# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## What are Instinctual Passions?
| Well I guess that simplifies things. What does this instinctual self look like?
| Basic emotions seem to be universal indeed.
| Emotion – what is emotion? Isn’t it just a intense thought?
| Yet, I see what you are saying about harm arising from these same instinctual passions. I am having a hard time reconciling these things. Can you comment?
| I have heard you make a distinction between the instincts and the instinctual passions and here above you are saying that the instinctual passions are pumping freeze-fight-flee chemicals through the body. Do the instinctual passions arise from the instincts? Are they connected? How does this work?
| My view of this is that the mind directs the body and something behind the mind directs the mind. How can an identity be genetic? A body can be genetic ... not an identity.
| You wrote [Richard]: ‘An actual freedom from the human condition is a freedom from the instinctual passions – not the instincts per se’. [endquote]. I am asking you without their passions, exist any more instincts?
| To me you are very clear until you get to this instinct part – to me it’s fuzzy. Can you clarify?
| There are 4 brains in the human body: intellectual, emotional, motor and instinctive. Why are the all emotional and instinctive brains’ functions considered as ‘unuseful’ and the others (thinking and moving) as useful? It’s a point I don’t understand.
| If the Self is an instinctive creation, could you send in your understanding of that please? But if the self is rotten to the core, does that make nature rotten to the core too?
| Richard: I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions and calentures (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself.
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