Q1

conceptual inquiry regarding meaning » value » commitment / will do

 
We can address the question what will be done? in a number of ways. Each way will involve forecasting what is likely to happen, given current trends. This forecast can apply to one's own personal behavior, or it can apply to the activities of one's community (at multiple levels), or it can apply to forces out of anyone's control. When addressing forces beyond anyone's control, the best we can do is adapt ourselves to inevitabilities (good or bad). When focusing on the likely activities of one's community, we can look to combine our efforts to effect change (subtle or otherwise). When addressing our own personal behavior, we must grapple with the personal difficulty of changing course (with or without aid).

Key in each case is the concept of commitment. Commitment is futurally oriented but present. If one, by choice of will, commits to being honest, for example, one doesn't just commit to being honest in the future, but in each present moment. Committing is an on-going willing. It's an aspect of action presently occurring. Commitments must be renewed on a continuous basis.

Whether or not we actually have free will (whatever that means exactly), it certainly seems as though we do. We have the ability to choose from an array of options when it comes to moving forward into the future. The options with respect to what we will do are limited by what we can do (Z-node), so it's important that we think of these questions together. Not only will options regarding futural commitments be limited by considering what we can do—insofar as we realize the limits of our powers—but imaginatively considering what we can do will also open up possibilities we hadn't previously recognized as being within our power to realize.

Often times when we consult what we can do, we get some hunch about what we should do, but then we often don't do what we think we should do since it eliminates other possibilities. Anytime we commit ourselves to one course of action, we necessarily cut ourselves off from all other courses of action. And we often have competing possibilites. We aren't yet convinced about who we desire to become, are torn between possibilities, and often end up becoming none of those things as a consequence of indecision. So we must consult also the T-, S-, and Y-nodes: what's good in itself?, what's good for me?, and what's good for us?

 
With respect to the Project's logic, in the O-phase the Q-node functions as the mode of attending involved in objectivity—that is, Q of P is a focused attending to particular features of experience. In its fullest sense, such focused attending comes by deliberate effort, when we choose to step back and objectively view any given situation such that the object of presentation is stark and readily articulable. There's a commitment involved in such deliberate effort—a commitment to rational living. Moreover, it will be easier to commit to endeavors that we can clearly see have the prospect of success, and to make such projections, we must make the effort to inform ourselves as best we can regarding what might determine outcomes. That's not to say, however, that Q-node inquiries need be explicit. Rationality isn't always a matter of conscious commitment but sometimes comes simply as we have an unconscious sense of what's coming. Our conscious minds can't possibly process all the data that the history of our senses take in. This is part of what it means to be a self in the first place—having foresight for adaptive purposes, conscious or otherwise. But in either case—conscious or unconscious, or intellectual or practical—the commitment is to rational living. Adaptation to an ever-changing environment for the sake of some goal, be that survival or so much more, always contains a measure of rationality and foresightful understanding.

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