I have been under the weather for a week, I meant to answer you earlier.
To me having a goal and knowing why I have that goal are two separate things and a goal does not become less of a goal because you do not know the origin of it. Perhaps goals are a hierarchy. We all* have some default goals like eat, survive and reproduce. On top of those we can add goals invented buy ourselves or others. In the case you are without a goal, I believe you still have goals defined by your biology. Every action or inaction is due to a goal. Why do you eat? are you hungry? Bored? Tired? Compulsion? Want to gain weight? Want to loose weight? There is always a goal.
Take people with OCD. In what way are those persons contradicting any goals by doing OCD stuff, like checking if the stow is off 157 times before leaving the house so they missed work? Yes, the goal of getting to work was missed, but the MORE important goal of not accidentally burning down the house and killing 35 neighbors and being the disgrace of the neighborhood was effectively achieved. So its not that fiddling with the stow was with out a goal canceling out the “real” goal of getting to work for a none goal. They were just of different importance.
If I may comment on you sex qua sex analogy. I am convinced that the sex act involved a social interaction where you wanted the other person(s) to behave in a specific way to make the act of sex as enjoyable as possible (what ever that my mean). The act of sex did not happen in a vacuum. You or the other person(s) wanted to have it, no matter what the goal was. And you or the other person(s) had to manipulate the other(s) to achieve what ever goal there was to the sex.
Yes, I agree that we need coordination with other people to achieve things, and that they my be benign. But to me there is no distinction between benign or malevolent attempts to persuade or influence someone. They are both acts of manipulation. Either you managed to get someone to do something or you did not. Why did you want this person to do this in the first place? Because you had a goal of some sort, you did not act out of a vacuum. “But I just did it to be silly, or stupid, or because I was bored”, well… than that was the goal, but a goal none the less.
Thank you ryan_b for expanding on your thoughts,
I have been under the weather for a week, I meant to answer you earlier.
To me having a goal and knowing why I have that goal are two separate things and a goal does not become less of a goal because you do not know the origin of it. Perhaps goals are a hierarchy. We all* have some default goals like eat, survive and reproduce. On top of those we can add goals invented buy ourselves or others. In the case you are without a goal, I believe you still have goals defined by your biology. Every action or inaction is due to a goal. Why do you eat? are you hungry? Bored? Tired? Compulsion? Want to gain weight? Want to loose weight? There is always a goal.
Take people with OCD. In what way are those persons contradicting any goals by doing OCD stuff, like checking if the stow is off 157 times before leaving the house so they missed work? Yes, the goal of getting to work was missed, but the MORE important goal of not accidentally burning down the house and killing 35 neighbors and being the disgrace of the neighborhood was effectively achieved. So its not that fiddling with the stow was with out a goal canceling out the “real” goal of getting to work for a none goal. They were just of different importance.
If I may comment on you sex qua sex analogy. I am convinced that the sex act involved a social interaction where you wanted the other person(s) to behave in a specific way to make the act of sex as enjoyable as possible (what ever that my mean). The act of sex did not happen in a vacuum. You or the other person(s) wanted to have it, no matter what the goal was. And you or the other person(s) had to manipulate the other(s) to achieve what ever goal there was to the sex.
Yes, I agree that we need coordination with other people to achieve things, and that they my be benign. But to me there is no distinction between benign or malevolent attempts to persuade or influence someone. They are both acts of manipulation. Either you managed to get someone to do something or you did not. Why did you want this person to do this in the first place? Because you had a goal of some sort, you did not act out of a vacuum. “But I just did it to be silly, or stupid, or because I was bored”, well… than that was the goal, but a goal none the less.