The Noble Lie I can lie no more.

A motive is driven by a desire, but a desire may be driven by another desire. A desire we lie to ourselves about will never solve our dilemma. The only way to solve a dilemma is to hit the proper nail on the head. In many cases we hit the wrong nail on the surface of the wood and not the one ingrained beneath the surface. Going back to the thinking of those like Plato or Descartes we come to the school of rationalism and reductive logic. In contrast to this were Aristotle and people like Locke or Hume with empiricist, or deductive logic. The difference is the former believes we can reduce an issue rationally through deep thought, by thinking of all the things that are not possible until we are only left with what is possible, and can build possible options of these possibilities. The latter believes in a similar idea of reducing all possibilities down to what is possible, but also believes the process of knowledge can only be achieved by examining what is true outside of the body, rather than reducing possibilities in the mind alone. The difference in approaches comes down to inductive versus deductive at a certain point. Is knowledge gained from within the mind of one who thinks well, or is it gained from examining the world around us?

I would argue a combination of the two is the only way to have some knowledge of the world. All reality is relative to our experiences, but is knowledge gained from outside or inside of us? It is rather circular and going back to superstition and pragmatism we can see a dichotomy of rationalism and empiricism, because to rationalize properly is the theorize what may be possible, and to empirically examine is to be pragmatic, and to be too much of one or another is flawed. If we want to hit the right nail, we must first find if the nail is something to be discovered outside or inside of us. Is the surface nail in front of us outside our bodies to examine and behind it is the latent nail waiting to be hit, or is it surface conscience and the subconscious is waiting to be brought forward? The problem is we cannot separate facts from values. Facts exist in the physical world. We first gain values, beliefs, motives and desires from our interactions with the world. What about the innate motives and desires we are born with? I would argue those were put there by the experiences of our ancestors. At some point humanity was not conscious enough to understand our experiences and built unconscious emotional reflexes to pleasure and pain. Those experiences are passed onto us in the future and become the innate and a priori drives of desire we carry for survival. These survival traits are pragmatics given to us, but sometimes the emotional reflexes make mistakes when a past experience does not account well for a present experience, because environments change from life to life and even in our own lives, and if we do not create flexible habits for new environments, we may keep hitting old nails without overcoming them. These old nails are old values and beliefs that drive current motives. We attach them to current facts subconsciously through the lens of our minds. This prejudice is what causes us to never be completely objective. It is only through the lenses of many minds that we can have a slightly better or intersubjective meaning of the world.

The problem of not being able to separate the facts from the values exists because we cannot separate empiricist pragmatism and rationalist superstition. The difference in how much you want of either of these depends on situation. It is good to be more pragmatic is learning a skill that involves objects. This is what scientific study is for. It is good to be more pragmatic in hard science, because we are less likely to look at objects with the prejudice we do toward other people. When trying to discover the functions of an object, we ask ourselves, what can it do for us? We would never examine an object in the sciences if we did not think it would advance mankind or just ourselves. If we belief it will help mankind in the future, we will examine all the features of objects that we see as useful. When it comes to people, we should be a little more superstitious. The deductive model of scientific method works best on the world outside of our bodies, but it does not give survival reflexes the way rationalism will. You can know all you want about how the world works in books, but you can only learn how to fight or flight through interaction with others. We want rationalism in philosophy, law, and relationships with people. It is the tooth and nail struggle of interactions that build up our reflexes, the way we tooth and nail our way logically in an experiment till we get the answer. It is the innate desires and desires gained through action that are embedded in us. The process of interacting with others should be as inductive as possible. The problem with deductive logic in interactions is a scientific model does not fit everyone. We use something similar to scientific models called labels. A label is like a model in that a model is already set up like directions to the assembly of a car. If we follow the directions right, we can reach the proper end of the a functioning machine. Interactions with people on the other hand are more organic, and if we walk in with a label, we tend to do the same thing we do with other objects to human objects. We look at someone and think, what can they do for me? If we see an attractive person and we are single, we think, maybe they can be my boyfriend or girlfriend. We already impose the label on them based on our desires, beliefs, and motives. The process of interaction becomes one of trying to make them fit the label of what we thought they would best suit in our lives. This puts expectations up at a high level and makes us too superstitious, and when expectations are too high, we tend to get let down a lot.

Rationalizing is not about thinking of the best way to think our way out of desires that might be bad. I would argue that rationality is a slave to our desires instead. Rationality only exists as a mode to help us find the most pragmatic method of achieving emotional wants. The mistake of over rationalizing in most cases is we naturally tend to lie about true desire and emotion, and compensate for by creating an alternative for emotions to go into (surface nails). Plato would have us think that the rational part of the soul should rule the other parts of courage and appetite, but what if rationality is a slave of appetite? If the rulers of a city have no money, the moneymakers could revolt by withholding resources. The same goes for us. The rational part of us is at the mercy of the appetite. By compensating for the true appetite and telling ourselves the noble lie, we divert desires to places they do not really want to be. Sometimes those who rule over us do not know what is best, because some experiences must come directly from those in a situation. This means the ability to rationalize should only exist to let the appetite get the thing it desires most with the least difficulty. We do not want to tell ourselves the noble lie in life. Telling the noble lie makes us run from pain and toward pleasure when true pleasure is overcoming the pain we would naturally run from. Running toward pleasure is a surface nail of compensation. It would make more sense to punch the thing hurting us in the face than to hit a punching bag to make up for the life we do not really want. The reason we do the things we do each day without thinking about it, is because we are unconsciously compensating for a life we would really like to be living. It is only when we consciously struggle we are achieving something better than we are now. Rationalism of something that makes us uncomfortable is best grappled by asking why we are uncomfortable. We have to ask what is it I am trying to prove, what is the motive behind wanting to prove it, and what is the solution to the end desire? When we stop lying to ourselves about the true end desire we want from a situation, we can stop compensating for it with alternative desires and run at pain head on. The conscious struggle with pain will give us peace and we can start living the way we really desire to live in that department. If we know we cannot have what we really want in a situation after thinking it through and confronting it, we should just leave and look elsewhere for things we do really want that we can have.

