Saturday, October 22, 2011

Will, Voluntary, Somnambulism

The traditional identification of 'voluntary' with 'deliberate' or 'intentional' reflects a conflation of two distinct types of mental process--volitional and cognitive, e. g. Sartre's 'Consciousness'. Rarely explored evidence of that distinction is somnambulism, which entails Motility with minimal awareness. Since Motility is Will, somnambulism is volition with minimal cognition. Furthermore, since 'voluntary' denotes volition, somnambulism is, therefore, voluntary, though not deliberate or intentional. Similarly, dreams sometimes seem to be 'unconscious expressions of a wish', because what they actually express is Motility that occurs during sleep, and Motility is Volition, i. e. it is wishing in general, not some specific wish, that a dream expresses.

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