I think it is a mistake to represent the goal as driving you forward, because the goal does not drive you forward, it may just sit there in your mind. It is your dedication to achieving the goal, and the will to act, which drives you forward, not the goal itself. The goal itself is a passive thing with no causal power. — Metaphysician Undercover

Goals are not passive things. They are active states of constraint. So they may not be efficient causes, but they are final causes. They shape the intentional space in which consequent decision making unfolds. If we have an image of the final destination, then that is how we can start filling in all the necessary step actions to get us there.

So let's take your example of throwing the ball. Suppose you're a quarterback, and the throw must be precisely timed. You hold the goal, to throw, and you hold the ball, to throw. At the exact right moment, you must pull back and release the ball. The motivating factor for the release is not the goal, because despite having the goal of throwing you continue to hold the ball, perhaps even to the point of getting sacked. The motivating factor appears to be the judgement "now", at which time the habit takes over and the throw is made. — Metaphysician Undercover

When playing fast sport, the decision-making has to be all pretty much habitual or automatic. Habitual responses are learnt behaviour - reactions ready to go - so can be executed in around a fifth of a second. Attention-level deliberation takes half a second at least. So it is much too slow to actually be in control while playing football.

The proper role of attentional-level goal forming is in the breaks in play. The "wait and get ready with a plan" moments. That is where the quarterback delays to become clear on his general intention during the next play. He has to start with a state of broad focus which shuts out everything he can expect to be able to ignore - like the cheerleaders prancing on the sidelines - so that his trained habits will be able to pick out all the rapid subtleties, like last instant reshuffles in the opposition defensive line.

Then the play starts to unfold and all his trained instincts can slot in according to a general intent. He is itching to pull the trigger on the throw. A conjunction of observed motions on the field hit the point where the habits themselves provide the timing information. The "go now" command is issued by the mid-brain basal ganglia in concert with the brainstem's cerebellum. The conscious brain can discover how it worked out a half second later as attentional-level processing catches up to provide a newly integrated state of experience. The quarterback can start thinking oh shit, or hot damn.

So the mistake is to try to assign thought, cause, motivation or intention to just one level of mental operation. And yet also, the general desire - neurobiologically speaking - is for a strong dichotomy to emerge.

Attention wants to do the least it can get away with. Everything that can be handed down the chain to learnt automatism will be handed down. But then that also leaves attention responsible for the very stuff that is the most critical or difficult or novel when it comes to "thought, cause, motivation or intention".

So a kid learning to play really does have to focus on the mechanics of simply timing a throw. There is no remaining capacity for thinking about the patterns of play likely to be unfolding on the field. But as a skilled player, even reading the game is something that doesn't need specific attention. Most of the effort has to go to just not getting distracted by cheerleaders, or whatever.

Motivation is thus dichotomous. It has both its generality and its particularity - the two levels complementing each other. You have to be governed by the constraint of some generalised intent. And then within that, you will be able to see all the particular steps needed to get you to that destination.

Action is not about summoning up the energy to do the bidding of reason. That is a mechanical metaphor - the psychology inspired by the industrial age when hot steam was needed to make the wheels turn.

Instead, a biological organism is always some host of spastic potential, itching and twitching, restless to be doing. Just watch a newborn squirming randomly. What it then needs is the focus so all that potential gets a clear direction that is useful. And over time, that intentionality has to become transformed into stable, reliable, habit. The ultimate goal is an economy of motion - achieving the most by doing the least.

Rather than motivation being about feeding the machine with more energy to get it to go harder, it is about learning how to reduce the informational load on acting so that doing what you need to do feels like an easy downhill ride - the flow experience of the truly skilled individual.

Who needs motivation to climb stairs or drive a car? Once the habits have been learnt, these dangerous and complex actions could not feel easier. We just get on and do them without having to break down any informational barriers.

Of course then there is real life where as soon as we have mastered the basic skills, higher level decision making gets piled on top. We even seek greater demands as unthinking and repetitive action gets boring. There are always new horizons to automate and assimilate to habit.

So when people complain about a lack of motivation to study, exercise, tidy their bedroom, whatever, it is because they face informational barriers - conflicted intentions - that make going in that direction too hard. They are really faced with the choice of either actually learning the appropriate life routines, or dealing with the possibility that its not actually something they believe in as a globally constraining life goal.

Imagine that I am out of milk, and I need milk for my tea, so I decide to walk to the corner store. Off I go. I never develop the goal of moving my feet. The goal is what I want, to get milk. I have choices of how to achieve that goal, so I decide to walk to the store. Walking to the store is the means to the end. Once I've made up my mind, the habit kicks in, but the movements required for walking never enter my mind as part of the goal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Actually, isn't your primary goal, to have tea, not to get milk? Isn't getting milk and walking to the store SUB-goals of the primary goal? Isn't that what the goal of moving your feet would be too?

The whole first half of your post ignores what I said about learning how to walk. When you are in the process of learn something, then each step has to be focused on to complete the primary goal of walking. The same for throwing a football. I coach youth flag football and in teaching a kid how to throw a football requires all these other steps of positioning your feet, fingers, hand and arm, and the motion of your arm, fingers and hand, and even your body, as you throw the ball. A kid learning this often forgets each step and it takes practice to get it all. Once they've done it many times it becomes automatic. I don't think Tom Brady focuses much about how to plant his feet and positioning his fingers on the laces of the ball. All that information is in his subconscious. So the goal and process of moving your legs and arms are still there - it's just that you can focus on other tasks, not tasks you have performed over and over again. The brain is capable of multitasking by leaving he goals and means of achieving them to the subconscious while the conscious part focuses it's attention (which seems to be the special thing about consciousness as opposed to the subconscious and unconscious. It has attention) on other things.

