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Volitional Optimisation
Whatever deliberate action of body, speech, or mind there may be, however subtle the volition may be, let it be constrained such that it results in the maximization of the objective function for the long term maintenance of happiness.
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The Range of Volition
Volition is the mental phenomena of deliberate choice through body, speech, or mind. This necessarily implies a sense of identity.
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Deliberate and Indeliberate Actions
There can be observed a gradation in the deliberateness of choices. Below a threshold, this is referred to as impulse, and above it, volition.
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Volition is consequential
- Volition corresponds with physical activity
- Physical activity affects the physical domain
- volition affects psychological states, whether directly or indirectly via material causality
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Volition
- The only way for a being to potentially achieve happiness in the future is through deliberate action.
- It is readily observable that volition has an impact on happiness.
- But does volition have in impact on postmortem happiness?
- In any case, it is only rational to assume so until it is certain.
- Therefore one must constrain volition in such a way that is most certain to lead to happiness in the future, especially postmortem.
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Volition is the Input
- To minimize stress, the only thing one can do is act.
- This arises in the form of volition. Free will or fatalism, the phenomena of volition remains a reality. Thus it is only though this phenomena that any seeming personal influence may be established.
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Control
The system of existence can be optimized for the minimization of the acquisition of displeasure by control of its predicates. This is not a simplistic linear system but one of a complex interplay of codependent factors. For instance, one may already be predisposed to perceiving a sensation in a certain way leading to its feeling, though that sensation may not yet be sensed.
Factors to be minimized:
- Sensation predisposed to be percieved as displeasure
- Perception of displeasure
- Acquisition of displeasure via thirst
- Nibbana
Factors that can supercede:
- Sensation predisposed to be perceived as pleasure or neutrality
- Optimisation of circumstances; the primary development of Western civillisation
- Perception of pleasure and neutrality
- Fourth jhana
- Cessation of feeling and perception
- Acquisition of pleasure and neutrality
Feeling is omitted as once it has come into play, there is nothing that can be done in this level to preemtively avoid the acquisition of displeasure.
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Optimizing Volition
So what should be done?
If it is to be premeditated, one must operate on a framework of what are effectively assumptions.
Assumptions constrain the domain of action.
So we begin with the assumption that stress is causally influenced by volition.
If we do not, then nothing could be done. Even if fatalism is true, then both action and inaction are effectively the same. But in case it is not, then only action would be rational. Therefore, in any case, it is fit to adopt this assumption.
Volition as a phenomenon is independent from arguments of free will and determinism. In any case, the phenomenon of volition does arise.
Choices concerning existence after death use the working assumption of rebirth.
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It is beneficial to cultivate the faculty of willpower and determination, which can serve as a powerful force for both productivity as well as certainty.
Whenever a determination is made, e.g. “I will accomplish X by 12PM”, it must be completed successfully.
Do not make any determinations which you are not certain to accomplish.
A modification clause can serve as a way to change one’s determination only after significant deliberation, e.g. “This determination may only be changed after 30 minutes of contemplation every day for three consecutive days.”
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Guidelines for Volition
Determining the ideal volition at any given moment is an extremely complex and difficult task. Though AI technology may be used to approach this, it is still far from being reliable given the enourmous scope of causality. However, we can at the very least determine a set of optimal guidelines for behavior which can apply to any situation, with a high probability of having an optimal effect in the future.
Guidelines
A guideline need not be universal–it may apply only within a specific range of scenarios. Thus every guideline has its scope.
The Primary Channel and Breaking Rules
With the assumption of a stable mechanism for the production of ideal states beyond death, a primary channel of operation can be established and followed. Given that the maximization of activity within this channel can be seen as ideal, it may be condusive to operate outside of these bounds at times in order to ensure the long term alignment within this channel. If death can be avoided by veering outside of this, and the consequence is less undesirable than the opportunity cost of prolonged life within the channel, then the rules should be broken in that instance.
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Graduated Volition and its Triggers
It seems that there are levels of intentionality to volition ranging from subconscious to overtly deliberate, and the more deliberate an action is, the stronger its resulting emotional impact. It seems that intentionality inherently implies some amount of craving and induviduality.
It is observed that the experience of pleasure and pain of various kinds can trigger heightened forms of volition.
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Graduated Intelligent Optimisation of a Dynamic System of Behavior
When an analytical intelligence emerges from the mind, it analyzes its memory of experience and identifies patterns which underlie it. Still having preference for pleasure and aversion to pain, it seeks to optimize the system such that there is a minimisation of such pain and a maximization of pleasure.
