The word 'intention' is invariably
closely linked to purpose, which could be either and outcome of an imaginative
or a real, occurring process. Since 'purpose' is central to intentionality. It becomes critical to lucidly
define a pool of few states of the word 'purpose'. Purpose has a perceived motive, an end
result, imaginative or real.
I argue against this more straightforward understanding of
intentionality because 'purpose', itself is prone to multi-dimensionality and ambivalent interpretation.
It is therefore important to discuss the word 'purpose' itself.
Purposes have a few different states.
Purpose in Spontaneous Processes
The first state of purpose is that by
which an object - living or non-living undergoes a spontaneous or
non-spontaneous process. If the processes undertaken are spontaneous then they need nothing but
the laws of physics to occur. Often such processes are misinterpreted as purposeless (mainly because they occur without human intervention). In reality, the purpose behind such processes is not lost, its just that it requires no additional human or machine effort, other than the laws of nature, to happen. An
example is falling of a anything from sky - the purpose is to concur with the
laws of entropy. Usually in such cases the purpose as generally perceived as
being an act of a living thing seems to be absent. In reality it exists.
Purpose in Non-Spontaneous Processes
In non-spontaneous processes it
happens by desire which is explained in my other article. Human desire defined internally or by an external protocol is the purpose in all non-spontaneous processes.
Another way to look at intentionality is to define the absence of
intentionality rather than its presence, assuming absence of metastates. This approach has been discussed in my previous article (https://chinggary.blogspot.in/2017/06/?m=1).
Desired State Intentionality - Impurposeful Intentionality
Besides the spontaneous and non spontaneous purposes, we go one step further to
investigate another type of purpose - one where the result is not a pre-defined
state but is a random state. From the article quoted above (https://chinggary.blogspot.in/2017/06/?m=1) we came to a conclusion
that random output is possible only in case of absence of intentionality. Therefore, we can safely assume that a random output is one, where no purpose existed. This tantamount to being unpurposeful intentionality. Seems an oxymoron. But it is not on deeper thought. Indeed, a random result can be the
purpose of an action.Why not? If the process is random there can be no purpose; but if the output is purposed to be random, there is no
problem. It can very much have both purpose and intentionality. Therefore, we can categorize the third possible state of purpose or output to be 'desired state'.
Optimal & Sub-Optimal States
Desired State Purpose can be sub-classified as optimal amd sub-optimal desired states. In most desired states and outputs, the process is
tailored to ultimately yield the desired output.
Optimal state in spontaneous processes requires no knowledge of the process, but in non-spontaneous processes the optimization of process is completely dependent on the knowledge and experience that has been gathered by mankind over decades and sometimes centuries.
In spontaneous processes output is
randomly achieved to concur with some laws without any preference for a desired
state.
In Non-spontaneous states we have introduced a desired state. It is important
to note and understand that a desired state is just that - desired state and
should not how be confused with the optimal state.
Intent & Consciousness
The role of intent on consciousness has already been
outlined in definition of consciousness. Hence, the intentionality connect with consciousness.
This article is to be ideally read with my other three articles to have a complete understanding of intentionality coupled with Desire, and few other elements:
- Reproducibility, Information, Perception, Desire, Intent, Spontaneous, Random, Indeterminate & Probabilistic
- Consciousness, Evolution & Artificial Intelligence
- Mind, Energy & Matter - Conversation with Siddartha
Author: Deepak Loomba
