Desire-Chains: A dialogue on desire (and economics, and love, and subjectivity, and objectivity, and psychoanalysis, and quasars...)

A: What determines economic demand?

B: What do you mean?

A: Well, consumers want goods and services.  Thus, there is demand for those goods and services.  We can draw a demand curve, and we can draw a supply curve, and where they cross, that will be the optimal price of the good or service.  If the price is higher, that will cause a surplus, because people who want it won't be able to afford it, and so unsold overstock will remain on the shelves which could have been bought.  If the price is lower, this will create a shortage, because people will buy up so many of the items that the sellers won't be able to keep their shelves sufficiently stocked to serve all their potential customers.

B: Yes, that sounds right.

A: Okay.  Well, we can see what determines supply.  We can analyze the supply chain.  We can look at the raw materials necessary, the labor, the machinery and other technology, the transportation of the goods and so on.  

B: Yes....

A: So what determines demand?

B: Well, just... people wanting stuff.

A: Yes, but what determines that?

B: You mean, people's desires?

A: Yes, what determines people's desires?

B: They're entirely subjective!

A: What do you mean?

B: Just that - people's desires are subjective.

A: So, what you're saying is, you don't know what determines desire.

B: Yes - in fact, I'm not even sure that anything does determine desire.  Maybe nothing determines desire.  Maybe desires are undetermined.

A:  So, you're saying, it's free will.

B: Right.  At least, that's how it feels to me.  I want something because... that's what I want.  I have the freedom to choose whatever I like.  

A: Can you prove that free will exists?

B: No, but even if free will doesn't exist, it's the same situation.  Even if there is something that determines desire, we don't really know what it is that determines desire, or how these desires are determined.  At least, I don't.  It's not a matter of objective facts.  As I say, it's completely subjective.

A: So for you, "subjective" means: we cannot know any facts about it.

B: Right, it's the opposite of "objective," which would mean that we can know about it, for certain.

A: That's funny.  I would think that the subjective is precisely what we can know, and what we do know.  It's the objective we can't be sure of.

B: How so?

A: Well, you know how you see things.  But you don't really know how those things are in themselves, beyond your perception of them.

B: If I follow you, you're saying that I know my awareness of the coffee cup, but I don't know the coffee cup itself.

A: Right.  Humans are always going to come at reality with our own cognitive biases and preconceptions.  We can - and should - overcome these to a certain extent, and get closer and closer to an objective understanding.  But truly absolute, objective understanding will forever elude us.  We may get better and better, or more and more rational, but there will always be a subjective aspect to our awareness.

B: So what you're saying is that you do know what determines desire?

A: Wait... did I say that?

B: I think so.  We agree that desires are subjective, and you say that the subjective - and not the objective - is precisely what you know.  So you must know everything about desires, then.  Or at least, your own.

A: Well, when you put it that way... now I'm starting to think that desires are actually objective.

B: What do you mean?

A: Have you ever been in love?

B: Yes.

A: Could you decide not to be in love?

B: Hmmmm....

A: Like, let's say you fell in love with someone that was married.  Could you un-in-love yourself, because your love was inconvenient?

B: I'm not sure, but I don't think so.

A: Trust me.  You can't.

B: Yeah, you're probably right.

A: Nor can you deliberately change any of your emotions, or any of your desires.  It's not in your control how you feel about something.

B: That seems to be true.  What's your point?

A: If that's true, then my desires are my desires... in much the same way, for me, that a rock is a rock.  It's just there.  I can't wish it away.  I am, in fact, in love.  There's nothing I can do about it.  I could deny it, or try not to think about it, but it's still true.

B: Yep, that's how it has felt to me.

A: So a desire is a fact.  An objective fact.

B: I guess I see what you mean.  But I feel like we've wandered away from the point.

A: You're right.  What was your question?

B: I was asking... let's see.  Oh yeah: you said that you could know what determines your desires subjectively.  So I was asking what determines your desires.

A: No, no, that's not what I said.  Wait, now I'm getting confused.  Okay, let me start over again.  I'm going to try to put it this way:

I can know what I desire, subjectively.  But I don't know what determines my desires.  In that sense, they are objective.  They are simply facts that I must deal with, whether I like it or not.  So, for instance, if I fall in love, I don't really know how it happened, and there's nothing I can do to change it.  It's just a reality that I have to deal with.  I could no more decide not to be in love than I could decide that there is or isn't a wall or door in front of me.

B: Okay, let me get this straight: desires have two aspects, a subjective aspect and an objective aspect.  In a way you could put it this way - the desire itself is subjective, but what determines the desire is objective.  Yes, that sounds about right.  

A: The inner mechanics of our own minds are just as much a mystery to us as the inner workings of a quasar.

B: ...Which is to say, they're not complete mysteries.  Astrophysicists have learned quite a lot about quasars over the decades.  And as we learn more about how brains work, we'll understand somewhat better how desires form.

A: Right, but it's not just neuroscience, because it's not just personal.

B: It isn't?  Aren't we talking about something that is subjective?

