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RATIONAL APPLICATION OF VOLITION
Contents:
With the right principles, methods and practice, rational decision-making can be greatly facilitated and become second nature, but it can never be automatic, no matter how much and how well you integrate your premises, your knowledge, your thoughts, your motives and your actions. Why? Because even after integrating, the fact remains that no non-self-evident knowledge is automatic. Note also that instinct and intuition, while invaluable, are also not automatically valid, especially not by default; you still need to validate whether they are applicable in the given context. Furthermore, the facts remains that (1) focus is still finite and (2) the right adherence to the facts and the right application of one’s mental contents with respect to the given context are still not automatic, since they still require you to bring to focus the facts and the right parts of your mental contents with respect to the facts. Finally, the effort to apply one’s knowledge through action also requires a conscious decision, since the application itself is not automatic and does not lead to an automatic action. Hence, while decision-making can get smoother and more efficient, it is never wholly automatic and certainly not automatic by default and in the long-range.
NOTE: You can automate parts of decision-making as appropriate, but to know whether it is appropriate to do so also requires deliberate focus.
Your volitional faculty does not exist in isolation; it is integrated into your mind and body and everything they involve. Everything is relevant to the use of your volition; the conscious and the subconscious, the mental and the physical. Now, note that you can always make some choice, perhaps not any given choice but at least some choice from what is available (available according to your context). What is available is conditioned by many factors — most relevant being internal factors — and thus, so is your capacity to use your volition. Hence, to use your volition effectively, consider such factors and consider how you may apply your volition such that your choices support the pursuit of your values to the fullest (in terms of both the actual and the potential, needless to say).
KEY POINT 1:
Consciousness has an identity and is finite in scope and capacity.
This is the first important fact to consider when learning to use one’s mind. The definite nature and the finiteness of one’s mental and volitional mechanism imply that to use one’s mind effectively, i.e. rationally, one must use it as efficiently as possible (of course, efficiency properly understood implies no cost to overall efficacy and only leads to its improvement). Hence, the primary method of using one’s mind is unit reduction, i.e. the process of reducing the number of conscious units held in one’s mind while retaining the whole relevant context of information; this may involve omitting many non-essential details (non-essential with respect to one’s context). Hence, we get…
KEY POINT 2:
Unit reduction expands the scope of one’s consciousness.
NOTE: Unit-reduction does not preclude the consideration of concretes (of course, since concretes are the basis of knowledge). On the contrary, concretes are most efficaciously handled when using unit-reduction. Where more concrete consideration is needed, such must be done, and where broader abstractions are more relevant, such must be done, but it is unit-reduction that gives you the capacity to understand what approach is relevant in the given context.
Now, let us ask: why is it necessary to think in essentials? Focus and effort are precious and finite resources (though renewable): every bit of focus and effort in thought and action must be applied based only on what you know to be rational and purposeful in your context (exploration of unknowns can and must be rational and purposeful too; even curiosity-based or relatively random exploration can and must have rational grounds. See: Exploration in Truth-seeking). It is constructive to note that here, unit-reduction by forming broad abstractions is vital in achieving intellectual, moral and practical efficacy. To effectively deal with particulars, it is necessary to (1) identify particular instances of abstract values, (2) judge them based on the abstractions and (3) not delve deeper into the particulars themselves without reason or purpose relevant to the context. The most effective method of unit-reduction is thinking in essentials. Note that what constitutes the essentials depends on the context, i.e. we must find what constitutes the primary or fundamental elements in the given context. Thinking in essentials is the indispensable method of defining and retaining a whole context. Hence, we get…
KEY POINT 3:
To handle concretes efficiently requires thinking in essentials.
NOTE: Importance of abstraction:
Firstly, only by abstracting (i.e. selectively focusing on and isolating certain aspects that are metaphysically inseparable) can we grasp the underlying similarities between distinct particulars, especially when they have no apparent or perceptually obvious similarities. Secondly, only through abstractions can we mentally separate and thereby grasp more essential characteristics whose existence necessarily implies the existence of a number of other characteristics. In this way, we can grasp the most relevant causal factors in the behaviour or nature of something using much fewer conscious units, and thus, using fewer mental resources.
