What Is Instinct?

            What is Instinct?

            An act of instinct, in the everyday sense, is one that cannot be logically explained through a series of cause-and-effect relationships, however, this notion gives rise to many questions that don’t have determinate answers, of the logical category P/~P. In this essay, I will attempt to bring to the fore a flexible definition of instinct, it’s use in the everyday, a possible relationship between proponents of instinct and dogmatism/faith, instinct and habit, the impossibility of a teleology of instinct, and conclusion.

            There are a number of ways in which instinct may be defined. In terms of what it is qualified by, instinct is a bundle of learned behaviours appropriated by the subject, when faced with a situation. The sources of these learned behaviours, in this post-modern age, are varied. Media of all forms plays a key role, as do societal norms and observed behavioural patterns. Parental guidance is another key construct to forming behavioural patterns and the progeny assimilate their parents’ behavioural patterns with their own to develop identities of their own. This idea would perhaps sit well with John Locke’s blank slate argument, which suggests that the mind of a new-born child is completely empty, and does not possess any semblance of innate ideas.

            How, though, does one reconcile this notion of instinct with what in everyday life is called a ‘gut’ feeling? The answer is simple – to posit the existence of a ‘gut’ feeling would be tantamount to accepting the Cartesian theory of innate ideas, which suggests that a child is born with some ideas already planted in the brain by a supreme artificer before birth, such as the existence of God and set notions of righteousness. A gut feeling, like the Cartesian theory of innate ideas, is a notion that transcends the bounds of logical categories, and provides one with an idea of the positive or negative consequences of a particular action, and illuminates the path one is traversing. In light of the above arguments, it seems to me that to posit the existence of a ‘gut’ feeling, loosely interpreted as instinct, in common commerce, amounts to accepting the existence of a supreme artificer. This notion, again, throws up many questions about the possibility of a necessary relationship between instinct and theism/dogmatism, instinct and atheism: whether they are compatible, a relationship between instinct and both- theism and atheism, or instinct as distinct from both theism and atheism.

            The socially accepted notion of instinct as mentioned in the introduction suggests that it cannot be explained through a series of cause and effect relationships. This means to say that any attempt at logical categories to explain this phenomenon may be rendered moot. Similar to this is the universal idea of God, which suggests much the same; that God transcends logic, is beyond space and time and the empirical world, and is the creator of the universe. The proof for the existence of instinct, it seems, is centered on faith, much like the existence of God. Therefore, there appears to be a necessary relationship between faith in God, or theism, and faith in instinct. Instinct, furthermore, is necessarily incompatible with atheism, in light of this argument, because the essential characteristic of theism is faith, and we have seen above that instinct too is premised on faith, where as the essential characteristic of atheism is empirical reality, which is precisely the thing that instinct is not premised on. From this, it logically follows that instinct cannot be compatible with both- theism and atheism, nor incompatible with both theism and atheism.

            Another notion of instinct that one hears of, from time to time, is that instinct is the same as habit. For this school of thought, instinct has nothing to do with theism, nor atheism, but rather centers on a routine so intrinsic to one’s being, and in some cases, essential for one’s survival, that it becomes second nature to the subject in question. When this routine becomes second nature to a subject, and the subject performs these routine actions without having to think at all, the routine turns into a habit. For example, each time Sourav Ganguly took his stance before facing a ball, he would place the bat in his left hand and let it swing back anf forth once, as if he was winding himself up for each ball he faced. This action turned into a habit, and a not so uncommon view will suggest that this action constituted his instinct. This is an interesting way of thinking of instinct because it disposes of the notion of faith mentioned earlier, and provides a simpler framework for the idea of instinct. 

            As for the teleology of instinct, it doesn’t exist. Instinct has neither a past, nor a future. It is always directed, and in some ways, a way of thinking of the present. It is always in the moment. To say that there is a teleology of instinct, is therefore a redundancy.

            To conclude, instinct is a very loosely defined term, one that is open to an incredible amount of interpretation, and a field that (at least to my knowledge) hasn’t been explored enough yet. Whether it is premised on theism or habit, I will leave the reader to decide. I can only say with certitude that a I do not know what instinct really is.