I am a strange loop.

To talk about desires as if they existed is a shorthand. When you come down to it, so is talking about apples as if they existed. In a sense, apples don't exist--all that exists is particles and their interactions.

But living creatures aren't privy to particles, because life resides on a level so far above them that no being could survive if it concentrated on that level. To survive, living creatures find shortcut descriptions of the world's regularities. Therefore, smart living creatures believe, and believe equally strongly, in apples and desires.

Douglas Hofstadter
(Seed, #9, p72)