Hierarchy of Acts

Everyone is somewhat familiar with the Freudian concepts of id/ego/super-ego and how the unconscious and concious minds interact to a degree. Changing your mind is the most common manifestation of an interaction between these three agents - Action in motion (id) as part of a prior decision that is currently being played out (ego) is interrupted when an impetus makes us question the choice and decide on another through our understandings and values (super-ego).

Our minds are not this simple, nor in-fact, constructed in this fashion, however none-the-less the model is a useful one for considering what is occurring conceptually as we go about our lives.

A question to be pondered is - at what conceptual level to we affect the changes that we are looking to make, and why do we even want to make them? This differs from the id/ego model due to its analysis of the concious influence of layers in contrast to more of a theory of mind.

Hierarchy of actualisation:

  • intuitive action
  • Considered response
  • Spurring yourself to do what you intuitively wish
  • Considering the validity of your desires
  • Changing what you value
  • Changing your aesthetic emotional responses
  • Something…

The concept interacts with emotions strongly, in that, much of our action / value system derives from our emotional aesthetics.

There is a generally understood notion that we should restrain our emotions, but rarely a impetus to grow them, or to change how they come about.

Meditative schools or rehabilitation programs come closest to this idea, but they don’t see it as an open-ended device, but instead an intuitive control.

Leaving this as an unpolished thought for now!