Instinctivity

What is instinct, and what effect does it have on the mind?

My best description is; Instinct is a living organism’s automatic reaction to circumstances of sensory stimulation, which was acquired biologically and genetically.

So basically, it’s a reaction to certain situations, which an animal has had from birth.

The animal could be basically any living organism which has a brain or nervous system, including insects, up to humans. It needs to be an animal with a brain, since the term “instinct” typically refers to a reaction from sensory input, to circumstances. So the animal senses something, then has a reaction to what it sensed.

The reaction must be acquired genetically, rather than be a reaction based on the animals previous experiences. If an animal has memory of previous experiences involving the circumstances, the memory might influence it’s reaction subconsciously to differ from what it’s instinctual reaction would be. Or furthermore, a human (or perhaps at times intelligent animals) might use conscious thought and reasoning to alter what would have been instinctual reaction.

For eg. a deer might instinctually go toward an apple tree, as it was born with the reaction to go toward an apple tree when it sees or smells the apples, so that it can eat and survive. But if the deer is subconsciously influenced by memory of a past experience, of been attacked by a wolf near that particular apple tree, it might have an alternate over-influencing reaction to its instincts, and go away from that apple tree.
Or a person might have the instinctive trigger to be fearful and avoid spiders (as instincts likely developed to avoid venomous spiders), but conscious thought of past attained knowledge that a certain type of spider is not dangerous, may change their reaction, to let them pick up the spider.

Even though an instinct is a reaction to the senses perceiving circumstances which are relevant to that reaction, the instinct can also be strongly influenced by biochemicals in the brain, or emotions. The biochemicals are basically an instinctual reaction of positive or negative feedback, developed as a more efficient survival mechanism to influence a certain subconscious reaction. So in any given situation, an animal might have the instinct to feel the chemical feedback, as a reaction to the senses perceivance. The chemicals in the mind, would then cause a reaction relative to the situation.

The combination of chemicals might then trigger other reactions, based on new sensory input, after the initial trigger of the chemical reaction. So the initial reaction from circumstances would be instinct, but short-term future reactions to newly perceived factors, as a result of the emotion latency effects, would also be instinct. For eg. a zebra might have the instinctual biochemical reaction to feel frightened when it sees a lion running toward it, then the instinct to run. If the lion goes after another zebra, and this one escapes, 1 minute later, while it’s still running with its chemically concocted rush of fear still influencing it, it might see a boulder slightly resembling the shape of a lion. The zebra would have the instinctual reaction to run the opposite direction from the boulder. Normally, in a calm state, it’s instinct would not be to run from the boulder, but under the influence of heightened chemicals (such as adrenaline etc) from the recent occurrence, it then has a different instinctual reaction, of running away from the boulder.

As long as the initial reaction is caused by the animals natural trigger (rather than influenced by previous experience), then the overall reaction can perhaps still be considered instinct (even if the reaction utilizes memory). Say a person smells bacon cooking in a restaurant, and has the instinct to eat the bacon (as a natural reaction to the smell of meat cooking). Even if the person has to use memories of concepts and experience, to order the bacon as part of their meal, the initial reaction of pursuing the bacon, to then eat it, is still instinctual.

Instinct is at the core of our genetics and minds as the default reaction to circumstances. It can often be the influential mechanism to cause an initial reaction and short-term future reactions. But ultimately, subconscious memory of experiences, or more accurate data of conscious memory of reason and concepts, can override that initial instinct.