I wouldn't say that it is the "initial goal of moving your body" which is the motivating factor, because you can hold that goal of moving your body, without ever moving. These people who have goals without acting on them, we call unmotivated. It is the impetus of "act now!", which we refer to as motivation. And this is separate from the goal, because it may be applied to any goal. That is why ambitious, motivated people may be motivated toward all sorts of different goals. What makes the person motivated is not the goal itself, it's the person's attitude toward the goal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course the goal has causal power. How else do you explain your current state of walking to the store, if the goal of having tea doesn't have causal power? If your goal was to watch your favorite TV show, then you wouldn't be walking to the store. The goal itself dictates the actions you are taking now, or else you could never say why you are doing this particular thing now (walking to the store) as opposed to something else (looking for the remote control).

Goals are not passive things. They are active states of constraint. So they may not be efficient causes, but they are final causes. They shape the intentional space in which consequent decision making unfolds. If we have an image of the final destination, then that is how we can start filling in all the necessary step actions to get us there. — apokrisis

I disagree with this, A goal is a describable object, it is a state, and as such it is static. The mind iswhat is active in forming goals. If a goal were to change, it can no longer be called "the same goal". This is necessary in order to be consistent with the laws of logic. Goals cannot change,one goal is replaced with another. So it is quite true that one's formal intention is active and changing, just like the form of any object, but when a person's formal intention changes the person can no longer be said to have the same goal. This is despite the fact that we may say that a physical object is the same object despite some changes to the form of the object. To assume this would make the goal unintelligible (contrary to the laws of logic), assuming that it could be the same goal after changing, which would contradict the fundamental nature of the goal, as an intelligible object.

When playing fast sport, the decision-making has to be all pretty much habitual or automatic. — apokrisis

This I disagree with as well. In fast sports, every situation is different, and it is the rapid thinking mind, the ability to foresee the rapidly changing future, the ability to adjust quickly with changes, which is on display in these sports. Hockey is a fine example. Yes, good habits are essential and all professional hockey players must develop these, but when we judge their "star" level we are judging their ability to think outside the box, be creative, and basically, their rapid decision making. The very nature of the habit is to constrain, so it is the difficult task of a fine hockey coach, to maintain a delicate balance between habit and creativity within the high-spirited, highly motivated hockey players.

Then the play starts to unfold and all his trained instincts can slot in according to a general intent. He is itching to pull the trigger on the throw. A conjunction of observed motions on the field hit the point where the habits themselves provide the timing information. The "go now" command is issued by the mid-brain basal ganglia in concert with the brainstem's cerebellum. The conscious brain can discover how it worked out a half second later as attentional-level processing catches up to provide a newly integrated state of experience. The quarterback can start thinking oh shit, or hot damn. — apokrisis

What? Come on now, are you saying that the "go now" command is not produced by the conscious mind? The quarterback doesn't consciously decide when to throw? The hockey player doesn't consciously decide when to shoot the puck? I find that counter-intuitive, and hard to believe, but I'm ready to allow this proposition, if only just for the sake of argument. After all, I'm arguing a separation between the goal, and the motivation which gives the "go now". So if the goal is attributed to the conscious mind, and the "go now" is not, this provides the separation I need.

However, I have difficulty with the logic of this claim, and I'll explain to you my difficulty. Perhaps you can give me an explanation which will help me to get beyond this problem. Suppose that the goal is to throw the ball and this is within the conscious mind. The QB must resist going through with the throw, until the moment is right. So the QB uses will power to stay in this zone of being about to throw, but not yet throwing. I believe that this will power involves a conscious effort. When the throw is made, there must be a release of this will power, a release from this conscious effort not to throw. But this "release" can only be a conscious decision, or else the conscious effort not to throw would be totally ineffective. If the non-conscious could overcome the conscious effort of will power at any moment, then the conscious effort to restrain would have no power to actually do that.

That's the problem I invite you to help me resolve. It appears to be impossible that the conscious effort to refrain from acting could have any power of self-restraint, if the motivation to "go now" was derived from the non-conscious. The non-conscious motivation to "go now" could just arise at any time, overpowering the conscious effort of restraint. In reality, the conscious effort actually restrains the "go now" motivation or else there would be no conscious restraint. How could the release be non-conscious without upending the whole thing?

Actually, isn't your primary goal, to have tea, not to get milk? Isn't getting milk and walking to the store SUB-goals of the primary goal? Isn't that what the goal of moving your feet would be too? — Harry Hindu

I agree with this designation of primary goals and sub-goals. But the problem is that moving my feet never becomes a goal at all, it just happens automatically, like my breathing isn't a goal, it just happens automatically. I decide to walk to the store, and I stand up and go. I do not decide to move my feet. There's many different muscles in my legs, ankles, and feet. I do not decide which ones to move, and how to move them, yet they still move properly when I decide to walk to the store. How would you draw a line? Which movements are described by the goal, and which just come about automatically because the person is motivated to achieve the goal?

The whole first half of your post ignores what I said about learning how to walk. — Harry Hindu

I didn't address this because it isn't relevant. I'm not talking about learning how to walk, I'm talking about walking as a habit. When we know well how to walk, we do so without setting goals of where and when to move our feet, this just happens naturally without the goal. When an individual who knows how to walk is motivated to walk, that person does so without setting goals of where and when to move one's feet. Whether or not one had to proceed with such goals when learning how to walk is irrelevant because I was talking about habitual actions, not learning such things.

So the goal and process of moving your legs and arms are still there - it's just that you can focus on other tasks, not tasks you have performed over and over again. — Harry Hindu

No, the goal is not still there, and that's the point. To be "there" it must be in the conscious mind. I have no idea what goals I had in my mind when I was learning to walk, so whatever those goals were, they are definitely not still there. I now walk without having in my mind the goals which assisted me in learning how to walk in the first place. And the walking activity is "automatic". It occurs without those goals.

