Intentionality. Intention. Intent.
The concept implies a relationship to free will, to the ability to realize ourselves in a meaningful, contextual way, independent of internal and external forces.
There has been a lot written about free will recently in the discussion relating to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the overall theme of sentience relating to computers. In the school of philosophy I largely identify with, intentionality would be a prerequisite for sentience. Intention is the compulsive flow of that which is me into that which is not. It is action, expression, realization. From inside to outside, that is the key thing. I have my private thoughts that I experience, that are interior to me. I realize them through intent into the exterior world. Or as Ken Wilber snidely put it in Boomeritis: a sentient computer is one that would to want to kill itself.
The reason I am writing this post is to explore a set of phenomena that I think grants important contextual clues to the nature of intent.
Sleep walking. Sleep cooking. Sleep writing. Building things while asleep. Ambien has given us a wealth of people who perform amazing technical feats while asleep, and those who experience their friends and loved ones performing these particular feats.
But if you are asleep, there is a lack of conscious attachment to the behaviors. Behaviors independent of consciousness implies that consciousness is not reducible to behaviorism. However, the depth of ability in these behaviors imply that behaviorism is obviously a very large part of experience. So if people are capable of driving to work while asleep, and navigating traffic, then where does that leave intent? Is it as bleak as some people would have us believe? Is intent merely an ex post facto experience to help us cope with our behaviors?
No.
The reason I say no is because there is something distinctly missing from the experience of people who behave while sleeping, and that is rational filtration, reflection, and any sort of internal experience whatsoever. There is no ability to stop what is happening. And while awake, we can choose to stop driving, cooking, or anything else we are doing. But while asleep these impulses are realized regardless.
Which brings me to what I think is an important reframing of the concept of intentionality. That which we experience as intentionality is not positivistic or constructivist. We do not build an intent. Behaviors and impulses arise within us, and intent is the shape we give the expression of those behaviors and intents. This is an important difference, and aligns more with the concept of gating and thresholding at the neuronal level. Free will is not the ability to create something from nothing then, free will is the ability to choose from the myriad impulses that arise within us. Freer will is the existence of those impulses to begin with (after all, if you can only choose from raping and pillaging, I suppose you are going to rape or pillage). Filtration of impulses (intent) leads to patterns of behavior. Patterns of behaviors lead to neuronal rewiring for efficiency. Neuronal rewiring leads to habitual impulse in anticipation of stimulus/response.
So then we can say that free will is manifest in neuroplasticity. It is the exterior form of free will. The more neuroplastic we are, the more free will we have, because we can more quickly rewire our brains through our intent. In this case I am reducing “free will” to the ability to operate my mind and body in the manner I desire, I am not factoring in social contracts and cultural bindings.
Intent feels positive. I experience the decision to go to the bathroom, or to cook, or whatever. But I think a more mature understanding of intent is a navigator of a ship. Forces act on the ship (wind, current, etc), but it is the captain who learns to navigate the forces and provides structure around them to direct the ship. This means intent is actually negative, it is a gate, it is that which stops the impulse. And of course all things that are new are old. I leave this post with the following verse from the Tao Te Ching.
Tao Te Ching: Verse 11
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
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Do not identify with what is. Do not identify with what is not. The positivity and negativity of being and non being arise together. The negativity of intentionality arises with the positivity of behavior. The bends in the river are as much a part of the river as the water which rushes through it. You are neither yin nor yang, but the circle which encompasses both.