A: Again, the desire itself may be subjective, but what determines the desire - the formation of that desire - is objective.  And it seems to me that the process of desire formation is, at least partially, social.

B: How so?

A: Think about advertising.  You can be influenced to desire something.

B: Not me.

A: Are you so sure?  There have been plenty of studies that show that most people don't think advertising affects their preferences.  But if advertising really didn't work, corporations wouldn't waste billions of dollars on it every year.

B: I mean, it doesn't feel like I'm being influenced.

A: Sure.  But that's just because desires are subjective, but desire-formation isn't.  You don't feel your desires being formed.  You just feel your desires.  You feel your desires as if they were always already there.

B: Okay, I'll grant that in trivial matters, like which brand of toothpaste I buy, I might get influenced.  But not on the things that really matter to me.

A: Again - are you so sure?  Let me tell you a story.  When I was in Junior High School, my best friend started to be attracted to a girl in our class.  I could tell he was.  And then I found myself being attracted to her.  Later on, she and I started dating, and it wound up being a relationship that lasted several years.  My first true love.  Of course, this was hurtful to my friend, and for a while, we were in danger of losing our friendship.  But then he found someone else, and meanwhile, my relationship broke up, and my girlfriend turned out to be such a nice person... and, well, eventually it was just all water under the bridge between me and my best friend. 

But sometimes I think to myself: would I have found her attractive, if my friend hadn't, first?  I don't know.  It's pretty hard for me to sort out my feelings on the matter.

B: Then you didn't really love her.

A: Yes I did!  How dare you say that?  When she broke up with me, I was absolutely heart-broken.  I know I was young, but I actually dreamed of marrying her, and having children.  I was absolutely devastated by that break-up.  And it's ridiculous that you think you can know my feelings better than I do after just hearing a couple of sentences I told you.

B: But true love comes from within!  It doesn't come from some kind of external influence.

A: Wherever it came from, I can tell you this much: once I was in love, I was in love.  There was nothing I could do about it.  I couldn't stop thinking about her, I couldn't stop feeling pain when she broke it off with me... even though she treated me pretty badly, I wanted her back.  I dated others, but I still kept thinking of her, over and over, every day, all day.  

B: Hm.  Well, okay, maybe it's true for you.  But that doesn't mean it's true for everyone.  Maybe you're just especially susceptible to influence.

A: Maybe. 

B: It's true!  Think of it this way - maybe you were influenced by your friend.  But what about him?  Where did his attraction come from?

A: I don't know.

B: You're not going to suggest that he had another friend who was attracted to her before him, and he learned it by watching that friend....

A: No, but...

B: But what?

A: Well, who knows?  Maybe she reminded him of a character in a movie that he already felt an attraction to!  Maybe she looked like a model in an ad in a magazine!  Maybe one day she wore a perfume that had a particular scent that awoke certain associations in his mind!  There are thousands of ways he could have been influenced!

B: Yeah but even if there were an association with an association with a memory of a memory of an echo of an echo, somewhere back there, there had to be something real - some real desire!

A: It was all real desire!  My desires were just as real as his!

B: Next you're going to say that she reminded him of his mother....

A: Well, what of it?  Maybe she did!

B: Ugh.  There you go, psychoanalyzing everything.

A: Oh yeah?  What if I am?

B: Psychoanalysis is all bullshit and you know it.

A: Look - I'm not a Freudian.  I'm well aware that a lot of the techniques of psychoanalysis, as it has been historically practiced, are extremely unscientific.  Nonetheless, I don't think that's what bugs you about psychoanalysis.

B: Oh really?  Enlighten me.  What actually bothers me?

A: What really bugs you is the idea that psychoanalysis could offer some kind of explanation for why you desire the things you do.  And to you, if there is an explanation for why you desire something, if your desires aren't completely spontaneous, that implies that somehow they aren't real.  You're afraid that if you got a satisfying, objective description of the formation of your own desires, that would somehow rob you of the subjective experience and power of your own desires.  You're afraid that in some sense, they wouldn't be yours anymore.

B: Now you're psychoanalyzing my rejection of psychoanalysis!

A: Look how defensive you are!  You think I'm attacking you, but I'm not.  I'm really not.  You're the one who's being aggressive here, telling me that my own desires and love aren't real.

B: But you are telling me that my desires aren't real!

A: No, I'm not.  I'm really not.  You're the one who said my desires aren't real.  You're being a solipsist - you think that only your desires, the desires that come purely from within you, are real.  You think anything from outside is fake.  But we're real, too!

B: Hmm.  Yeah, I guess.  Sorry.

A: There's nothing to be sorry for.  I get it.  I really do.

B: Okay, so where were we?

A: I don't know.

B: Didn't this conversation start about economics?

A: Oh yeah.  That feels like a million years ago.

B: So what was the point you were trying to make?

A: Well, I guess it was just that, just as economists should think about supply-chains, maybe we should study demand-chains, too.... desire-chains.  But that seems all beside the point now.  The point is that I love you.

B: I love you, too.