The brain is capable of multitasking by leaving he goals and means of achieving them to the subconscious while the conscious part focuses it's attention (which seems to be the special thing about consciousness as opposed to the subconscious and unconscious. It has attention) on other things. — Harry Hindu

How do you suppose that the subconscious has goals? I don't see how this is possible. I can understand that a subconscious activity is carried out for a purpose, but this does not mean that the goal itself is within the subconscious.

Of course the goal has causal power. How else do you explain your current state of walking to the store, if the goal of having tea doesn't have causal power? — Harry Hindu

As I explained, it is not the goal of walking to the store, or having tea, which causes me to walk to the store. It is the decision to "act now" which causes me to go. I could be sitting on the couch for a very long time, maintaining the goal of walking to the store, without actually doing it, if I am unmotivated. So clearly it is not the goal which has causal power. I must be motivated to act on the goal or else nothing becomes of the goal.

The goal itself dictates the actions you are taking now, or else you could never say why you are doing this particular thing now (walking to the store) as opposed to something else (looking for the remote control). — Harry Hindu

The reason why of a particular thing, is not the same as a cause of action.

The quarterback must release with millisecond accuracy and yet it takes at least a tenth of a second for any "go now" command to form as connections in the brain and messages travelling down the arms and body. So forget about even longer attentional, voluntary, deliberative, reportable consciousness being in control.

Even habit level execution takes a tenth of a second to make the simplest decision, like hear the pistol shot that starts the race. And to react to something more complex, like a bad bounce of a cricket ball, takes a fifth of a second.

This is all very well studied in sports psychology labs. It is even written into the laws of the games, as in the thresholds set for false starts in sprint races.

It should be obvious really. The more complicated the processing, the longer it is going to take. So habit is learnt skill that makes the least demand. Attention is a whole brain analysis that just has to take more time.

Yes, skilled competitors are good at throwing in unpredictability. And coping with unpredictably. That is what happens when you put in enough practice of the right kind. Tricky things can be handled "instinctively".

Again, we are talking about organisms and not machines. Simple is not dumb. Simple is proof of having learnt. Simple is the mastery of efficient achievement of goals.

The quarterback must release with millisecond accuracy and yet it takes at least a tenth of a second for any "go now" command to form as connections in the brain and messages travelling down the arms and body. So forget about even longer attentional, voluntary, deliberative, reportable consciousness being in control. — apokrisis

I don't think that this is a good argument. The precise time, the "millisecond accuracy" can be predicted in advance, so all the extra time require for the voluntary act can be accounted for in the QB's prediction of when to throw. If something suddenly appeared in front of the QB, and he had to respond within a millisecond, I agree that this would be impossible. But nothing is moving that fast, and this is not the case. The QB is simply waiting for the appropriate time to throw. So all the time is factored into the decision, the time the ball is in the air, the time the arm is moving, and the time that the brain messages are travelling. You have no argument here, that the decision to release is not voluntary.

Even habit level execution takes a tenth of a second to make the simplest decision, like hear the pistol shot that starts the race. And to react to something more complex, like a bad bounce of a cricket ball, takes a fifth of a second. — apokrisis

See, here you are talking about reaction time, but reaction time is not what the example is all about. What is the case in the example, is that the QB is holding the ball, with the goal of throwing, but waiting for the precise "right" moment to release it. This is how I am separating having a goal, from the motivation to act on that goal, as two distinct things. We can hold a goal, and decide to act on it at a later time. So having goals and being motivated to act, are two distinct things. .

A goal is a mental object, like any conception or idea. It must be conceived. To produce a goal requires thought, and thinking is an activity which requires motivation. I think it is a mistake to represent the goal as driving you forward, because the goal does not drive you forward, it may just sit there in your mind. It is your dedication to achieving the goal, and the will to act, which drives you forward, not the goal itself. The goal itself is a passive thing with no causal power. — Metaphysician Undercover

Very Schopenhauer of you!

The logic remains. Nerve signals take time. Habits short circuit action decisions and have an integration time of a tenth to a fifth of a second. Attentive level thought takes a third to three-quarters of a second to arrive at an integrated state. So in sport or any skilled activity, decisions on how to complete an intent - as in thinking "go" with a throw - have to be left to a trained habit level of execution.

And on anticipation, of course anticipation is absolutely necessary. The brain is a prediction engine. But the same story applies. We learn how to predict at an slow attentive level. Then we get good and familiar with this predicting such that is can be executed as rapid habit. Both levels of processing are anticipatory. But one has to start out and form a general intent ahead of time - prime for the decision by setting up some notion of the constraining goal. Then the other can kick in and supply the particular action commands right up to the last split instant - which is still a good tenth of a second behind the world, and so also is by necessity anticipatory.

What is motivation? Where does it come from? Why do we do what we do? — Gotterdammerung

Generally, we are motivated by three basic things (two of which are deeper- one of which is immediate).The deeper motivations are survival and boredom. The immediate motivation is dissatisfaction. Goals-directed behavior has become the primary tool to put the underlying drives into some form of activity. Why do we participate in the economy, etc, is because of survival. Why do we do this or that non-survival related thing? Because of boredom. Why did we turn on the air conditioner? Because of dissatisfaction. No matter how complex a behavior, it comes down to that. Even these three can just be distilled into dissatisfaction, as survival and boredom are forms of not having something fulfilled. So, the quarterback learns his routines and habits because he either needs to make money or is bored or both. Something is "fulfilling" when dissatisfaction seems to be at its least. Culture and personal inclination direct where the Will directs its relentless effort regarding survival and boredom.. A causal chain of watching an Iron Man competition, and hearing about a friend who is into it, makes someone (who may already be inclined) to get going on practicing for triathlons. The idea of being tough and completing the challenge becomes the immanent reasons. However, the whole time, it was driven by the underlying boredom. His cultural and causal setting simply gave him the content to relieve this boredom. It may not even be apparent to the person regarding the underlying cause. If we were completely content, no one would be motivated, as there is no impetus to action. We would be purely being without needing to become.

