The Cognition of Conflict: Ontology, Dynamics, and Ideology - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 12

Fig. 1.3 The mind as a coherence-seeking device

1.4 Conflict and Decision

Conflict does not mean that X is unable to choose or that choice is difficult. Conflict
just means that X must choose, that s/he is considering two goals/alternatives that
are (subjectively) incompatible. Any choice presupposes a goal conflict .

1.4.1 In Search of Conflicts

Conflicts are the presupposition of choice, in two senses. We must choose just when
and because there is a conflict between our active goals; however, conflicts are also
the condition for the choice, and we may actively search for them in order to give
a differential value to the candidate goals and to build a preference, a difference of
value.
If I have to choose between goals G1 and G2 but they do not have enough
differential value, I search for differential consequences of the two scenarios and
evaluate those consequences and additional outcomes against new goals that I
activate from the bottom up. I build/imagine the pros and cons of G1 and of G2
in order to give them different values. However, the identified pros and cons, the
“arguments” in favor of or against G1 and G2 that will become the goals settling
my decision, must necessarily be incompatible, differential, that is, in conflict. If
both G1 and G2 have the same additional effect (G3), this is not useful for choosing
between G1 and G2; we need a goal G3 in addition to G1 and a goal G4 in addition
to G2: a specific advantage or a specific cost of G1 and G2. That is, if I choose G1,
then I also get G3, but I give up or avoid G4, and vice versa.
In sum, to choose between G1 and G2 (which might even be perfectly equivalent,
for example, as alternative means for G0) I am actually choosing between G3
and G4!