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Synopsis
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"The order of needs" - is a theory that tries to prove:
- The basic needs (or goals or desires) in humans are set at an initial moment (birth or conception) - they are encrypted (hardcoded) in our brain and cannot be altered.
- Those needs have different priorities and this priority is also set at this initial moment.
- The priorities are slightly fluctuating among humans (this being one of the most important factor in humans having different personalities) and this fluctuation is determined by the time of the year when the initial moment takes place.
If the "The order of needs" theory will prove to be right a series of fascinating conclusions can be made.
In psychology - personality theories are incomplete at the time - they disagree on things like: - Freedom versus Determinism; - Heredity versus Environment; - Uniqueness versus Universality; - Active versus Reactive; - Optimistic versus Pessimistic; and the "The order of needs" theory will clarify most of them.
There is an even bigger debate on philosophy over Free will or Freedom versus Determinism and this theory will clarify that again.
We will be able to say much confident that we know who we are as species and as place in this world and universe.
Artificial intelligence engineers will have more confidence and directions in their quest of creating alive computers.
We can draw even a more dramatic conclusion - because now humans behaviour can be (almost ) mathematically determined - we can say humans don't have a soul (the mysterious thing that makes us unique and science don't know what it is or where it comes from and has mystic-divine aspects) - which in turn will bring us closer to the conclusion that all religions are false. This will be something.
One down side will be that we will know who we are and be able to understand each other maybe more that we want. The myth of humans being, or, containing something mythological or divine will be pretty much shattered .
But "Hell - is about time" this to happen.
The Theory
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INTRODUCTION:
At the moment I only have some indirect evidences but put together they build a pretty strong case in my view. However - the definitive evidence will be a psychological test conducted by specialists on humans.
Before going to the arguments I want to make it clear that I don't think those arguments are good enough to prove the theory by itself in a scientifically manner. Their task is only to make the idea interesting enough for psychologists to conduct the test.
So what are the arguments that human needs are set at an initial moment and they are prioritised and this prioritisation is determined in relation with time?
A. - something is missing from personality definitions and having needs and priorities set at an initial moment makes perfect sense - explains perfect the missing pieces.
B. - a parallel with robots will show us that we cannot act without having a set of needs set at an initial moment and also an order for those needs.
C. - relating the fluctuation of the order of needs to the moment of year when the initial moment takes place is the only controllable mean that nature has available to fluctuate in some boundaries the priorities.
D. - zodiacal signs - this one will be a very difficult argument for scientists to cope with
A. The "Needs order" theory fills perfectly the missing data in current personality theories.
From wiki:
'There is no consensus on the definition of "personality" in psychology.'
"The following five categories are some of the most fundamental philosophical assumptions on which theorists disagree: - Freedom versus Determinism; - Heredity versus Environment; - Uniqueness versus Universality; - Active versus Reactive; - Optimistic versus Pessimistic;"
As can be seen there is quite a big disagreement in this field and I think that this is because something clearly missing. If things were clear everybody would have agreed on something.
If we take a look at Heredity versus Environment we can see that there is not even a concept of a third option - the needs order set at an initial moment. We have genes and environment but those 2 don't explain the whole picture at all.
What don't they explain? Well the problem is quite simple.
Brothers are very different (from personality perspective) from parents but also very different between each other - as different as all other humans are.
The fact that children are different from parents indicates that the most important triggers of personality are clearly not genetically inherited.
The fact that brothers are equally different between each other as to other humans (from personality perspective) also indicates that environment is not the definitive factor in creating personality - because in most cases the environment is pretty much the same for brothers and also differences can be seen from very small ages - much before environment to had a big chance in influencing things.
So something is missing.
Why and how the needs and their different priorities will fill the gap?
The most important thing that differentiate humans and thus making different personalities - in my view and in the view of this theory - is a slightly different order of needs, goals or aspirations. This can be seen very clearly from very small ages - children want different things - some want to eat more, some want to play more, some are more friendly - they are different in the way that they want different things in the same situation.
They want the same things per total - they want to eat slip play etc but they want all those things in a different order.
Why is not this order set by genes again? Well the order is different from parents to children as is between brothers while genes usually means some inheritance and similitude.
B. Robots parallel.
Now - how do we know that this order of needs is set at an initial moment and not at another moment?
You can make a robot, add a perfectly functionality software that will give the robot all the capabilities to navigate into environment, to recognize chargers, to communicate BUT it wont act unless you will set him a need.
You can make the robot and place it near a charger but he wont recharge.
He is on and he understands that he will die if he dont recharge but he wont act to recharge because there is no purpose in that. He dont want anything yet. Somebody must set externally that he want something - in order to act.