The logic remains. Nerve signals take time. Habits short circuit action decisions and have an integration time of a tenth to a fifth of a second. Attentive level thought takes a third to three-quarters of a second to arrive at an integrated state. — apokrisis

I agree that habits short circuit conscious decisions, that's consistent with the point I was making to Harry Hindu. But what I'm looking for is the bridge between conscious decisions and habitual actions, because this is what I believe "motivation" refers to.

So in sport or any skilled activity, decisions on how to complete an intent - as in thinking "go" with a throw - have to be left to a trained habit level of execution. — apokrisis

This is not the way that such activities are actually carried out though. The skilled hockey player must master a vast variety of habits, and continually choose, and change choice of which habit to rely on at any particular time. So the skill which the star hockey player has, involves the rapid changing from one habit to another. This is the execution of the changing from one habit level skill to another, with out loosing stride. It is not a case of relying on rapid habit execution, what is relied on is the capacity to rapidly change from one habit to another. And any occupation which requires alert attention, relies on this capacity of having a vast skill set of habits which one can choose from, and switch one to the other at a moments notice.

And on anticipation, of course anticipation is absolutely necessary. The brain is a prediction engine. But the same story applies. We learn how to predict at an slow attentive level. Then we get good and familiar with this predicting such that is can be executed as rapid habit. Both levels of processing are anticipatory. But one has to start out and form a general intent ahead of time - prime for the decision by setting up some notion of the constraining goal. Then the other can kick in and supply the particular action commands right up to the last split instant - which is still a good tenth of a second behind the world, and so also is by necessity anticipatory. — apokrisis

Yes, I believe anticipation is the critical thing here. This may be what bridges the gap between conscious intent and habitual performance, forming the basis for motivation. The intent must be left as general, in order that it adapts to the rapidly changing environment, while maintaining the very same goal. The individual is motivated toward a general intent (winning the game), allowing that there is a massive number of possible means to this end. As the situation unfolds, the appropriate means to this end (habits) are constantly being decided upon. These decisions are based on anticipation and the desire to avoid negative results in favor of the positive.

Yes, I believe anticipation is the critical thing here. This may be what bridges the gap between conscious intent and habitual performance, forming the basis for motivation. The intent must be left as general, in order that it adapts to the rapidly changing environment, while maintaining the very same goal. The individual is motivated toward a general intent (winning the game), allowing that there is a massive number of possible means to this end. As the situation unfolds, the appropriate means to this end (habits) are constantly being decided upon. These decisions are based on anticipation and the desire to avoid negative results in favor of the positive. — Metaphysician Undercover

So attention forms an intent as a general constraint? It doesn't matter how that intent is satisfied in terms of particular connecting actions?

Isn't that what I said over the course of many threads?

So attention forms an intent as a general constraint? — apokrisis

No, attention hasn't really entered the model yet. We've been discussing the role of motivation in relation to intent, and habit. Attention enters as the result of motivation, like any other habit. But you do not seem to recognize attention as a habit. It is a mental habit. That's where I was headed toward in our last discussion, but you were not listening.

But you do not seem to recognize attention as a habit. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's probably a habit I picked up from studying psychology/neuroscience.

Because of dissatisfaction. No matter how complex a behavior, it comes down to that. — schopenhauer1

Alternatively, action can be motivated by either a desire to move away from something or a desire to move towards something.

In operant conditioning, this is shown by the fact that removing a negative reinforcer can strengthen a behaviour, and providing a positive reinforcer can also strengthen a behaviour.

So the complexity of behaviour would in fact be reduced to the dichotomy of pleasure and pain. Everything is not merely an escape anymore that one would argue everything was an approach. The positive and the negative are both motivators.

That's probably a habit I picked up from studying psychology/neuroscience. — apokrisis

Well, study some philosophy and maybe you can break this bad habit.

Sure. You mean like Pragmatist philosophy of mind? Or do you mean to reference some other philosophical position? Give me a link so I can get an idea of what philosophy you have been studying.

In the meantime...

Although James plays down attention's role in complex perceptual phenomena, he does assign attention to an important explanatory role in the production of behaviour. He claims, for example, that ‘Volition is nothing but attention’ (424).....

James's somewhat deflationary approach to attention's explanatory remit means that, when it comes to giving an account of the ‘intimate nature of the attention process’, James can identify two fairly simple processes which, he claims, ‘probably coexist in all our concrete attentive acts’. and which ‘possibly form in combination a complete reply’ to the question of attention's ‘intimate nature’ (1890, 411).

The processes that James identifies are:
The accommodation or adjustment of the sensory organs, and
The anticipatory preparation from within of the ideational centres concerned with the object to which attention is paid. (411)....

Here, as in his more frequently discussed treatment of emotion, it is distinctive of James's approach that he tries to account for a large-scale personal-level psychological phenomenon in a realist but somewhat revisionary way, so as to be able to give his account using relatively simple and unmysterious explanatory resources. An alternative deflationary approach—one which James explicitly contrasted with his own—is the approach taken in 1886 by F.H. Bradley.....

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/attention/#WilJamHisConDefThe

So the goal and process of moving your legs and arms are still there - it's just that you can focus on other tasks, not tasks you have performed over and over again. — Harry Hindu

No, the goal is not still there, and that's the point. To be "there" it must be in the conscious mind. I have no idea what goals I had in my mind when I was learning to walk, so whatever those goals were, they are definitely not still there. I now walk without having in my mind the goals which assisted me in learning how to walk in the first place. And the walking activity is "automatic". It occurs without those goals. — Metaphysician Undercover

How to walk isn't a goal, it is a set of instructions. If you didn't have the set of instructions for walking, talking, or things that we learned before and now do habitually, then how do you explain you knowing how to do it? Walking isn't "automatic". It's just that you don't have to pay much attention to it because you've done it so often that you your conscious mind doesn't need to focus on it. Notice how consciousness is only needed for the things you don't know how to do and are learning how to do it. When you learn well how to do it the task gets relegated to the subconscious.

