive success often are - or, at least, could be. Further research in the field will yield the final judgment, but until then, we most certainly can't rule this out.

 

In fact, the goal I was referring to in my example was acquiring only the resources necessary for self-sustainment. Currently I don't have enough money to do the things that I want to or think I need to do, but I have more than enough money to live. I don't currently have my own place to call home nor would I need one if my goal was simply self-sustainment.

 

My dear, resources are needed for far more than just self-sustainment. Resources are the limiting factor in a female's reproductive success. The process of pregnancy and the child care that follows is an immense resource drain on a woman's body, on her time and energy. In species with biparental offspring care such as ours, a female desires a mate who will help support her resource needs. A woman wants to share her future with a man with a good job, with decent prospects of a nice house and comfortable living. Men desire these things too, because without them they have little chance of winning a quality mate.

[Quartile]

Can happiness be found without piecing one's life together from goal to goal?

 

By living in the moment instead of living one's life as a slave to desire. It is as easy as making a choice when you are able to see it for what it is, but actually becoming that choice is a difficult process. It requires lots of effort, willingness, and change.

 

My dear, resources are needed for far more than just self-sustainment. Resources are the limiting factor in a female's reproductive success. The process of pregnancy and the child care that follows is an immense resource drain on a woman's body, on her time and energy. In species with biparental offspring care such as ours, a female desires a mate who will help support her resource needs. A woman wants to share her future with a man with a good job, with decent prospects of a nice house and comfortable living. Men desire these things too, because without them they have little chance of winning a quality mate.

 

People, whether male or female, have an innate desire for happiness and well-being. At what point should a woman make an exception to her desire for the alpha-male so that she might go on living her own life? At what point should a man stop fighting towards the top of the pyramid so that he might go on living his? If the desire for successful reproduction was many times stronger than the desire for personal happiness and well-being, we would see that women would settle for nothing but the best and men would battle constantly for the resources necessary to be seen as the best. This is what is happening in the world today in some places, but there are at least several billion people that choose not to fight the fight. They simply enjoy whatever life gives them instead of treating themselves like the most important human being alive. So my question is: what is so important about money, a nice house, and a comfortable living? Is it so a woman can reconcile her deep-seeded "I am a queen and I will select whomever will treat me as such" self image with the realization that she is nobody? Is it so a man can reconcile his deep-seeded "I am a king and I will be selected and reign supreme" self image with the realization that he is nobody?

 

In species with biparental offspring care such as ours, a female desires a mate who will help support her resource needs. A woman wants to share her future with a man with a good job, with decent prospects of a nice house and comfortable living

 

So goal-seeking is done solely for the advantage of the family unit? What about when a couple drops their child off at daycare (school) every day before they both go to work and they don't see their son/daughter again until they come home at 6 pm? Is this just an example of misplaced priorities? Then the question is why are these priorities being misplaced? Perhaps they might think the fruit of their goals isn't ripe enough to settle for yet.

 

Men desire [money] too, because without [it] they have little chance of winning a quality mate.

 

Is life just a game?

If men stopped shooting baskets and women stopped keeping score would we cease to exist?

[Paralith]

Quartile - your responses are along the correct lines, but they are too simplified.

 

For example, you talk about a woman making "an exception to her desire for the alpha-male." It is mostly in other animal species where the alpha male is by default the best mate choice. But humans are much more complex than that. There are many ways and strategies by which a person can become successful in a modern world, and different people will have different specific preferences. And especially considering that most modern humans are monogamous, finding a mate that is compatible with your individual needs is important - it helps you to form a committed bond, and parents with a committed bond to each other can better work together in raising their offspring. So to say that all a woman wants is an alpha male is incorrect. What she wants is a quality mate. It just so happens that often times alphas make pretty good mates.

 

You seem to be losing track of a few things here. Let me say again that human behavior is a complex interaction of our personal experiences and our genes. Our genes no doubt have a strong influence on us, but a lot of our behavior also depends on what we learn as we grow up about how to achieve success in our current environment. Let's take your child care example. The basic genetic impulse is to take care of your offspring, and accrue resources that will enable you to do this. Many of the specifics of how this is accomplished are learned. Parents who drop their children off at daycare while they spend their day toiling away at their job probably believe that this is the best way to raise their family - pay someone to take good care of the kids while they make sure that the resource inflow is secure. But as human knowledge progresses, cultural paradigms and teachings may now shift towards something different.

 

Something else I'd like to state again is that, at this point, we're not sure to what degree our learned, "free will" choices can trump our underlying genetically determined desires. No doubt people vary in this characteristic. For some people (most people, probably) playing the game, as you call it, is happiness. They want to become successful, they want to raise a family, and by doing so they feel happy and fulfilled. You may call it being a slave to your desires, but many people are happy this way.