Setting forth this determination and acting in line with it, this quality of heedfullness may eventually fall away as one eventually retreats into pleasure, and thus the underlying tendencies take over. But eventually these conditions fall away and one arrives at a critical state which arouses this intelligence back into play.
But with further insight, that intelligence would see that it is not this fivefold displeasure that needs to be avoided, but rather the generation of negative emotional states. For in its absence even fivefold displeasure would be tolerated without distress. And so that being operates along a new paradigm, seeking positive mental states through the maintained satisfaction of a decomplicated system of constraints by way of the reduction of thirst which underlies the negative emotional states.
As the being further refines this paradigm, it may then realize the supremacy of the total cessation of thirst which underlies all preference.
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The Actions and Decisions of High Functioning Agents
An agent with desire would act and decide rooted in it. Agents of low intelligence act instinctually in accordance with current desires, not considering the long term consequences of those actions. But highly intelligent agents act with consideration to the long term, and are willing to bear incongruencies in the short term for superior outcomes in the long term. Both kinds of agents are rooted in the same nature of impulse, just that one is capable of fulfilling those impulses to a superior degree. That agent does not act nearly as counterproductively as the former, which frequently acts in a way which although may attenuate its impulse in the short term, would only lead to a proliferation of disresolution in the long run.
Now, an agent of supreme intelligence would recognize desire itself as a drawback, since all desires have the fundamental drawback of constraint, and knowing that whatever is constrained is subject to fail when conditions change, and then see the complete absence of desire to be the highest state, with states of low desire and high satisfaction in gradation below it to be proprotionately yet also infinitely inferior. Thus, they would act in a way that keeps them as close to this ideal state indefinitely.
But an agent of supreme attainment would put an end to desire completely and permanantly: nirvana.
So, what is the fundamental problem of existence? All shades of desire, because the mental phenomenon of regarding a thing as a problem is rooted in desire, and its attenuation is the solution to “problems”, with its cessation being the ultimate solution. Its resolution is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, its question being the expression of desire.
So what ought one do? They ought not do anything in particular; rather, we should ask to what extent an induvidual intelligently with respect to their desires, the wise extinguishing it like a flame.
Desire is ultimately reflexive; when yoked with intelligence it desires its own reduction, and with the development of intelligence one approaches closer and closer to that goal. A sort of natural sublimation beyond a threshold of development which would innevitably lead to a lofty equilibrium if not a transcendence beyond definition. Samsara divided by zero, a resonance among chaos.
So when you wonder, what should I be doing now, and why? Don’t ask that. Rather, wonder whether or not you will act intelligently, knowing the consequences and aware of one’s preference among alternatives. That’s all there is.
So what will I prefer? I prefer not to take up displeasure, I prefer to take up pleasure. So as long as I am bound by uptake, I wish to reliably take up what is pleasant, and whenever I encounter displeasure, I prefer not to take it up. I will prefer to bear the lighter of the two burdens, and hopfully overcome the tendency for uptake alltogether.
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Knowledge and Volition
Assuming that all things of experience are caused, and that volitional action can affect this system, then knowlege that guide volition can influence the system such that there is a minimization and potential extinction of reflexive agitation through the maipulation of the two factors.
One practical application of this would pertain to the choices one would make for a favorable afterlife, and other would pertain to finding a permanant end to this problem in this life itself.
Knowlege in this context is simply information by which volition is constrained. It is not an ontological assertion. One makes different choices with the knowledge of certain infromation that leads to a greater sustainment of happiness than there would have otherwise been. A factor for a change in course for the better.
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The Opportunity of Volition
With the advent of free-will and causality comes the great opportunity for the minimization of discontentment in both present and future. Insofar as discontentment is governed by causality, and where causes are put in place by way volitional action, each and every choice can be made condusive to the maximization of contentment in the future such that they bring forth pleasant experiences, dispell unpleasant experiences, and reduce the occurence of that craving which is the very cause of discontentment.
Related topics (AI recommended)
Decision models and knowledge concern how choices are guided. The Buddhist discussions of reflection and the four kinds of practice examine actions through their consequences.
The current definition of volition uses a threshold of apparent deliberateness and excludes subconscious impulse, without settling the question of free will.
The practical rule under uncertainty about determinism is to exercise volition toward the goal without waiting for that debate to be settled.