Also notice that you can have a goal of changing your breathing - even holding your breath, and that happens when you focus on your conscious attention on your breathing. You breath without paying attention to it and it is only when you want to change your rate of breathing that it becomes part of consciousness. Consciousness seems to be all about one's attention.

The brain is capable of multitasking by leaving he goals and means of achieving them to the subconscious while the conscious part focuses it's attention (which seems to be the special thing about consciousness as opposed to the subconscious and unconscious. It has attention) on other things. — Harry Hindu

How do you suppose that the subconscious has goals? I don't see how this is possible. I can understand that a subconscious activity is carried out for a purpose, but this does not mean that the goal itself is within the subconscious. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is the difference between a goal and a purpose? What is the difference between intention and goal? What is the difference between motivation and goal? They all seem to be the same thing to me.

Of course the goal has causal power. How else do you explain your current state of walking to the store, if the goal of having tea doesn't have causal power? — Harry Hindu

As I explained, it is not the goal of walking to the store, or having tea, which causes me to walk to the store. It is the decision to "act now" which causes me to go. I could be sitting on the couch for a very long time, maintaining the goal of walking to the store, without actually doing it, if I am unmotivated. So clearly it is not the goal which has causal power. I must be motivated to act on the goal or else nothing becomes of the goal.

The goal itself dictates the actions you are taking now, or else you could never say why you are doing this particular thing now (walking to the store) as opposed to something else (looking for the remote control). — Harry Hindu

The reason why of a particular thing, is not the same as a cause of action. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you say you have the goal of going to the store but not the motivation because you are still sitting on the couch, then what you are really saying is that you have conflicting goals. We often have conflicting goals and it is where we reach a state of indecision - of not being able to establish a clear goal over another. It seems to me that, because you are still sitting on the couch, your goal to sit on the couch is winning over the goal of going to the store, or else you wouldn't still be sitting on the couch.

Or do you mean to reference some other philosophical position? Give me a link so I can get an idea of what philosophy you have been studying. — apokrisis

The concept of "habit" was first formally defined by Aristotle in his work on logic. The word is derived from the same word as "have", and refers to a property which a living being has. This property is the propensity to behave in a particular way. In his work on biology "De Anima" (On the Soul), it is noted that a habit is a potential which the living being has. The different powers (potencies) of the living are necessarily understood as potentials of the living creature, because they are not at all times active. So we say that the creature has the power of self-nourishment, the power of self-movement, sensation, or intellection, and by referring to these as potential, it is noted that the described activity is not being carried out by the living being at all times, but it has the capacity to carry out this act.

Thomas Aquinas carried out a much more in depth analysis of what a habit itself, is. Since "habit" refers to the propensity for a particular activity, and not the activity itself, he concluded that the habit, as a property of the living being, must be a property of the potential for the act, and not a property of the act itself. In this way, we can say that a potential, which has no particular necessary actualization, has properties which are described as the inclination toward a particular actualization.

If you are familiar with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, you will find in his 1809 book "Zoological Philosophy", a very in depth study of the relationship between the habits of an animal, and it's physical constitution.

So, according to my understanding of what a habit is, from these and other philosophers, I don't see how "attention" as per your reference to William James, above, or any common notion of the activity referred to by "attention", is anything other than the activity of a habit. Care to explain how you see things differently?

How to walk isn't a goal, it is a set of instructions. If you didn't have the set of instructions for walking, talking, or things that we learned before and now do habitually, then how do you explain you knowing how to do it? Walking isn't "automatic". It's just that you don't have to pay much attention to it because you've done it so often that you your conscious mind doesn't need to focus on it. Notice how consciousness is only needed for the things you don't know how to do and are learning how to do it. When you learn well how to do it the task gets relegated to the subconscious. — Harry Hindu

I'd say that walking is a habit. My body has numerous different capacities for movement, and some have an inclination to actualize in a particular way, and this activity is called walking.

What is the difference between a goal and a purpose? What is the difference between intention and goal? What is the difference between motivation and goal? They all seem to be the same thing to me. — Harry Hindu

I don't think that these are all the same thing, and that's why they are different words. For instance, the word "goal" implies something consciously aimed for. Non-conscious things can have a purpose, but they do not have a goal. All the components in my computer each has its own purpose with respect to the functioning of the computer, but I cannot say that these parts each has a goal. There is one goal here, the functioning of the computer, but that goal was in the minds of the people who built the computer. The purpose of each part is within the computer itself, within the relationship between the part and the whole, while the goal is in the minds of the people who built the computer.

The difference between motivation and goal is what we've been discussing in this thread.

If you say you have the goal of going to the store but not the motivation because you are still sitting on the couch, then what you are really saying is that you have conflicting goals. We often have conflicting goals and it is where we reach a state of indecision - of not being able to establish a clear goal over another. It seems to me that, because you are still sitting on the couch, your goal to sit on the couch is winning over the goal of going to the store, or else you wouldn't still be sitting on the couch. — Harry Hindu

Are you saying that having no motivation is the very same thing as having conflicting goals? If so, I disagree. A motivated person will proceed with the mental activity of attempting to solve such conflicts. The activity here is the act of thinking, and the motivated person is engaged in this act of thinking, while having conflicting goals at the same time. So the person is motivated, and engaged in activity, yet has conflicting goals at the same time. Therefore it is impossible that having no motivation is the same thing as having conflicting goals.

Habit is a learnt propensity. Attention is how you learn a propensity. It ain't difficult.

You seem to have very little understanding of habit. A habit is acquired, but it is not necessarily learnt. If attention is required to learn, this does not exclude the possibility of attention itself being an unlearned habit. That's the way that habits are structured, they build on each other, supporting each other.

Attention is a habit acquired in an evolutionary sense. The brain evolved that propensity in that it is baked into the inherited neural architecture of higher animals.