Lets say we have small robots traveling on wheels and we implement in them few needs like:
1 - need to search a power supply and recharge when the battery is low,
2 - need to observe and analyze the surrounding environment and came up with solutions - some kind of engineering curiosity,
3 - need to make humans happy
4 - this implies the need of trying to study and understand humans and other.
5 - and lets say something not very scientific - the need to gather small rocks.
so we have 5 needs implemented in our small robots.
Now those robots will start running around.
What we do if a robot has the chance to fulfill 2 needs in the same moment but he only must choose one?
We must set up an order for those needs because if he is low on batteries and he has the opportunity to gather a nice rock, he will have to choose to go for the batteries.
This might look very simplistic but the situation is also quite simple - as a man you need goals to make you wake up from bed and an order for them so you can decide what to do when you have to choose.
C. Relating the fluctuation of the order of needs to the moment of year when the initial moment takes place is the only controllable mean that nature has available to fluctuate in some boundaries the priorities.
So by this point we "know" that we need need goals to function and an order for them.
What about the reason? Ok we have different priorities but what is determining those differences in priorities?
What can we say about the fluctuations?
We have fluctuations but ... the needs still stay in pretty much the same order - the fluctuations are not big.
We have Maslow's hierarchy of needs that says the needs do stay in a general order.
The difference between Maslow's theory and the "order of needs" is that M's makes a statistically observation with no relation to personality while my theory claims that this order is very much personal and identifiable (not general) and is the most important factor in determining the personality.
So we do know that we have a general order - needs don't fluctuate too much - all people have to eat and slip and reproduce and those are pretty much the most important needs of all humans.
So again we have fluctuations but they are not big - they are in some boundaries.
This can only mean one thing - there is a mechanism to set this order and there is a mechanism to make it slightly fluctuant - but only slightly.
The next question is what determines this?
It looks like controlled lottery - like there are some needs that don't change at all in priority (at least at healthy humans) - the very basic ones - they are always the first one.
But then the further we go the needs can be more movable but they look more likely as being movable inside certain groups (Maslow's groups).
What is the biologically "thing" that sets the order of needs in humans? I don't know - science will have to look into it.
But what we can further speculate is the reason that determines those biological fluctuations.
The simples solution that answers those q is connecting the biological fluctuation to an external event that fluctuates in certain boundaries and the only available event is the cycle of the year.
Is not only the simplest - is also the only one I could imagine and find. If somebody imagine a mechanism that can allow fluctuations in certain boundaries please let me know.
Now for who is a courageous man and is not afraid to read about astrological signs because he will be dismissed by community there are more confirmations to this fact in the next argument.
But if you don't want to read about the next chapter, then I still think the theory looks ok by this point and by ok I mean it looks like an idea that sounds to be probable and also thinking at the immense importance of the things it will solve makes it a good candidate for a psychological test - that is the goal by this point.
D. Zodiacal signs
Why do I bring this into discussion when it might be more of a problem than useful?
The other arguments might be enough (and maybe some money) to do the test while a discussion about zodiacal signs might put all scientists on the run?
Why do I risk the future of this theory by associating it with something so ... not scientific some might say?
I do it because actually this is a very important part of the theory.
I do it because this is how all this theory started. This was chronologically the thing that set the whole rationale off and I also like this part.
So what about zodiacal signs? How come they are an argument for this theory?
The zodiacal signs are some popular believes that try to cathegorize people by the birth moment - nothing fancy by here.
What they dont say explicitly is that the signs theory groups similar order of needs.
I found this accidentally arround the year 2000 while meditating about the big q of life...
It was a big revelation back then.
I was thinking about the signs and for one moment it looked like they do evolve one from another. I looked more into this and they clearly looked to evolve one from another.
But the big surprise was that what seems to change is the top goals or needs.
Here - evolution of signs - is the list as I did it some 10 years ago - I was not able to change too much in it - so is pretty much the same.
I see this as a huge confirmation of the above arguments.
Why? because I noticed an evolution in a phenomena - I didn't invented the evolution. When you invent a story that is a story but when somebody just recognise a logical pattern then the context that created the pattern cannot be dismissed as a story. How is possible that the old grandmas that invented the zodiac while cooking near the fire in the stone age to be so smart to intentionally put this pattern in the theory but then the story about the signs evolving one from another to be lost?
Taking the fact that signs evolve one from another out of context might just look odd but adding it to the above arguments - it perfectly complements them.
How could have been possible that the needs order is set at an initial moment and that the needs order is set in relation with time and nobody noticed this? That is not possible and didn't happened - people noticed the patter - people who have the same initial moment in a certain date of the year have similar personality.
I find the problem so interesting and fascinating - to find out the underneath mechanism of setting the order of needs and how come they evolve one from another - I really hope I will live to see this.
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