/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11284980
You refer to desires while science observes behaviors. Behaviors are simply explained by motivations. The nature of those motivations are where the mystery is, however, you can further refine them to extrinsic and intrinsic causes.

Intrinsic may be deciding to eat (a behavior) because you are hungry. Or it may be extrinsic, because your adult authority figure told you to eat your vegetables. A simplistic example, to illustrate the concept.

Similarly, all the behaviors you see humans doing are motivated by a mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, but the relative weights of those factors are rarely consciously considered, or can be known, mostly because they are unexamined and hard to test. For example, many believe certain rationalizations and stories they tell themselves about why they do the things they do. The problem with this is the bias toward their subjective experience. For instance someone might rationalize they work because they love their job. Then, they win the lottery. Suddenly their motivations change, and thus the behaviors change. The bottom line is that it is not typically known what truly motivates us because we are constantly making up stories to explain the behaviors in terms of motivations we prefer to think explain them.

Brain scan imaging, however, can reveal secrets to behaviors in a more objective fashion.