We cannot escape the process of labeling. This I believe is a survival mechanism created through language in order to describe what was harmful and not harmful in the wilderness humanity used to live, and even today to point out groups of people we see as threatening. We naturally walk into an interaction seeking people to fulfill our desires, but it is only through time we learn to trust certain people manage to fit these labels. If you think about it however, the people who managed to fit those labels the best, were in fact the ones we never expected them from. When we think of our best friends, and look back to when we met them, we never thought they would be our best friends upon meeting them. They ended up becoming the label even though we did not label them till later on when it was obvious. This was an inductive process where we learned what something was from a bottom up process, instead of a top down process of putting them in a model or label. Induction and reflex seem to work best with little thought applied. Since most of our desires and motives are unconscious in our interactions, the less we try to think about them, and the more we try to just do what feels good, seems to bring about results in our favor. However, just doing what feels good only works most of the time. There is one element of reductionism that needs to be accounted for, and that is the reductionism of the self. If we think too hard about our interactions we will drive ourselves insane. On the other hand we cannot escape the ability to dream about what others can be in our lives due to the fact we naturally seek to make them fit labels. The most we can do is make the expectations of the labels lower upon the urge to rationalize them. When we see the person that looks like a good boyfriend or girlfriend, we need to stop and think, maybe they will never be that, and the best we can hope for is a friend. If we remind ourselves that friends is the best it may be, we can stop trying to impress the way we would a potential mate. This is looking for a solution on the outside, by changing the values of the facts around us to something of a slightly lower expectation. The second part of the equation is to use reductive logic on our inner desires. If there is a desire behind another desire, then going purely on what feels good is a utilitarian pleasure and pain approach that can be flawed in some cases when new environments do not fit old habits and we hit the wrong nails. The only way to know thyself, is to trace back a desire in our mind through dialect with others who will see it for what it is beneath the surface. We need to talk to friends and ask, what is the real reason I sought out this interaction, and how is seeking out this desire valuable? What will be valuable in the long term? Once we trace back our surface desires to our true desires, we then readjust our values to ones that we think will benefit us the most. The mistake a lot of people make is they lie to themselves about their true desires and use the surface motives to make decisions that are not in their interest long term. It is the constant process of making sure the outer label is realistic and the inner desire is compatible with it that will lead us to desires we favor most often. Pleasure and pain reflexes are not enough when we do not understand the source of our pleasure and pain. It is only by knowing ourselves we can see our true pain and attack it. If we attack our insecurities and fears, we will gain more power over the desired meanings we want from life, which will lead to the true desired actions, and self-actualization.

One more point to add is how to keep people from taking advantage of our desires and asserting that we will get the desires we want. We have to acknowledge that people are selfish, and it is this selfishness we let take advantage of us sometimes when we do not use it properly to our advantage. What we are taught in many cases is to treat others, as we would like to be treated, but the only purpose of doing this is so others do not do bad things to us. What we really want are people to do the things we want. If we do this through force, we usually just make them resent us, but if we can do this through persuasion, it is in our favor. To put it another way, we should never help anyone unless they are giving us what we want back right away. If the situation exists where they could possibly not give us what we want at the same time we are helping them, then we should not compromise. The action of helping others now for a favor later should only be reserved for people who have earned our trust over time, and have proven they will return a favor later after many trades on the spot have passed. Helping people out for no favor but the favor of feeling good is not in our interest. This only makes us feel good a short time and makes them complacent as well as take us for granted. Getting people to help us in a way that will not help them in the long run will only cause resentment from them and sometimes revenge. The proper way to help people is to first make sure we are getting helped, and second find ways to make it so they get helped in the process too. This allows everyone to benefit, and most important of all, it keeps us from getting screwed. This is self actualized selfishness, because anyone who acts to only benefit themselves cannot get very far in rewards, the same as one person building house will not have as big a house as five people using each other for a better end. Acting in this way keeps us in control of our desires. The greatest mistake most people make is doing acts for others in hopes of later reparations, and this happens most often because we impose a label we think they will fill if we give them what they want now, instead of making sure we get what we want now. Building a dream is like building a house. If we dream a little closer to us, and do not have our head in the clouds, we are more likely to achieve a dream pragmatically, and slower build another small one on top of it. We can keep readjusting our aim with each shot we take without firing into the clouds and come out knowing how we end up where we did. If we understand how we did something intentionally, we can do it again and keep doing it better, compared to firing in the clouds on accident and never getting it right again if ever.