NOTE: Validity of abstractions and essentials:
To see why abstraction in general and essentials in particular are objective and effective, check Integration of Perception.
Since volition is essentially the ability to focus selectively, the rational use of volition requires the rational use of focus, which requires thinking in essentials. In other words, the focus of our minds must be on that which is essential in the given context. We expand into particulars as indicated by the context, progressively expanding the scope of our focus, but always with the method of thinking in essentials. The question now is: how to recognise and focus on essentials in a given context?
NOTE: The exact principles for essentialising focus shall be discussed later.
This is lifted from “Further points on motivation” from Integrating the Actual and the Potential from Philosophy in Practice.
Motivation has both an intellectual (abstract) and a psychological (concrete) aspect. Both are vital and must be integrated (at least over time); the abstract aspect integrates the relevant concretes and validates motivations in the right context, whereas the concrete aspect is what ultimately drives your actions. However, the concrete, i.e. psychological aspect is largely subconscious; the abstract, i.e. intellectual aspect is key in shaping the psychological aspect, but such shaping must be done logically (remember the analogy of a programmer — the intellectual aspect — and the computer — the psychological aspect). Thus, shaping your motivations may often be a matter of a more tactful, indirect approach rather than direct intent or willpower, especially in view of the complexity of your goals and of your means to achieve them.
Motivation and willpower are explored in-depth in Integrating the actual and the potential from Philosophy in Practice.
An extension of the above discussions
Three vital facts about any living being is that (1) the time and energy available to it is finite, (2) values are time-bound and conditional (i.e. not guaranteed) and (3) values (i.e. things worth pursuing and/or necessary to pursue) are ever-present and continuous (see: “Value-seeking is continuous” from The Nature of Value from Ethics). Furthermore, the broader and long-range values of a volitional being are not automatic and not always obvious, i.e. they require the use of reason and rational effort to be discovered and pursued effectively. These facts imply that if one aims to live as a volitional being, then one must apply one’s effort judiciously. We shall now explore what this means in practice.
LEXICAL NOTE:
An arbitrary concern is not the same as a non-essential concern (although it is a kind of non-essential concern). A non-essential concern in a given context may be an area of focus that is not entirely irrelevant in the given context, in the sense that it may (in your knowledge) become relevant once the essentials of the given context are addressed sufficiently. An example of a non-arbitrary non-essential concern: buying a tasty treat is not irrelevant to your values, but it is non-essential when grocery shopping and must only be addressed after addressing the essential shopping-list. On the other hand, an arbitrary concern in a given context is an area of focus that has no relevance in the given context. An example of an arbitrary concern: worrying about how a specific phrasing of an idea would affect the reception of your idea, when you have neither the means nor the reason to take such effects into account (if they can be identified at all). Arbitrary effort applies to arbitrary concerns in particular, not to non-essential concerns in general.
By the nature of an arbitrary concern, once it is recognised as arbitrary, engaging with it any further is not only detached from any kind of rational consideration, but it also undermines rationality and the ability to identify and pursue values. How? Let us explore.
1.
To entertain arbitrary concerns as valid concerns is to abandon reason, because on what basis would you start or stop taking such concerns into account? Since they are arbitrary, such a basis cannot exist in your grasp of reality. Hence, such a basis is necessarily irrational and necessarily results in either compulsiveness or whim-worship.
2.
Focusing on arbitrary concerns necessarily comes at the cost of taking your focus away from what you know to be valuable. Furthermore, focusing on arbitrary concerns in the hope that they may turn out to be more valuable is the same, in essence, as driving blind in the hope that your new path may turn out to be better than the one you left. If such an approach is taken as valid or acceptable, then the result is a state of mind that disregards reality and thus loses its capacity to recognise potential values and threats that can actually be recognised and accounted for. Moreover, key to being prepared for opportunity and danger is alertness, i.e. focus on what you know and what you can observe.