When we speak about entities ‘wanting’ things, or having ‘goal-directed behaviour’, what do we mean?
I would mean that the entity can make certain observations of the world, and varies its actions as necessary to steer the world towards states where those observations take certain values. That the observations take those values is the goal. The entity’s actions in steering towards that goal are its “goal-directed behaviour”. “Wanting” is too anthropomorphic a concept for my taste in describing this situation, but one can say that the target states of the observations are what it “wants”.
I would mean that the entity can make certain observations of the world, and varies its actions as necessary to steer the world towards states where those observations take certain values. That the observations take those values is the goal. The entity’s actions in steering towards that goal are its “goal-directed behaviour”. “Wanting” is too anthropomorphic a concept for my taste in describing this situation, but one can say that the target states of the observations are what it “wants”.