[Junior]

Instinct is just hardwired brain programming. In the simplest brained critters, it's all stimulus-response. Actually, it's also that way in more complex brains, too, but the responses are a bit more complex, allowing some lateralness of action.

The hardwiring has developed over millions of years, with successful responses surviving and unsuccessful ones being weeded out of the gene pool. Consider it a self-reinforcing loop.

[From many - one.]

I would say we don't "want to survive" we want to satisfy various urges: hunger, breathing, comfortable temperature, sex etc.

Survival is a by-product.