An “improver of mankind” friend optimistically declared, in a Spartacus like diatribe, that he was born free. Argh, not the freedom and free-will speech again, please. My “I see life in pink and I am a positive thinker so let’s give it 100%, oh yeah” pal ultimately reasoned:
“Living in democratic country gives you the legal frame to declare yourself free”.
“I couldn’t have said it better, I added politely having the rendition law in mind where his freedom and personal rights could be annihilated in a second for the higher purpose of national safety and security. What higher purpose than individual freedom is there? “Check, please”.
My friend went on though and added pensively “Americans are the freest people in the world”.
"Most probably, being able to opt between CNN, Oprah, Jerry Springer and Cartoon Network is freedom’s ultimate delicacy", I pointed out. "Freedom you say? What, except your unjustifiable dopamine level, makes you so optimistically naïve? What does freedom mean to you except the illusion that you can freely say and do what you want?"
Obviously, if you consider freedom as non-incarceration, then ¾ of world’s population is free. Ancient Greeks said to be free doesn’t mean to obtain what you wish for, but to stop wishing what you cannot obtain. So did Obama in his prematurely awarded Nobel for Peace acceptance speech. What a load of crap to preach self-restrain while sending troops in a foreign country.
Apparently, the secret of freedom doesn’t lay in dominating the necessity but in dominating your own aspirations. Someone who dominates his yearning of finding out what is going on in the world, is freeing himself of the curiosity (by proximity or not). He dominates his inquisitiveness, a natural inclination of a healthy and intelligent human mind. From this point of view, most of the Americans are free like birds. No curiosity leads to freedom.
Assume a person that is not informed and has no clue about what is going on in the world. Can lack of information equal freedom? Paradoxically enough, it seems so, and in spite of whatever we might reproach to the Americans (their media is not as free as they like to think, their news bulletins are not objective, rendition law again) as long as the lack of information is self-imposed, and an aware choice, this is the result of the free-will in action. The power of choice, the free will as the moral agent of our ability to make rational choices is proudly represented by a piece of plastic with electronic circuits, made in China: the remote control. Free will is having the remote control. You can opt for channel 1 or 20 but there is only a limited number of channels that you can choose from. More choices may lead to a poorer decision or a failure to make a decision at all, no? Or you might as well turn off the TV set and walk away.
If you consider freedom just a chimera, then liberty and its agent, free-will, can be defined as a remote-control. From this stance, freedom is just a sad epiphenomenon, an illusion, or what the Indians used to call (maybe they still do) Maya. However, like everything else in life, freedom can as well be a psychological perception. In a world where we cannot trust our own memories, as memory is influenced by emotion and we concluded that we even “learn” about emotions, can you trust your perception? Isn't freedom a subjective spatio-temporal world, an umwelt?
If you keep on telling to yourself often enough that you are free, happy or smart you will end up believing it. And that will be your reality. For you, that will be your truth. Certainly, it might not coincide or correspond with “reality”, but will it matter to you? Was Hegel’s idea of reality who said this is the creation of our own mind valid? What is truth then? Someone way smarter told me “reality is this chair because it exists and because I see it”. Guess that would have been a heated debate between a Cartesian and him. If your reality is the creation of your own mind, and you insist on creating pinkish-happy-silly-crappy worlds where the skies are blue, the roses are red and there are no wars or tragedies, go ahead, delude yourself. Call me a maniaco-depressive and put me on Prozac just because I ruin your mood. I assume that.
That will be your world and you might as well be happy in it. If the reality is the creation of our own mind, what is the common reality then? An amalgam of multiple, individual realities which intersect? If it isn’t freedom imagination’s most precious concoction…
It wouldn’t be a classic free-will chit chat if we failed to bring Nietzsche into discussion. Nietzsche said about free-will, that it was an invention of theologians whose sole purpose was to create guilt, culprits and punishment. If your acts are guided and commended by god, you are nothing but a mere puppet in his hands, therefore not responsible for any crime you might commit. “Hey, it was the fate, couldn’t fight it”. So what about introducing a new concept called “free will” that gives you the impression you are not Moirae’slave, that fate/destiny is not that implacable after all, that you can choose, that you are free so you can be held responsible? Ironically, people are considered free so they can be held morally responsible and punished, as guilt is not one of God’s attributes.
Should you be self-aware to be able to define yourself as “free”? Self-awareness is a condition to be entitled to your own merkwelt. Is the thalamo-cortical physiological support for awareness sufficient to call ourselves "aware"? If merkwelt involves thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods and emotions, isn’t obvious “freedom” depends on our merkwelt, and merkwelt depends on self-awareness? Isn’t then freedom depended on self-awareness? How self-aware are you then? What does this imply? Are you aware just because you are awake, alert and responsive to external stimuli? Are you free because of it? Oh well, are you? (2010)
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