Affinity, Desire, and Intention

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JOURNAL OF METAPSYCHOLOGY
431 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, California 94025

Article 37
September 27, 1989
Re-revised May 20, 1990

Affinity, Desire, and Intention

In JOM Article 34, "Basic Principles of Metapsychology", I presented for the first time certain very basic elements of metapsychological theory. These principles are expressed very tersely as Basic Principles Nos. 9 - 15, but they require and deserve further explication. I speak, there, about affinity and intention, but the first thing that needs to be clarified is the notion of "closeness" and its relationship to affinity.

Closeness and Affinity

Affinity is defined as follows:

Definition: Affinity is the impulse toward closeness.

And we could also say:

Definition: Aversion is the impulse toward distance.

But what does "closeness" mean, in this context? Closeness can be physical -- and we often like to be physically near things and people we like. But the closeness that concerns us here is closeness in identity. This could be regarded as closeness in the fifth dimension of experience -- the subjective-objective dimension that stretches between the person and his world.¹ As you approach someone or something along this dimension, it becomes closer to being a part of you. If you were to reach it, you would have identified yourself with it or become it, in a sense that depends on whether you are dealing with an object or a person.

There are two kinds of affinity:

1. Affinity for people.
2. Affinity for entities (such as valued possessions).

Affinity for People

I will refer to affinity for people as "affection". "Affection" describes a relationship between people: a willingness, or even a wish, to approach the viewpoint of another -- to see the world that another sees, to share a viewpoint, to commune with another. Affection can include a desire for physical closeness. The closer you are to someone physically, the closer your viewpoint approximates his. But the same applies to mental viewpoints. If you could occupy exactly the same viewpoint as another -- i.e., if you could occupy the same mental and physical space -- you would have to be that person (and he would have to be you). So we could say that one has affection for another person to the degree that one wishes to share an identity with that person. Putting these considerations together, we have:

Definition: Affection is the wish to be close to another person, to share a common space, viewpoint, and identity. It is an impulse toward communion.

Affection has a negative counterpart -- "disaffection":

Definition: Disaffection is the characteristic of being unwilling to be close to another person, to share a space, viewpoint, or identity with him. It is an impulse toward alienation.

A high degree of affection is referred to as "love", whereas a high degree of disaffection might be called "hatred".

Affinity for Impersonal Entities

What about affinity toward an impersonal entity, such as an object or event? We may speak loosely of "loving cappucino" or "loving to ski", but we are aware that quite a different relationship exists, here. This kind of affinity might be thought of as a willingness and readiness to be physically close to an object, such as a painting. If I have affinity for cappucino, I want it around, at least at times. But that isn't always the case. I have a great deal of affinity for the Eiffel tower, but I am quite willing to have it be in Paris and not in my back yard. And I'm rather fond of the sun and moon, but I don't necessarily want to live in either place. Furthermore, there are three kinds of entity: phenomena, facts, and concepts. I may have affinity, not only for phenomena, but also for concepts or facts. I have affinity for the potential fact that Russia will sort out its internal difficulties. The affinity I have for internal peace in Russia is not a desire to be close to that peace. I may have affinity for the idea of a unified field theory without necessarily wanting to think about it all the time.

Another view of the second sort of affinity is that it is a wish for, or an impulse toward having something. If I have affinity for the sun and moon, or for Van Gogh paintings, I wish to have them become part of my world and continue to be part of my world. In other words, I wish to have access to and/or influence over them, where:

Definition: Access is the ability to engage in receptive actions with respect to an entity.

and

Definition: Influence is the ability to engage in creative actions with respect to an entity.

In other words, I want to be causative (or to be able to act) with respect to those entities for which I have affinity.²

How does the notion of having fit in with the notion of fifth-dimensional closeness mentioned above? When I have something very thoroughly, I am (by definition) capable of exercising a great deal of causation over it. And in this case, it can become functionally a part of me -- become incorporated in an identity of mine. If my body is well-trained and healthy and I can therefore be very causative over it, it tends to become a part of me, rather than part of my environment. I need not, and do not, put attention on it. My focus of attention moves outward, and the body becomes part of "self", rather than "other". So it is with anything that is thoroughly "had". It becomes so thoroughly permeated with my identity that it becomes a part of me, and I, in turn, enjoy a sense of personal expansion in having something to that degree. I have it to such a degree that I am no longer aware of having it. It disappears from the foreground of consciousness. It is a curious paradox that thoroughly having something causes it to vanish, experientially.

"Having", then, can also be defined as follows:

Definition: Having is (fifth dimensional) closeness to an entity.

Desire and Abhorrence

Can we now think of another term to stand for the affinity we have toward entities? I believe the term "desire" serves very well:

Definition: Desire is the impulse toward having or continuing to have an entity.

Like affinity, desire has a negative counterpart -- abhorrence:

Definition: Abhorrence is the impulse toward rejecting or continuing to not have an entity.

A high level of desire could be expressed as "fervor" or "yearning", whereas a high level of abhorrence could be called "loathing". An absence of abhorrence could be called "acceptance".

Parenthetically, one could say that, to the degree one desires another person, one is looking at that person as a thing -- an entity, whereas to the degree that one has affection for another person, one is viewing that person as a person. There is a definite qualitative difference between love and yearning; affection and desire; disaffection and abhorrence; hatred and loathing. The first of each of these pairs has a personal quality; the second is impersonal.

Having made the important distinction between desire and affection proper, I now wish to focus on desire and the impersonal side of things.