But also, that evolved brain architecture favoured the division of labour that I've mentioned - attentional level processing for dealing with novelty, habit level processing for dealing with the routine. So what was acquired as large brains developed through evolutionary learning was a strong dichotomisation of what we would call habits and attention. The taking of habits also evolved.

So sure, we can step back and take the really long-term perspective, and this is what we see. The cerebellum and basal ganglia are also particularly large in humans.

Thus if we are talking about the functional architecture of brains as it is actually divided, you are talking out your hat as usual. You are thinking like a reductionist in wanting to reduce two things to one thing. But an organicist can see that a division into two things is how you can arrive at the functional harmony or synthesis of an effective division of labour. Study brain science and you will discover that it is all about this principle of complementary logic.

I'll throw in another reference for you - https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/complementary-nature

@schopenhauer1

Generally, we are motivated by three basic things (two of which are deeper- one of which is immediate).The deeper motivations are survival and boredom. The immediate motivation is dissatisfaction

This sounds about right. I think im right in saying that the motivation to surrvive can be called the Schopenhauerian will to life. Is it at all possible to loose the motivation to survive? one might argure that a suicidal person has lost the will to life, but im not sure, hence why im asking. It seems to me that death is inevitable so unless we stive for something greater than life, our actions are futile, that is those caused by the will to life.

Additionaly can it be said that all humans, if possible will act to alleviate dissatisfaction or are there cases when people rather suffer. If so why?

P.s. Im self taught so im not entirely sure if my interpretation of schopehauer is right.

Attention is a habit acquired in an evolutionary sense. The brain evolved that propensity in that it is baked into the inherited neural architecture of higher animals. — apokrisis

OK, now that we're clear on this, we can approach the issue of motivation with some level of agreement in principle.

Thus if we are talking about the functional architecture of brains as it is actually divided, you are talking out your hat as usual. You are thinking like a reductionist in wanting to reduce two things to one thing. But an organicist can see that a division into two things is how you can arrive at the functional harmony or synthesis of an effective division of labour. Study brain science and you will discover that it is all about this principle of complementary logic. — apokrisis

It's fine to have your "division of labour", if it helps you to understand the workings of the brain, but I don't see that it is of any advantage in this issue. What we are looking for here is the motivation to get something done, and this is prior to any such a division. So whether the motivating factor at one time motivates a habit level activity, or an attentional level activity (which is really just another level of habit anyway) is irrelevant to our inquiry into the motivating factor itself.

What would be relevant, would be to find the motivating factor motivating something which is not a habitual activity whatsoever. Then we could see the motivating factor in action without the distraction of the habit. Furthermore, since the nature of each habit is that of a potential to act, the motivating factor must be prior to all habits in order that every habit has the potential to act. Thus we will get to the motivating factor where there is activity without habit.

So I'll return to the question I posed already. Since the conscious will power gives us the power to refrain from all activity, how could the motivating factor be anything other than the conscious decision? I think you would agree with me that there are many internal activities of the human body which the will does not have the power to suspend. So the motivating factor is to be found within these internal parts, rather than within the conscious mind. But to motivate the will power, is the closest thing we have to motivation without activating habits, because the will power to refrain from action is to deny the action of habits as far as possible. So it is the motivation behind will power, what motivates willpower, which is the motivation to resist activity, that we will find the purest form of the motivating factor.

Very Schopenhauer of you! — schopenhauer1

I like Schopenhauer, one of the few philosophers who actually has an understanding of the will.

Is it at all possible to loose the motivation to survive? one might argure that a suicidal person has lost the will to life, but im not sure, hence why im asking. — Gotterdammerung

Survival is just one manifestation of the Will as mediated in the world of phenomena (space/time/causality/subject/object). At root, I think it is more akin to a dissatisfaction. Suicide would simply be the will trying to will itself to no longer exist. It's still will, but turned against itself. There is a dissatisfaction with life itself, and the person thinks that this will resolve the dissatisfaction.

Additionaly can it be said that all humans, if possible will act to alleviate dissatisfaction or are there cases when people rather suffer. If so why? — Gotterdammerung

Ultimately there might be an underlying dissatisfaction which is alleviated by choosing to suffer. If the person is alive, the persons decisions are probably still mediated from the desire to survive in some fashion, or alleviate the boredom in some fashion. Otherwise, there is the dissatisfactions of the immediate.

What we are looking for here is the motivation to get something done, and this is prior to any such a division. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are forgetting that my approach is quite different from yours on this. Again, you want to boil things down to the effective causes of behaviour. And that leaves out the complementary role played by the final causes.

So should "motivation" be entirely a question of "what local thing triggered this action"? Or is motivation a big enough concept that it includes "what global goal gave form to action itself"?

I of course defend the latter.

So the motivating factor is to be found within these internal parts, rather than within the conscious mind. But to motivate the will power, is the closest thing we have to motivation without activating habits, because the will power to refrain from action is to deny the action of habits as far as possible. So it is the motivation behind will power, what motivates willpower, which is the motivation to resist activity, that we will find the purest form of the motivating factor. — Metaphysician Undercover

Isn't this another way of saying that attentional level processes can constrain our habits in fruitful fashion? I will respond out of learnt habit unless I take time to watch what I am doing and impose some kind of working memory/prefrontal plan on things?

Again we are back to a division of labour. I want to be able to do as much as possible without having to think about it. But I also want to be able to stop and think about anything that needs a non-habitual response.

So back to the power of a functional dichotomy. Two styles of processing are better than one. I want to be in control when it matters. I also like an easy life where I can let routine stuff take care of itself. Most of the time, this itself feels like a seamless and automatic habit. The two ways of processing the world are so smoothly integrated that I don't need to pay attention to any join.

But in high pressure, fast moving, situations - like playing sport - the fact that the processes are quite different in things like temporal scale can really show.

There is not enough time to consciously plan the throwing of a pass. There often isn't even the time to do the quicker thing of simply halting a subconsciously unfolding action plan. Free won't is faster than freewill. Yet even then, we find ourselves often thinking oh shit, shouldn't have done that, as the body is already launching into action.

