Intentions, Purposes, and Goals

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

Article 64
October 31, 1990

Intentions, Purposes, and Goals

Intentions are the key to the nature of conscious beings and to all of their activities. Every activity begins with an an intention, and every intention has an "objective": the object, event, or state of affairs that the person is trying to bring about with that intention. Painting a picture begins with the intention to paint a picture. The objective of that intention is the picture. That intention starts an activity cycle -- that of painting the picture -- and a period of time -- the time during which the picture is being painted. Furthermore, in order to fulfill that intention, the person must assume an identity -- that of a painter. And this identity is composed of and supported by a number of skills, tools, and ideas, all of which are means of creating a picture. But the ruling element is the intention.

The Hierarchy of Intentions and Identities

Intentions have a hierarchical "tree" structure. One or more junior intentions tend to promote the fulfillment of a senior one; one or more senior intentions may tend to promote an even more senior intention, and so forth (See Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Motivational Tree

The intention to buy a paint brush, to make a certain brush stroke, to design a painting in a certain way, and to use a certain amount of detail are all intentions that are subsidiary to the intention to paint the picture. And the intention to paint the picture (along with other intentions, such as to play music, to make jewelry, etc.) may itself be subsidiary to another intention, such as to make money, to create beauty, or to win the man or woman of your dreams. Every one of a person's intentions fits somewhere on his hierarchy of intentions, his "motivational tree". Intentions higher on the motivational tree tend to be more important and longer-term than lower-level intentions.

And corresponding to this motivational tree is a tree of identities (See Figure 2).

Figure 2: The Tree of Identity

Each intention, even a subsidiary one, has a corresponding identity by which it can be fulfilled. To buy a paint brush, one must become a shopper; to design a painting, one must be a designer; to create beauty, one must be an artist, and so forth. Intentions are the key to the nature of conscious beings and to all of their activities. Again, every activity begins with an an intention. Painting a picture begins with the intention to paint a picture. That intention starts an activity cycle -- that of painting the picture -- and a period of time -- the time during which the picture is being painted. And, again, in order to fulfill that intention, the person must assume an identity -- that of a painter. And this identity is composed of and supported by a number of skills, tools, and ideas, all of which are means of creating a picture. But the ruling element is the intention.

Goals and Purposes

Intentions always intend something. The act of intending cannot exist without there being something (some entity) that is intended. We call that entity the "objective" of the intention:

Definition: The objective of an intention is the entity whose existence would fulfill the intention, the entity the intention seeks to create or receive.

There are two kind of objectives -- definite and indefinite. We shall refer to these as "targets" and "aims", respectively:

Definition: A target is a definite objective. It is attainable in a finite (though possibly long) period of time and has definite criteria for its final attainment. A million dollars in one's pocket, a car race that has been won, and one's election as President of the United States would all be targets.
Definition: An aim is an indefinite objective. It has no definite criteria for completion and thus can never be finally achieved but only approached as an ongoing thing. Making money, racing cars, and governing are aims.

There are two kinds of intentions, corresponding to the two different kinds of objectives that intentions can have:

Definition: A goal is an intention with a definite objective (target).
Definition: A purpose is an intention with an indefinite objective (aim).

There are a number of reasons why purposes tend to be more fundamental -- higher on the motivational tree -- than goals:

Because of their indefinite nature, purposes tend to be more long-term and ongoing than goals.
Goals tend to be subsidiary and attained for the sake of something else, whereas purposes are often pursued for their own sake.
A goal is terminated more or less "automatically" upon the attainment of its target, whereas the aim of a purpose can be satisfied without ever reaching a final attainment that ends the purpose.
For this reason, the only way in which a person can terminate a purpose is by a deliberate, intentional act. Purposes thus tend to be more persistent than goals; it is easier to persist unconsciously with a purpose than to do so with a goal.
Purposes mostly have to do with quality and significance, whereas goals have to do with quantity and mass. Since a person generally sees himself more as possessed of qualities than of quantities, he identifies more readily with purposes than with goals.

Basic Purposes and Identities

The intentions that are highest on the motivational tree are called "basic intentions", and their corresponding identities are "basic identities". Since, as mentioned above, it is purposes that tend to lie at the highest levels of the motivational tree, the identities that have been assumed in order to fulfill these purposes lie at the highest levels of the tree of identity. These basic purposes and identities have often been adopted for an entire lifetime ¹, although it is also possible that basic purposes could be started and ended several times in the course of a person's lifetime. Basic purposes and identities are the elements that govern a person's life, experience, and activity and that lie closest to him as a being. Removing the charge that surrounds them is thus extremely beneficial. Basic purposes underlie all traumatic incidents, since much of the trauma in these incidents comes from frustration or threatened frustration of basic purposes or -- equivalently -- from a threat to the survival of the identities that are governed by these purposes. If we can handle and eliminate the charge contained in basic purposes and identities, we will have discharged much of the material on which the Traumatic Incident Network (Net) is based; hence we will have greatly weakened the hold that the Net has over the individual.

The Buddha was evidently right when he said that the way to relieve suffering and pain is to eliminate desire. I would not necessarily agree that it is good to eliminate all desire. It is certainly a good idea, however, to eliminate unwanted desires, especially old, buried basic goals which have never been consciously discontinued.

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

¹ Some people seem to experience multiple lifetimes. For such individuals, a basic purpose and identity may extend over more than one lifetime.

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