 

And it's also important to point out that not all of our desires are purely selfish. Their genetic origin may result from the selfish reproductive interests, but that's not how they express themselves in our lives and minds. Most humans have a general desire to be a productive member of society, to help others, to give to charity, to give something back to the community. These desires initially evolved because humans are high social animals, and feelings of goodwill towards your neighbors encourages adaptive cooperation, and cooperation is advantageous for everyone involved. So the promotion of such harmony makes us happy too.

[Quartile]

I have not lost track of anything nor have I oversimplified things in a way that would subtract from the point I am making. If what a woman wants is a quality mate, then what the woman wants is the quality mate. I am simply highlighting the most extreme of the extremes in the points you are making in order to paint the picture of a man who would take everything on earth for himself to see that his insanely demanding wife's "needs" are met. Of course few people have been able to live so lavishly, but if I follow you correctly then it was the same desire driving Henry VIII's family to lead their lifestyle as it is driving a middle-class man and woman to lead theirs. And when we consider that the many different degrees of resource gathering perpetrated by men all over the world are all happening at once, what difference do the parts of the whole impact make? The blame is to be placed on the general acceptance of the mentality that has grown in us that each individual one of us has something special that no one else has. If the population stops growing there might be a chance that we won't rape the entire planet of its resources in the name of ourselves, but at this rate it doesn't seem like that will be the case. Regardless, my point is that individual happiness is a more important goal to any individual than is reproductive success. Many people would say that they would like to have a child in order to be happy, not be happy in order to have a child. Is there not a middle place where everyone can ground themselves, regardless of the experiences that teach them "how"?

 

If parents dropping their children off at daycare believe they are doing their best to raise their children then how can you appeal to a woman's desire for reproductive success as part of the family raising process? If daycare providers are included in the child rearing process, then how can you say that it is a woman's ultimate goal to find the correct man (who will provide for the family) when it could instead be the woman's goal to find the correct social services? As you have implied, reproductive success being the figurative "goal of goals" doesn't work so well in modern society.

 

For some people (most people, probably) playing the game, as you call it, is happiness. They want to become successful, they want to raise a family, and by doing so they feel happy and fulfilled. You may call it being a slave to your desires, but many people are happy this way.

 

"Being happy" means simply that. It applies at all times unconditionally. How many of these happy people would remain happy after being fired from a good paying job? Shit happens and the response of your significant other should be nothing but supportive, but how often is it that we would feel the need to hide something like this in fear of being berated for it? Why is it that to tell your significant other that some thing has gone wrong feels so similar to telling your parents that you crashed their car? In this way I strongly believe that happiness is not something to be found by setting and satisfying goals. As human beings we still haven't answered the question of questions, do we know enough to set our own goals?

 

And it's also important to point out that not all of our desires are purely selfish. Their genetic origin may result from the selfish reproductive interests, but that's not how they express themselves in our lives and minds. Most humans have a general desire to be a productive member of society, to help others, to give to charity, to give something back to the community. These desires initially evolved because humans are high social animals, and feelings of goodwill towards your neighbors encourages adaptive cooperation, and cooperation is advantageous for everyone involved. So the promotion of such harmony makes us happy too.

 

Yes I don't doubt that this exists and I understand its place in each person as a tool of evolution. I only disagree with the way it has manifested: meeting the status quo of being someone who cares about others means that you wave to your neighbor on your way into the garage, it means that you say please and thank you, and it means that you turn the other way when people have personal problems.

 

Wanted to add something aside from those gigantic walls of text that I built in here..

 

Is reproductive success the target of the goals that we make or is it survival? You can't reproduce unless you're surviving. And my original point was just that it is easy to complicate survival in modern times; perhaps happiness is only as difficult as we make it.

[thedarkshade]

Reproductive success only makes life possible to go on. And you can't reproduce unless you're surviving and still within that phase where you could reproduce. Taken in a rough way, yes, the aim is for the life to go on, but if by a 'goal-driven psyche' we take it in a more metaphysical way (like we're here to fulfill something) there really is no goal, we make the world the way we work on it.

[Paralith]

Sorry it took a while to respond. I was particularly busy at work this past week.

 

I have not lost track of anything nor have I oversimplified things in a way that would subtract from the point I am making. If what a woman wants is a quality mate, then what the woman wants is the quality mate. I am simply highlighting the most extreme of the extremes in the points you are making in order to paint the picture of a man who would take everything on earth for himself to see that his insanely demanding wife's "needs" are met.

You can talk about the most extreme ends of the spectrum if you like, but doing so is simply not representative of the behavior of the majority of people. Also, the needs and desires instilled in us by our genes are not as conscious as you are describing them - people in general desire to accumulate resources, and when doing so they're not thinking to themselves, "By doing this I will capture a good mate and provide for my offspring! Yes!" They just know that accumulation makes them happy. And the happiness evolved to encourage them in this activity that on average correlates with reproductive success. But the resource accumulation desire is not the only one that exists in a human's mind. There also exists the general desire to live in cooperation with their group members. So the average man will not seek to ravish the earth and get everything for himself because he also desires to cooperate with his group. The average man. There will of course always be extremes and variations. Whenever I speak of a behavioral trend it is in terms of generalities and averages, because how any one given individual behaves is based on a combination of their genes (which will of course vary across of the human species) and the specifics of their environment.

