Learning Dairy– Desire
Video Inspiration
- Up(Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHXVsQfw4AE&t=2027s (Accessed on 30th Jan. 2023)
Basics: The Up series of documentary films follows the lives of ten males and four females in England beginning in 1964, when they were seven years old. The first film was titled Seven Up!, with later films adjusting the number in the title to match the age of the subjects at the time of filming.
Inspiration: From the first film, all participated kids were invited to London Adventure Playground for fun. Even under similar age and occasion, all kids made different performance, some wanted to climb, some enjoyed the slides, some observed others quietly, some want to fight with others and some showed nervous and wanted to leave…Through this short scene, it is obvious that desire is uncertain. It changed constantly and be different from each individuals completely.
- Qinyi Du push
Qinyi Du: Du qinyi formerly known as Du Changrui, was born in Tianjin on September 30, 1983. She is an actor, program host and singer in Mainland China. Graduated from the Performance Department of Beijing Film Academy. In year of 2017, Du joined the international extreme variety show “Beast-master” produced by Netflix as the host of the Chinese team.
Tips: Du is a good entertainer in China, however, she get her fume mainly through her push over Tiktok, China about her shift from Dink member to a well-known mother. Through her video, it is all fact a lady owns a totally opposite idea about next generation in different ages. Therefore, it is a great example desire is uncertain and changeable.
https://v.douyin.com/BLhHJQs/ (Accessed on 30th Jan. 2023)
Theory
This theory from SEP mainly talks about three aspect of desire: existing theories, varieties and related controversies.
1. Existing theory are mainly different from the desire base: action, pleasure, good, attention, learning and holistic analysis. In order to clarify the importance and differences among all theories. Here is a chart inspired by author:
| Theory classification | Concept Brief | Own-Reflection |
| Action-based Theories | For an organism to desire p is for the organism to be disposed to act so as to bring about p. | It is full of opposes due to insufficient limitations. However it is the fundamental and most widely-hold theory. |
| For an organism to desire p is for the organism to be disposed to take whatever actions it believes are likely to bring about p. | It is more advance based on theory above, however it is still in lack of distinction and strict proofing | |
| Pleasure- based Theories | For an organism to desire p is for the organism to be disposed to take pleasure in it seeming that p and displeasure in it seeming that not-p. | It finds a distinction, pleasure as the adding for action-based theories.However, sometimes pleasure has causal or representational relationship with desire. |
| Good-based Theories | For an organism to desire p is for it to believe p is good. | This kinds of theories are inspired by the close relationship between good and desire. However, it is in lack of discuss as a disparate theory with action-based theories. |
| For an organism to desire p is for p to appear good to the organism. | ||
| Attention-based Theories | For an organism to desire p is for the thought of p to keep occurring to the organism in a favorable light, so that its attention is directed insistently toward considerations that present themselves as counting in favor of p. | It is a theory focus on reasons rather than goodness. It may be not complete enough because of an attention-based sufficient condition for the existence of a desire onl |
| For an organism to desire p is for it to be disposed to keep having its attention drawn to reasons to have p, or to reasons to avoid not-p. | It is an enriching for attention-based theories on standing desire. Again, it is new and not sufficient discussed by conservation theorists. | |
| Learning-based Theories | For an organism to desire p is for it to use representations of p to drive reward-based learning. | For an organism to desire p is for it to use representations of p to drive reward-based learning. It points desire is a reward-based learning mechanisms. However, there is few followers for this theory due to the loss of common features public endorse with: either a rejection of a priori constraints on theories of desire, or acceptance of the idea that it is a priori that desires are best theorized as a natural kind that might. |
| Holistic (Functionalist and Interpretationist) | Holistic theories rarely provide full list of desire-like features but some features always play role for desire and further desire observation. | Different with former theories with single feature focus. Holistic theories emphasize the whole desire-related features as the theoretical core. |
2. Existing theory are mainly different from the desire base: action, pleasure, good, For desire varieties, it is including desire for object and state of affairs. Majority of theories point desire is always for conceivable states of affairs. While some think desire is for object at some or all situations. Moreover, intrinsic, instrumental and realizer desire actually is the explanation for desire under primary, secondary and further stage, which personally regards as a similar trend with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Last but not least, this section also talk about feature classification for desire:strong and weak desire,; occurrent and standing desire.
3. The controversies of desire are on 6 aspects: direction of fit, origins, preference, reasons, well-being and praiseworthiness:
- In direction of fit, beliefs is another important concept which has opposite “direction of fit”
- For origins, instrumental and realizer desires have relative rare doubts and it is generally generated by reasoning process, for intrinsic, some think it is inherent, some think it is another further reasoning process while some focus on its rationality and non-rationality.
- Preference and desire are mainly talked in literature of decision theory. It may have different utilities, action, pleasure and choice-worthiness to support the different aspects of desire theories and avoid the conflict between decision theories and desire. However, which one is more fundamental is still the main debating between preference and desire.
- Reasons and desire are strongly debated on meta-ethic, whatever humean or neo-humean is, both of them have similar view that reason to act depends on exiting desire. The biggest challenge for this theory is moral consideration: there is no motivation for people to act morally based on their desire.
- Well-being and desire have controversies in normative ethics. Personally, controversies in this area is over ideal. It may ignore the negative part of human-being.
- Praiseworthiness is another debate with desire. However, similar with well-being, its role toward desire is also idealistic. Most theory related to this area show idealism.
Overall, this literature basically illustrates concept, theory, focus and related academic research about desire in current circumstances. Through this book, my personal knowledge toward desire is enriched and this literature also inspire me for further learning about desire.
- The greatest uncertainty of human-being is desire(Xue 2020)
https://www.jianshu.com/p/9bb4d35cbb28 (Accessed on 28th January 2023)
This is an article inspired by book, Gap(Wang Chong 2013). It illustrates desire as 4 layers: physical-driven, result-driven, self-realization and curiosity-driven.
In this article, physical-driven desire is from comparison, which leads competition, envy and enemy. This may be subjective views from author however it, indeed, shows some related factors leading uncertain desire.
For result-driven desire, it is secondary form which is based on the satisfaction for physical needs. Author use ‘losers are always in the wrong’ to illustrate the sate of result-driven. Personally, the writing for both physical and result motivated shows a feeling of despise, but it is still the fundamental for desire in actual.
Author points there is a controversy for shift between self-realization and result-driven desire. The main distinction is based on consequence: mental or physical.
Last but not least, curiosity is a transcendent layer of desire which can assisting all former layers of desire. In author’s opinion, it is uncertain and can leading the uncertainty of desire, which positively affecting the development of human-being.
Interview–Cheyenne
In order to understand further about desire, I make a quick interview with peer, Cheyenne. As a primary research, this conversation is a good reference for public perception for desire uncertainties.
| Question | Feedback |
| What is your biggest desire at present? Is it changed compared with 5 years ago while do you think will it be changed in 5 years later? | 1. Desire is more about relationship and friendship on Cheyenne’s current age. 2. When she were younger, her desire was mainly about fun, laughing and making friend. Therefore, desire was changed. 3. She believes her desire will be changed to find a partner and have a family in the future. |
| How do you think about uncertainties of desire? Terrifying, interesting, confusing or something else? | It is confusing because she points the variation of experience and age can both influence life and desire incessantly. |
| Photography | Cheyenne’s Feeling |
| Desire for pleasure |
| Desire to help |
| Desire to have fun in a group |