So you are stuck on the usual reductionist regress of trying to find "the self" that wills the body to act. If I flex my little finger voluntarily, it seems that I must of commanded it, because it just happened. And yet I can't actually find any thought or effort that "I" delivered at that precise moment to make the finger move. It just as much felt as if it moved by itself. Because it suddenly felt like it.

As long as you are focused on finding a trail of effective causes, an organ like the brain is going to be a mystery. But ahead of time I can decide - at an attentional level - to form a state of constraint that regulates my little finger. I can say the general goal is to flex in the next few moments. Go as soon as you like and I won't stop you. I have a clear mental expectation of what should happen, and what should not happen - like I don't want the little finger of my other hand to do the flexing. So I have restricted my habits of finger moving in a very specific and attentional fashion. Pretty much the only thing the habit level brain can do is move in the way expected. So for all its varied propensity, the probability approaches 1 that it will emit the response that has been attentionally anticipated.

It is a different way of making things happen. Organic rather mechanistic.

The body's habits are a whole collection of potential routines or degrees of freedom. I could break into a moonwalk at any instant. It is just one of umpteen learn possibilities. Then attention does the other thing of restraining the space of possible actions until only the one desired action becomes the probable outcome. I form the goal of moonwalking and the whole of the brain becomes motivated in that behavioural direction as every other option has been momentarily suppressed.

What is motivation? Where does it come from? Why do we do what we do? — Gotterdammerung

That is a good question. I think there is no such thing as motivation. To quote the great philosopher, psychologist, neurologist, psychiatrist and scholar Sigmund Schlomo Freud (1856-1939), “If you can't do it, give up!” The point of this is to say that we should nIt be motivated if something is impossible and should give up rather than pursuing a

Goal — schopenhauer1

which is meaningless and cannot be achieved by any humanly possible means available.

Anyway, thanks Götterdämmerung for that question. It leaves an interesting conversation that I am sure many people are interested in. I could write an entire essay on this subject.

@Napoleon Bonaparte

Hmm interesting idea....

"If you cant do it give up"

what this quote also Demontrates is that if it is indeed possible for an action to be done, unless we have other reasons for inaction (no motivation), there is nothing stoping us from achieving our goals.

Given that actions occur, and that we act, it is thefore necessary to discover the reason behind why we act. If as you claim there are no motifs, I would be interested in your explanation for why we do what we do. Even if this takes the form of a long essay

What is the difference between a goal and a purpose? What is the difference between intention and goal? What is the difference between motivation and goal? They all seem to be the same thing to me. — Harry Hindu

I don't think that these are all the same thing, and that's why they are different words. For instance, the word "goal" implies something consciously aimed for. Non-conscious things can have a purpose, but they do not have a goal. All the components in my computer each has its own purpose with respect to the functioning of the computer, but I cannot say that these parts each has a goal. There is one goal here, the functioning of the computer, but that goal was in the minds of the people who built the computer. The purpose of each part is within the computer itself, within the relationship between the part and the whole, while the goal is in the minds of the people who built the computer. — Metaphysician Undercover

So what if they are different words? The English language has many different words that mean the same thing. We have a tendency to complicate things. The fact is that we use these words interchangeably. We often talk about "purpose" in our doing things. Saying that someone did something on "purpose" is the same as saying that they did it "intentionally", or that was their "end-goal".

Merriam-Webster
Purpose: something set up as an object or end to be attained: Intention

Intent: the act or fact of intending : Purpose

goal: the end toward which effort is directed

Per the Synonym Guide on Merriam Webster's dictionary:

goal Synonyms
aim, ambition, aspiration, bourne (also bourn), design, dream, end, idea, ideal, intent, intention, mark, meaning, object, objective, plan, point, pretension, purpose, target, thing, name of the game

Synonym Discussion of goal
intention, intent, purpose, design, aim, end, object, objective, goal mean what one intends to accomplish or attain. intention implies little more than what one has in mind to do or bring about. ⟨announced his intention to marry⟩ intent suggests clearer formulation or greater deliberateness. ⟨the clear intent of the statute⟩ purpose suggests a more settled determination. ⟨being successful was her purpose in life⟩ design implies a more carefully calculated plan. ⟨the order of events came by accident, not design⟩ aim adds to these implications of effort directed toward attaining or accomplishing. ⟨her aim was to raise film to an art form⟩ end stresses the intended effect of action often in distinction or contrast to the action or means as such. ⟨willing to use any means to achieve his end⟩ object may equal end but more often applies to a more individually determined wish or need. ⟨his constant object was the achievement of pleasure⟩ objective implies something tangible and immediately attainable. ⟨their objective is to seize the oil fields⟩ goal suggests something attained only by prolonged effort and hardship. ⟨worked years to reach her goals⟩

It seems clear to me and Merriam-Webster that they mean the same thing, or are at least more closely related than you seem to think. The fact that I can use any of these terms to get the same message across indicates that they refer to the same thing - the idea in your head that motivates you to act.

As for "motivation""

motivation: a motivating force, stimulus, or influence

Here I have to ask what is it that is the motivating force, stimulus, or influence that gets you off the couch and walking to the store - specifically? If it isn't the realization of your goal/purpose/intent, then what is it?

The difference between motivation and goal is what we've been discussing in this thread. — Metaphysician Undercover

...and I have yet to see a clear distinction between the two be made.

