So if we take the view from nowhere: there are brains with which do this thing called being a mind. The minds have things called beliefs and things called desires but all of this is just neuron activity. These minds have a metaphor for relating their neuronal activities called beliefs with the universe that that observe: the map-territory metaphor.
The map-territory distinction is only understandable from the subjective perspective. There is something “outside me” which generates sensory experiences. This is the territory. The is something that is somehow a part of me or at least more proximate to me. These are my expectations about future sensory experiences, my beliefs. This is the map. Desire is a third thing (which of course is in the same universe as everything else, apropos the view from nowhere) it neither generates sensory experiences nor constrains our expectations about future sensory experiences. It isn″t in the territory, or in the map. From the subjective perspective desires are simply given. Now of course there are actually complex causal histories for these things, but from the subjective perspective a desire just arises.
Now through reasoning with our map what are initially terminal desires throw off sub-desires (Like if I desire food I will also desire getting a job to pay for food.) Perhaps we can also have second order desires: desires about our desires. Of course like beliefs desires exist in the territory as aspects of our brain activity. But in the perspective in which the map-territory metaphor is operative desires are sui generis.
(Status: so what happened at this point is that gave up. You think that desires are a 3rd thing, which I understand, but I think desires (and beliefs) are something you choose and that you modify in order to be more rational. I didn’t realize I gave up until I realized I had stopped thinking about this.)
So if we take the view from nowhere: there are brains with which do this thing called being a mind. The minds have things called beliefs and things called desires but all of this is just neuron activity. These minds have a metaphor for relating their neuronal activities called beliefs with the universe that that observe: the map-territory metaphor.
The map-territory distinction is only understandable from the subjective perspective. There is something “outside me” which generates sensory experiences. This is the territory. The is something that is somehow a part of me or at least more proximate to me. These are my expectations about future sensory experiences, my beliefs. This is the map. Desire is a third thing (which of course is in the same universe as everything else, apropos the view from nowhere) it neither generates sensory experiences nor constrains our expectations about future sensory experiences. It isn″t in the territory, or in the map. From the subjective perspective desires are simply given. Now of course there are actually complex causal histories for these things, but from the subjective perspective a desire just arises.
Now through reasoning with our map what are initially terminal desires throw off sub-desires (Like if I desire food I will also desire getting a job to pay for food.) Perhaps we can also have second order desires: desires about our desires. Of course like beliefs desires exist in the territory as aspects of our brain activity. But in the perspective in which the map-territory metaphor is operative desires are sui generis.
(Status: so what happened at this point is that gave up. You think that desires are a 3rd thing, which I understand, but I think desires (and beliefs) are something you choose and that you modify in order to be more rational. I didn’t realize I gave up until I realized I had stopped thinking about this.)