The Problem of Freedom

 This is the first time I'm writing a blog. It may not be a good one, but I'll give it a shot just to make sure that I tried to do what I felt I should do. 


 Before I write about the problem of human freedom, it's probably a good idea to express 
what the paradox really is. 


 I opted to study social sciences at the undergraduate level. The first impression of my decision on everyone I know was surprised as I was studying engineering subjects in high school and everybody had high hopes that I'd go for engineering after all the endeavours I took to get there.


 Anyway, I now study social sciences and am in my freshmen year of undergraduate studies. 


 I said this because the question that I wanted to put here is a philosophical puzzle: Was my decision a free decision? 


 The nature of the question is paradoxical, if we give a good philosophical thought at it, and very simple, if we look at it in a general perspective. So, what is the nature of the question that would lead us to think of a solution of a philosophical puzzle? 


 The paradox of human freedom has been of great concern for philosophers, especially for me and I would really like to share my views and you may feel absolutely "free" to choose to comment and criticise. 


 There are a number of conceptions that need a look before we answer the question whether we are free or not. For instance, Freud,  argued in his theory of child development, that humans in their earlier years are in severe need of attention and that they react to actions in more receptive manner, i.e. they show extreme expressions of amazement, despair, hunger, e.t.c., all just by either crying or body movement. The theory develops into the ability of humans to learn and adopt behaviours as they experience them from their family members and their peers. The theory faced a good number of criticism. For me, it does give a good general perspective into the development of a human being in his earlier years. Also, this is the time when we create our sense of reality and dream. The sense that we must act in ways that are defined to be good and avoid straying from the right path. There stands the proposition that we are bound by the values and mores that take form in our sub-conscious, making us to choose in a way that makes it difficult for us straying from the rules while taking a decision. 


 So, does the simple ways we choose to show what we feel towards any act show that we are the product of how we grew up? This is a question I think is pretty simple, right? We probably think we are free when we get our first bicycle or save a mere ten dollars for a chocolate bar we wanted to have for a very long time, but are we?  I once heard this crazy joke about a twelve year old boy asking his father about how old he should be to be free to choose to go to his friend's place anytime he wanted and the father answered, 'son, even I am not that free because I have to have the permission of your mother!' 


 Now, we often see that this is not the case; that people break rules, defy the norms and try to make new ones and struggle for change. This leads us to question the validity of the values currently prevailed in our society.


 Making choices and taking decisions that change the courses of our lives might not be the choices and decisions that we actually wanted to choose or take.  


 But we still struggle to get as much freedom as we want. This may mean that we need to look at how we define freedom and free will.

There could be different ways of looking at this puzzle.

Language:

We see that the decisions we make are assertive statements. That follows that the assertions are mere sentences corresponding to our "willingness" to do something. Now, we see that the sentences that express our decisions are marks that corresond to the sense-contents of the ideas we express. Thus, it becomes culturally relative to what we mean by the assertions. Also, since we are bound by language as the only tool to express what we feel or sense, it becomes necessary to "define" what we mean by certain expressions when we assert them. It is important, more like necessary, to have contingency between language and ideas/concepts.

The freedom that we "suppose" to have, then, is confuted by language being bound relatively in  different modes. This follows that human ideas are bound by language, which further asserts that human freedom in decision-making is restricted.

March 19, 2011

What really is surprising is that we are not in the habbit of analysing our propositions when we express them, and they may not be very intelligible as we express them. In that situation, it is better to stop and think while we express something we wish to express. The "freedom" of having control over what we express can be acheived, and is quite reasonable to do such a thing. While having control over what you do may still be a confuted possibility. Because, when we express that we are making our decisions and doing our actions free of any determining factor, we are not only denying to opt for the analysis of our present situation and their "effect" on our decisions and propostions, but we are also not taking an account of the possibility that we are again, in fact, making the same mistake of not correcting ourselves by not understanding the possibility that we could acheive a state of having control over what we express.

Consistency:

There is another perspective that we can look through when we try to find out what it is that determines if we are free or not. It is a matter of observation that there is a consistency in the events that occur regularly in nature around us, e.g. day and night, seasons e.t.c.. If we try to find out the relations and contingencies in our propostions and actions, and try to find if they are consistent or not, it is possible that we may reach to the point of analysis to conclude if we are consistent or not. In doing so, we are actually trying to "adjust" ourselves to the very thing that makes us to ask if we are free, and find out the exact location of the paradox to "dissolve" it. For the sake of clarity, I may rephrase that by being consistent in our decisions only, we can not be free, because that would limit us to think of the in-intelligible fact that it is the only thing that we are required to do to "dissolve" the paradox. For in doing so, we may be consistent in our decisions, but our propostions that express our decisions may not be intelligible enough to be consistent expressively.

Possibilities and Probabilities:

To come to think that we are free when we express our decisions intelligibly and that they are consistent with our regular life course and our nature is not sufficient to believe that we are. For what if what we decide intelligibly and which is consistent as we thought it is lead us to the consequences that we never actually liked for ourselves? This could be devastating. From this, the question arises 'how do we not get into a situation we never wanted to be in?' To find out the answer, it is most effective that we look for all the possibilities and take an account of all the probabilities before we make a decision that is intelligible and consistent. When it is expressed this way, it actually means that we are looking for safe encounters for making the best decision.