 

Of course few people have been able to live so lavishly, but if I follow you correctly then it was the same desire driving Henry VIII's family to lead their lifestyle as it is driving a middle-class man and woman to lead theirs.

Yes. Remember that I said our behavior is also highly plastic. We learn from our parents what are the best ways to live in our environment, and a prince raised in privilege and children raised in the middle class will have learned different strategies. But it also possible for humans to learn and to change their strategies during our lifetimes. I'm sorry if you take offense at my saying this, but you are definitely simplifying things if you don't take human plasticity and variation into account, and compared to most other animals, we have a great deal of both.

 

And when we consider that the many different degrees of resource gathering perpetrated by men all over the world are all happening at once, what difference do the parts of the whole impact make? The blame is to be placed on the general acceptance of the mentality that has grown in us that each individual one of us has something special that no one else has. If the population stops growing there might be a chance that we won't rape the entire planet of its resources in the name of ourselves, but at this rate it doesn't seem like that will be the case. Regardless, my point is that individual happiness is a more important goal to any individual than is reproductive success. Many people would say that they would like to have a child in order to be happy, not be happy in order to have a child. Is there not a middle place where everyone can ground themselves, regardless of the experiences that teach them "how"?

 

Like I said above, people of course seek what makes them happy. And when they do this they aren't consciously thinking "this will make me happy because it's good for my potential offspring" etc. The behavior that results in happiness, during our evolution, tended to correlate with increased reproductive success. This is why I think it's important for us humans to understand where our urges and desires come from. We are resource greedy because in our evolutionary past being so made us successful, but that trend does not hold in our current environment, and at the rate we're going we can't wait for evolution to catch up with us. We have to make the choice and change ourselves. It won't be easy to teach people this, but it is certainly possible, and we can change the course of things if we do.

 

If parents dropping their children off at daycare believe they are doing their best to raise their children then how can you appeal to a woman's desire for reproductive success as part of the family raising process? If daycare providers are included in the child rearing process, then how can you say that it is a woman's ultimate goal to find the correct man (who will provide for the family) when it could instead be the woman's goal to find the correct social services? As you have implied, reproductive success being the figurative "goal of goals" doesn't work so well in modern society.

 

I never said it was the woman's "ultimate" goal to find the right man. Finding the right man is an important goal on the way towards reproductive success. Thus women desire to find the right man. But that is most certainly not the only desire they feel, as finding the right man is not the only thing you have to do in order to be reproductively successful.

 

And no, many of our current behaviors are not adaptive in the current environment, because it is different from the environment we evolved in, and evolution takes time. It has not caught up to this very, very new environment, and we have to make up for it ourselves by learning.

 

"Being happy" means simply that. It applies at all times unconditionally. How many of these happy people would remain happy after being fired from a good paying job? Shit happens and the response of your significant other should be nothing but supportive, but how often is it that we would feel the need to hide something like this in fear of being berated for it? Why is it that to tell your significant other that some thing has gone wrong feels so similar to telling your parents that you crashed their car? In this way I strongly believe that happiness is not something to be found by setting and satisfying goals. As human beings we still haven't answered the question of questions, do we know enough to set our own goals?

 

lol. You seem to treading more into philosophy at this point. Is it possible to be unconditionally happy all the time? Or do you just learn to accept the difficulties in life and work your way towards your next moment of happiness? And I also don't really see how happiness can be found in the complete absence of goals. Even if the goal is to find the state of mind that best promotes happiness, it's a goal to accomplish nonetheless.

 

Yes I don't doubt that this exists and I understand its place in each person as a tool of evolution. I only disagree with the way it has manifested: meeting the status quo of being someone who cares about others means that you wave to your neighbor on your way into the garage, it means that you say please and thank you, and it means that you turn the other way when people have personal problems.

 

Again, today's world is very different from the one in which we evolved. In our past we had consistent, close interactions and relationships with our group members every day, and these groups weren't much larger than 150 individuals. Every day life simply doesn't have that same dynamic, and finding ways to become an active, cooperative member of a group of several million is a challenge.

 

Wanted to add something aside from those gigantic walls of text that I built in here..

 

Is reproductive success the target of the goals that we make or is it survival? You can't reproduce unless you're surviving. And my original point was just that it is easy to complicate survival in modern times; perhaps happiness is only as difficult as we make it.

 

It is reproductive success. Many animals only survive long enough to put every ounce of energy and life they have into having offspring, and then they expire. For humans, our reproductive success is complicated. We are intelligent, plastic, variable, adaptive, so that we can take advantage of a myriad of strategies that will lead to our success. There are many paths for humans to achieve success so there are many paths towards happiness. All of the things I have described in this thread can help you to understand your own desires a little better, but in the end you have to make your own decision about what makes you happy.