Desire and Ability

Just because one desires something does not mean one thinks one is able to have that thing. As a teen-ager, I was often overwhelmed with a desire for carnal knowledge of the body of Kim Novak, Marilyn Monroe or Brigitte Bardot, without having any illusions about my ability to satisfy this desire by any form of direct action. By excruciating personal experience, I learned that desire and despair may co-exist. Indeed, despair cannot exist without desire.

In order to satisfy a desire, one must be able to do so. But how does one become able? First of all, one learns to control something. An able officer must be capable of controlling his troops. But this control does him no good unless he also understands the tactics and strategy necessary to win battles. He is not an able officer, either, if he has an excellent understanding of strategy and tactics but is unable to control his men. As an armchair politician, I may happen to understand perfectly well what it takes to eliminate the federal deficit, but I am not able to eliminate it unless I have some degree of control over the political process. An ignorant demagogue, on the other hand, may have plenty of political clout, but unless he also understands how to eliminate the deficit, he is not able to eliminate the federal deficit either. In other words:

Definition: Ability is the potential for action. It is composed of control and understanding.

Note that one may be able to do something without either doing it or desiring to do it. I am able to play a moderately good game of tennis and have access to a tennis court, rackets, tennis balls, and willing tennis partners, but I don't enjoy tennis that much, so I rarely play.

Intention -- A Combination of Desire and Ability

When you put together desire and ability, however, you then get intention. Unlike a desire, an intention requires that one consider oneself potentially able to fulfill it. I cannot intend something that I know I cannot bring about, and I cannot intend something that I do not desire. But I can and must intend that which I both desire and feel able to bring about.³

As I have said in Beyond Psychology, formulating an intention begins an activity cycle, which exists so long as -- and only so long as -- the intention exists. Thus, intention and action are inextricably bound up with each other. If an action can be regarded as something that stretches from a person to the object of that action -- some entity in that person's world -- then intention might be regarded as that part of an action that lies nearest to the person, whereas other parts of the action, such as, perhaps, body motions and physical consequences of these motions, lie further away.

These two characteristics of an intention can be combined into a new definition:

Definition: Intention is a combination of desire and ability. It is the proximal end of an action being performed by a person.

Drive, Understanding, and Control

The alert reader will notice that if we add the second sort of affinity -- desire -- to the components of ability (understanding and control), we get the three components I have spoken about in Beyond Psychology as constituting the triad of affinity, understanding, and control, and which we can now understand as desire, understanding, and control. I wish to make one minor terminological addition, here. "Understanding" and "control" can mean either a general capacity or a particular act. One can have a particular instance of understanding or controlling something, or one can have a greater or lesser general capacity to understand and control. But we need another term to describe the general capacity to desire, and for that I will use the term "drive". A person with a great deal of drive is capable of having many desires and strong ones; a person with little drive doesn't care much about things.

I have referred to this as the "ability", but this name leaves out the component of desire or drive. Instead of "ability", I will speak of the combination of drive, understanding, and control as "power", since "power" connotes not only ability but also a certain drive for a result. There are many people who are able to do great things but fail to do so because of lack of drive or ambition -- in other words, lack of the capacity to desire things. We do not regard such people as powerful. Others have very strong desires but little ability, and these, too, we do not regard as powerful. Only the combination of ability and drive adds up to power, in the common usage of the term. Also, I have decided that the term "triad" is more apt as a description of drive, understanding, and control than "spiral", so I will henceforth refer to this combination as the "power triad".

Power and Intention

But note that we have also defined intention as a combination of desire + ability, i.e., desire + understanding + control. It follows, therefore, that intention and power are closely related. We can define "power" as follows:

Definition: Power is the combination of drive, understanding, and control.

Definition: Power is the capacity to desire, to understand, and to control.

In other words:

Definition: Power is the capacity to intend.

On reflection, the latter definition makes sense. We conceive of people as having a certain amount of power with which to engage in their daily activities. I have elsewhere expressed this power as e\*'lan vitale, consciousness, or vitality, but I have also pointed out that it is composed of intention units. At any particular time, a person has only a limited capacity to intend things. Much of what we do in viewing is to free up trapped intention units (known as "charge") so that a person becomes more aware and more able to make things happen in the present. But one can also augment the total supply of intention by helping the viewer, in other ways such as education, to move upward in the triad of drive, understanding, and control -- the power triad. Naturally, as a person becomes more powerful, he becomes more able. But over and above this, he also develops a greater degree of desire, a more expanded lust for life, and this is just as important to his well-being.

Power is a Means, Not an End

I do not mean, here, to glorify power for its own sake. In my view, the entire purpose for being in a world, with all the entities that it contains, is to use them as a means toward the fulfillment of one's most deeply-seated intention. And that is the intention to attain an ever-increasing degree of communion with one's fellow beings. The universe is meant to be a universe of discourse. By becoming more powerful in our dealings with the world, we acquire an enhanced degree of ability to communicate with others and to enhance the well-being of others -- which is really the main point of the whole exercise.

Frank A. Gerbode, M.D.
Director, IRM

¹ See Beyond Psychology, Chapter Three, the section on "Dimensions of Experience").

² See JOM Article 22 -- "Some Reflections on Having".

³ I need to make one small point here, for the sake of accuracy. One may have an intention which does not eventuate in action, if there is some more powerful set of counter-intentions. Such an intention is really only an intention vector, not a resultant intention that gives rise to action. (See JOM Article 35, "The Resultant Intention".)

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