If you say you have the goal of going to the store but not the motivation because you are still sitting on the couch, then what you are really saying is that you have conflicting goals. We often have conflicting goals and it is where we reach a state of indecision - of not being able to establish a clear goal over another. It seems to me that, because you are still sitting on the couch, your goal to sit on the couch is winning over the goal of going to the store, or else you wouldn't still be sitting on the couch. — Harry Hindu

Are you saying that having no motivation is the very same thing as having conflicting goals? If so, I disagree. A motivated person will proceed with the mental activity of attempting to solve such conflicts. The activity here is the act of thinking, and the motivated person is engaged in this act of thinking, while having conflicting goals at the same time. So the person is motivated, and engaged in activity, yet has conflicting goals at the same time. Therefore it is impossible that having no motivation is the same thing as having conflicting goals. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. I'm saying that they are all the same thing. In other words, I'm saying that where you have conflicting goals, you have conflicting motivations.

Is temperament correlated with motivation?

copying and pasting does not help the growth of this philosophical forum, many members have been here for a long time and it shows a lack of knowledge to quote without s purpose. quod erat demonstrandum

You are forgetting that my approach is quite different from yours on this. Again, you want to boil things down to the effective causes of behaviour. And that leaves out the complementary role played by the final causes. — apokrisis

I'm not leaving out final causes, I want to bridge the gap between final and efficient cause. Do you agree that conscious goals are final causes, but the cause of an habitual action is an efficient cause?
If this is the case, then how do we show how a conscious goal "acts" as a final cause to produce a chain of efficient causes (habitual action)?

So should "motivation" be entirely a question of "what local thing triggered this action"? Or is motivation a big enough concept that it includes "what global goal gave form to action itself"?

I of course defend the latter. — apokrisis

What you write though, does not defend the role of final causation. When we discussed the activity in sports, you spoke as if the activity was necessarily all habitual, as if that were the only way that the athlete could keep up to speed with the world, through the rapidity of reflex reactions. The athlete's goals cannot enter into the activity as final causes, because there is no time for that. I was arguing the role of rapid decision making.

Then we found a principle which we had a certain degree of agreement on, and this was anticipation. It appears like anticipation might be completely associated with consciousness, because it predicts, or foresees the future, and it appears like this can only be done through conscious imagination. If anticipation is only a property of consciousness, then it could be associated with goals, and final causation, so the bridge between final cause and efficient cause would be found in the relationship between anticipation and habit.

Do you think that it is possible that an anticipatory action can be habitual, or is there a necessary separation between these two such that all anticipatory reactions require conscious decision? For instance, something is suddenly flying rapidly at your head. You duck to the right, or to the left, or straight down, in anticipation. Does this require a conscious decision, a goal (final cause), or is it strictly a reflexive habit, (efficient cause)?

Can I return to your example of the runners waiting for the starting gun, because I don't think you've paid proper respect to anticipation here? You describe the event completely in terms of habitual reaction, when in reality anticipation plays a large role in the speed of one's start. The runners are given warning, "on your mark, get set", and the gun shot is anticipated. If the anticipation runs too high, a runner might jump the gun. So clearly the rapid start of the race, for the runner, is more complex than just a habitual reaction to the sound of the shot. Anticipation of the shot, which produces preparedness, is just as important as habit, if not more so.

There is not enough time to consciously plan the throwing of a pass. There often isn't even the time to do the quicker thing of simply halting a subconsciously unfolding action plan. Free won't is faster than freewill. Yet even then, we find ourselves often thinking oh shit, shouldn't have done that, as the body is already launching into action. — apokrisis

I disagree with this, in sports there is always enough time to plan one's actions. Something would have to come out of nowhere, and whack you on the head in a fraction of a second for you not to have time to think about your actions. I've been in more than one car accident, driving, where the scene unfolds very quickly, but I've always maintained conscious control over how I operated the controls of the vehicle until the end.

It would be a mistake to think "oh shit, shouldn't have done that", because things are moving so rapidly that there is time only to think about what is impending. This is where the habit of attention is of the greatest importance, to keep us focused on what is impending when things are occurring very rapidly, allowing us the greater power of anticipation. If you are one who is distracted by "oh shit shouldn't have done that", in the middle of a rapidly occurring situation, you are one who has not developed a good habit of attention. This leads us to another aspect related to anticipation, which is confidence. The two work together to enable the habit of attention.

As long as you are focused on finding a trail of effective causes, an organ like the brain is going to be a mystery. But ahead of time I can decide - at an attentional level - to form a state of constraint that regulates my little finger. I can say the general goal is to flex in the next few moments. Go as soon as you like and I won't stop you. I have a clear mental expectation of what should happen, and what should not happen - like I don't want the little finger of my other hand to do the flexing. So I have restricted my habits of finger moving in a very specific and attentional fashion. Pretty much the only thing the habit level brain can do is move in the way expected. So for all its varied propensity, the probability approaches 1 that it will emit the response that has been attentionally anticipated. — apokrisis

This is exactly the logical problem which I tried to bring to your attention already. If using will power to prevent the habit of moving your little finger involves telling it "go as soon as you like", then you have no will power, because you are not preventing your finger from moving, it moves whenever. If you are using will power to prevent your finger from moving, then it only moves when you release it from this will power, so the release, which allows the finger to move, like the will which prevents the movement is a conscious effort. If you know of a way to avoid this logical issue, I'd love to hear it.

The problem I see with what you have written here is that you are relying on your habit/attention dichotomy which I do not think properly represent the situation. Since attention is actually a habit, the better dichotomy would habit/anticipation. The problem with using "attention" as your principle is that we can only properly pay attention to what is occurring. And what is occurring, that which we are paying attention to, has already occurred by the time it is present to the conscious mind. So attention really only gives to our minds what has occurred, the past. Now we need a principle, such as anticipation, whereby the fact that something is about to occur, is present to the mind. The runner waits for the starting gun with anticipation. One's attention is focused on the anticipation. So the above paragraph referring to the moving of your little finger would be better written if you referred to your anticipation of your finger moving, and the attention which you give to this anticipation.

The English language has many different words that mean the same thing. — Harry Hindu

No that's not true some words can be used in place of another, so they have one sense which is similar to a sense of another word, but no two words have the same meaning. So I refuse to argue whether two words have the same meaning, as I think that is a pointless exercise.