Know Thyself: How Anticipatory Systems Theory can Inform Medical Science and Psychology

Abstract

Habit patterns: We all have them. This is a universal reality of human experience. We acquire them from two distinct sources-- The human mind generates countless habit patterns as does the human body. Sometimes the two work together to generate and/or reinforce each other's habit patterns, other times, they seem to work at cross purposes to each other. Good habits, bad habits... these habit patterns can take many different forms or manifest their presence in different ways such as set-points, over-use injuries, calluses, tendencies (like having "a sweet tooth"), having a hair-trigger temper, or cravings and aversions-- which can sometimes become full-blown addictions and phobias. Oscar Wilde's famous line, "I can resist anything except temptation!"  (from Lady Windermere's Fan) illuminates everything from a weakness for pastries to a pyromaniac's compulsion to start fires. Temptation represents something about a pre-existing habit pattern. Another universal reality of human experience is that, all too often, our own habit patterns seem to be beyond our conscious ability to control. Why is that? And, what causes them?