Freedom: Fragile Fiction

[coberst]

Freedom: Fragile Fiction

I am shackled hand and foot spread eagle on the floor of my cell. I ask my jailer everyday to set me free. Finally he compassionately sets me free.

For days I am exhilarated with the ability to freely pace about my cell. After a few weeks I begin to beg my jailer to set me free. After weeks he, being a compassionate man, sets me free from my cell.

For days I am exhilarated at the freedom to wonder about and speak with other inmates. After several weeks I begin to beg my jailer to free me and finally he relents and releases me from jail. I am overwhelmed with the sense of freedom until I, overcome with hunger and basic needs, seek some work so as to feed myself.

I find a job working on an assembly line and am exhilarated at the new found freedom. After a year I begin to seek other less strenuous and repetitive assembly line work. I wish to free myself from this robotic work I do everyday.

What is the ‘telos’ (ultimate end) of this series of ever persistent desire for freedom? Is hunger for freedom similar to hunger for food, never satiated? I don’t think so. I think the search for freedom can culminate in an ultimate and satisfying end.

Freedom, I suspect, is a search for self-determination. When we feel that we are master of our domain, when we are free to determine who we are and what we need to be our self we will have reached that ‘telos’ of freedom. I suspect this end is as unique as a finger print, it is an act of creation and can be made conscious to me only by me.

I think each of us must learn for our self what we need to secure freedom’s ‘telos’. Probably most of us find only a degree of freedom, but if we never stop looking we may continue finding more of it.

“Man’s freedom is a fabricated freedom, and he pays a price for it. He must at all times defend the utter fragility of his constituted fiction, deny its artificiality.”

There are four levels of reactivity of an organism to its environment: 1) Simplest response wherein the organism responds directly to stimuli, 2) Conditioned response is best represented by the “Pavalovian Response” wherein there is a response by association, 3) Indirect association takes place when a tool is used to acquire desired object (an ape knocking a banana from a tree with a stick), and 4) Symbolic response wherein a symbol becomes the object causing response, which entails the creation of a symbol representative of an object.

These four different responses are evolutionary but are different in kind. Only humans are capable of all four levels of reactivity. Only humans have the capacity for creating a relationship such as “home” with an object made of sticks of lumber. We might appropriately state that the evolutionary development of mind is a “progressive freedom of reactivity”. “Mind culminates in the organism’s ability to choose what it will react to.”

Delayed reactivity is the birth of freedom; this ability, plus the mammalian evolution of long prolonged development of new born growing up into a society that demanded ever increasing norms of behavior, led to the further development of mind.

[Thunderbird]

will have reached that ‘telos’ of freedom. I suspect this end is as unique as a finger print, it is an act of creation and can be made conscious to me only by me.

I like this !

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by coberst

There are four levels of reactivity of an organism to its environment: 1) Simplest response wherein the organism responds directly to stimuli, 2) Conditioned response is best represented by the “Pavalovian Response” wherein there is a response by association, 3) Indirect association takes place when a tool is used to acquire desired object (an ape knocking a banana from a tree with a stick), and 4) Symbolic response wherein a symbol becomes the object causing response, which entails the creation of a symbol representative of an object.

These four different responses are evolutionary but are different in kind. Only humans are capable of all four levels of reactivity. Only humans have the capacity for creating a relationship such as “home” with an object made of sticks of lumber. We might appropriately state that the evolutionary development of mind is a “progressive freedom of reactivity”. “Mind culminates in the organism’s ability to choose what it will react to.”

Delayed reactivity is the birth of freedom; this ability, plus the mammalian evolution of long prolonged development of new born growing up into a society that demanded ever increasing norms of behavior, led to the further development of mind.

I'm not sure I am on the same page as you, freedom is indeed a state of mind rather than a physical state but I don't agree that only humans are capable of all four levels of reactivity. many animals construct homes and do indeed occupy these homes in the same manner we do. We cannot say they think of them as "home" but our inability to know what they think or even if they do indeed articulate the idea of home in some manner we are unaware of doesn't mean they do not have the concept.

Do you mean planning ahead by "delayed reactivity" I do think that some animals can plan ahead to get what they want by doing things they do not want to do. I think that the difference between animals and humans are differences of degree rather than kind.

[coberst]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I'm not sure I am on the same page as you, freedom is indeed a state of mind rather than a physical state but I don't agree that only humans are capable of all four levels of reactivity. many animals construct homes and do indeed occupy these homes in the same manner we do. We cannot say they think of them as "home" but our inability to know what they think or even if they do indeed articulate the idea of home in some manner we are unaware of doesn't mean they do not have the concept.

It is the human ego that allows humans to delay action when stimulate by emotion, i.e. instinct. We are meaning creating creatures.

Do you mean planning ahead by "delayed reactivity" I do think that some animals can plan ahead to get what they want by doing things they do not want to do. I think that the difference between animals and humans are differences of degree rather than kind.

When is a house a home? Do other animals than humans live symbolic reality? Other animals have places that provide shelter from the storm but I hardly think that they translate such selter as being a home. Home is where the heart is. Most of human reality is symbolic and not literal.

[HydrogenBond]

This very thing was spoken of by St Paul in the New Testament. He differentiated the children of the bondwomen and children of the promise. In simple terms, the first was under cultural law or one size fits all procedures designed for the herd to homogenize it. The other was connected to the inner spirit in humans that would lead the individual to truth or their unique finger print and place in life.

But then, as now, most people want to be bonded to the herd. He equated this to the fear of death which would keep people willingly enslaved. Their telos will reach a limit in terms of how high up the ladder of the herd most wish to be bonded. Nobody wishes to bonded at the bottom, unless there is prestige from the herd to do this. The child of the promise, is not a herd animal, but a unique finger print in the world, not limited by that herd fear. This original movement didn't last that long before the herd crushed it with fear to enslave everyone. Bu the unique finger prints keep popping up. The New Testaments calls this unique finger print the Holy Spirit.

Science helps perpetuate the fear with chaos, uncertainty. It is scary out there, so stay with the herd. But other aspects of science use reason to shine light in the darkness so things aren't quite as scary. This is one of the tools the children of the promise use. Even if one is not religious, St Paul said one spirit being used in many ways for the common good. It is still sort of a herd animal but not one in a pen, but is free roaming. But although still free roaming it breeds with the herd.

[Boerseun]

Here's a thread around the same topic.

The question was asked what "Freedom" actually is, seeing as the word is so easily used in various contexts and formats.

And the one answer I agree with, is that life is merely a concatenation of wants and needs, and the only True Freedom is Death, however morbid that may sound at first.