Spontaneity, Intentions, Free Will

Simplicity without a name is free from all external aim. With no desire, at rest and still, all things go right as of their will. Lao Tze

All human behavior arises spontaneously from procedures in the brain that are not rendered consciously before the event. The speaker and the audience are aware at the same time of what is spoken. The term "intention" derives meaning when it refers to the human ability to simulate behaviors, plan and self-regulate. Intentions are not properties of consciousness but are complexes of spontaneous drives, learned and previously rehearsed behaviors.

Intention is poorly understood, partly because humans claim complete control over their goals and behaviors when the outcome is good and deny all control when the outcome is not so good. The understanding of "conscious control, self control, intentions and will" goes something like this:

Human action is mostly spontaneous, not planned or known in advance.
You can learn to override some spontaneously arising drives and behaviors that are undesirable; override skills require daily practice in social circumstances.

You may be able to control some emotional expressions, but usually, emotion will take control with no option of intervention.

You may be able to direct some of your energy into adaptive plans that have been designed and practiced in advance.

Learned skills, continuing practice and diligence are required.
You can study your own behavior, learn and practice new routines when old ones are harmful or ineffective.

You can meditate and learn more about the spontaneous activity of your own mind.

An emotion is inherently spontaneous and challenges override skills. You can get angry and say hurtful things, apologize with the excuse "I was upset and didn't mean what I said" and expect to be forgiven. The more often you get angry, say hurtful things and apologize, the less plausible is the excuse and the more harmful the behavior. A mother demands (angrily) "Why did you do that?" when her four year old child spills a jug of lemonade and the distraught little girl does not know why she did that - she bursts into tears and runs to her room.

There is often no "why" to actions. Actions are spontaneous. Mistakes are common and sometimes are dangerous. Good performance of critical tasks is achieved by rigorous practice, followed by ongoing checking and monitoring routines to reduce error. Even the most rigorous error-checking schemes will not be perfect.

A young man accused of committing crimes is asked: "Why did you do what you did?" His honest and best answer is: "I don't know." We discover who we are as we go along. No one really knows why he or she did anything, although everyone makes up stories that suggest unusual ability to plan and predict. Every human who considers carefully will realize that retrospective analysis of human behavior will reveal both individual and universal patterns of behavior that emerge spontaneously.

Even when you recognize patterns of behavior and associate behaviors with antecedent conditions, you still do not know exactly why the behavior occurred. You will not be able to predict accurately future occurrences of any behavior except to say that humans tend to repeat what they have said and done before. You can offer a psychodynamic explanation based on your pet assumptions about how the mind works. Most psychodynamics are ad hoc explanations with doubtful validity. You can shrug your shoulders and say "karma". Karma refers to a complex of causes that stretch back to the beginning of the universe. The important determinants of human behavior may have little to do with biographical details and recent events. The essence of brain function is spontaneous activity.

All living creatures are intentional in the sense that they all project themselves into the world every day to get what they need. All living creatures have needs, goals, drives and strategies. Intention does not usually include a well-developed conscious plan, except in unusual circumstances.

Life generates activity. Activities have goals. Drives are programs in the brain that organize and energize activities. The primary goals are food and water. The drives are hunger and thirst. Drives are states of disequilibrium that originate with body needs and are stabilized by satisfying the need, finding, for example, food and water. Secondary goals are more numerous and include shelter, safety and sex, often in that order. The grand scheme for human existence is - air, food, water, shelter, safety and sex. If a man feels threatened, he has difficulty eating, cannot achieve an erection and cannot have sex.

Spontaneous drives are powerful. The human tendency is to keep busy devouring the world. Humans are predators, consumers, world-eaters with a large appetite. Human intelligence is directed to obtaining desirable things by skill, cunning, deception or force.

Most human problems can be solved by not wanting things, consuming more selectively and consuming less. Children are random little creatures. They do all sorts of things that they should not do, make many mistakes and hurt themselves often. The randomness is useful to tune into features of the local environment that are new. Children learn by exploring, copying and by making mistakes. Sometimes children are injured and sometimes they die by making a mistake. Every parent dreads the fatal mistake and good parents are constantly vigilant, using warnings, instruction and constraints to minimize the danger facing the inexperienced child. A one-year-old will crawl and then stagger around the house pulling and pushing on every object and will put everything that fits into his or her mouth. There is no way for a parent to sit down and have a nice chat with the infant about what is permissible activity and what is not.

A responsible parent will use the words "no" and don't" more often than any other words as they interact with their children. Humans lose some of their early randomness and tune into their environment more selectively as they get older. The no's and the don'ts become incorporated into a strategy of not doing things that are risky and harmful. A mature human, however, will continue to do all sorts of thing that they should not do. Not doing things is often the key to success. Adults often behave like a one-year-old infant exploring the kitchen cupboards. A small group of smart and nice humans act like parents and try to regulate the reckless behavior of others. Elaborate regulations are required to achieve a tolerable level of destructive behavior, but are generally unsuccessful at sustaining a high level of constructive behavior.

The philosophical and legal question is: "what differentiates our intended actions, for which we are responsible, from other actions?" The raw legal definition is; do you know right from wrong? A more subtle version is:" Do you understand why you did that in terms of your desires, goals, beliefs and consequences? Another issue is control. Could you control and direct your actions or were you directed by irrational forces such as emotions or false beliefs? The concept of control becomes complicated when you consider the organization of the brain and the many variables in brain function.

A normal, sane person loses control if he drinks too much beer at a football party. A patient with frontal lobe brain damage after a car accident loses control because he or she lost circuits that regulate action in terms of appropriate and goal-directed behavior. A patient with Alzheimer's disease loses control because she or she cannot remember what just happened and cannot plan what will happen next. The true test of freedom is making the choice not to do things that your world-eating appetites insist that you do. Every "free society" has elaborate arrangements in place to continue the constant repetition of no's and don'ts. Some tendencies that need modification are:
Humans are social animals and are not good at self-regulation.
Humans routinely do all sorts of harmful things to themselves, including harming themselves with bad food, cigarettes, alcohol, fast cars, cocaine, other drugs, legal and illegal.

Humans conspire together to do all sorts of things they should not do such as consuming all the non-renewable resources that are in reach, making toxic chemicals and spreading them on the land, in the air, the water and on their food. Humans conspire, plan and cooperate in complex enterprises with the sole intention of killing other humans.

An ancient human tendency is to exploit an environment, deplete all its resources and move on to the next environment.

Spontaneity, Intentions, Free Will is from Neuroscience Notes by Stephen Gislason, available as a printed book or PDF download.