Hi dude,
Sorry for late replies at present, I've been doing some work on me, hopefully we'll see some results in a month or so :  )
This is a long mail, get coffee.

Sirhinojo wrote:
How might the concept that there is a difference in liking and wanting relate to our six network brain model?  My simple interpretation would be that wanting is dopamine network 2 associated.  Liking is Network 1 and serotonin associated. 

It's clearer if you first think of the difference between 'needing' and 'wanting' In the healthy, dopamine initiates craving for what intelligence needs. In the unhealthy it initiates craving for what society wants. Often in health we can need what we don't want (eg, having to vomit, doing loud farts in front of others), and in anxiety we often want what we don't need (eg, large collections of stuffed furry animals, enormous penis-red sports cars). What we want is the car. What we need is anxiety reduction and increased self esteem. We sometimes imagine our wants will satisfy our needs, but of course they don't; only biology's needs being met will do the business (which is why we get millionaire suicides).

Like and dislike are not necessarily related to either needs or wants. Nobody likes needing to vomit, for example, but sometimes we must to protect ourselves from poisoning or infection.
Like and dislike are weighted with oxytocin and cortisol, need is weighted with dopamine & initiates seeking (stretching) behavior, satisfaction of need is weighted with serotonin & initiates  assimilation (relaxation) behavior.

[s] Supposedly, typically, ideally(?) we want what we like, and like what we want.

Ideally we like what's beneficial for us and dislike what's harmful, but that's not the same as what  we need. Ideally, what we want should be the same as what we need (but as you see in the examples above, sometimes it's the lesser of two evils)  :  )

[s]  I have intuitively known for years that I have a lot of wants, that I live in constant motivation.
 
...Or do you mean needs?  If you're not sure, consider what needs these wants would fulfil if they were met, and what needs would go unmet if they were not. If a want turns out to be the same as a need, these are what you need.

[s] But in contrast, I am rarely in a state of liking.

Does that mean you are in a state of disliking, or neutral?

[s] Actually, I have trouble knowing what I like. 

...You and about 8 billion others  :  )  The secret is dude, we are free to like whatever we choose to like. Brains can be programmed like that; all it takes is time and tenacity (in other words, practice). So why not program ourselves for liking the most beneficial things?

[s] Or more accurately, I feel like we are asked in society to choose what we like all the time.  Consumerism, preference, lifestyle.. etc.  But needless to say these are very artificial, and dare I say very ephemerally correlated to concrete representations. 

We are not asked; we are told what to choose by restricting selection to poor choices forcing the lesser of two evils. -We must choose between a Turd sandwich, and a giant Douche (see south park)  -When we are given true choice, a new box will appear to tick saying 'none of the above'  :  )
A good talk on choice is given by George Carlin here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt49DsfKDMc

[s] Nevertheless, I would like to live in what would seem like a more balanced and blissful state of just liking more and more and not necessarily wanting. 

Dealing with needs keeps it simple because we're dealing with the basics, dealing with wants is like trying to hack all the details and the details are not where the problem lies. Hacking the basics is fulfiling our needs rather than treating the symptoms of their not being met.

Just liking more and more is not necessarily a good thing if we end up thinking it's fine that someone is pulling our toes off, or being enslaved is not really so bad, or another 400g of heroin would be just fine  :  ) We must like the things intelligence needs more and more and dislike things that are harmful to it more and more, that's how beneficial change happens.

[s]This might all sound a bit of buddhisst. 

I have no problem with Buddhism in the same way the Dalai Llama has no problem with neuroscience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgtz4RuH7II

[s] But now that we see that two different pathways in the brain are related to wanting and liking but nevertheless part of a time-continuum in that ideally one follows the other in cyclic pattern. 

…? I didn't get this bit; could you extrapolate?

[s] I am musing here, dropping a fishing line here, to see if any interesting fish come up. 

It might inspire their sole (sorry, probably just started a whole string of fish jokes).
Best,
AR

Hi dude,
Research often has an 'extra' complication in NH because the mainstream isn't aware of its position as a dysfunctional society; we have to constantly remember it has an ontology where dysfunction is normal. So we have to translate statements like “we tested 300 adult volunteers” to “we tested 300 dysfunctional people”. We have to edit statements such as “memory decline with age is normal”, adding “in dysfunctional people”.

In the mainstream language is also often wooly, it takes 400 pages to attempt to define consciousness; anxiety, fear and stress all mean the same thing except where they don't; there are three different names for every brain part, lots of latin, and all is complicated. If we work from the vantage point of the real world, things get simpler.

Every child knows what is conscious and what isn't, and if we're not sure we err on the side of caution. Mainstream research confuses consciousness with self-awareness; a very different thing.
Want is conscious desire, need is biology's unconscious desire. When they're congruent life is smooth. For example we encounter a choking, smelly substance, and biology protects itself by making us want to hold our breath, even though it knows it needs air. The resulting conflict makes us want to move away from the smelly stuff, exactly what biology needs us to do, and we survive. We also 'dislike' the smell, if everything is congruent.

Ideally, unconscious need directs conscious want. Sure we can abstract 'need' and say things like 'the wagon needs four wheels in order to work', but the origin is always biological -the wagon doesn't feel any need or want -WE want the wagon to work because we need to bring our wood home to keep warm for the winter, or whatever. When you're biological, everything needed relates back to your survival & thriving.
Outside of the green zone this breaks down; dysfunctional people want things they just don't need, and often no longer want things they do.

Mainstream research also misses out definitions (which could solve the problem).

We'll get into all this in tutorials, when we get to doing discourse analysis (which incidentally I think you'll love to play with.)  :  )  It's like knowing a secret code that can reveal to you in just a couple of words where somebody is 'coming from'.

I'm thinking the info in this post should go into tutorials because others are going to be wondering the same things and so far we only covered like & dislike. So thanks for the input!
Best,
AR