Freedom Isn't Free

No, this isn't going to be a political propaganda blog. The only "shock and awe" you will find here is purely literary. 8)

Linda and I were out at dinner last night reflecting on what a truly horrific year 2005 has been, so far, for us. Now, granted, it has been a pretty terrific year for others, but they can get their own blogs. Here at the Red Tar Pit 2005 is officially a crappy year.

In short, we spend a good deal of time talking about grief, loss, and how we, collectively, deal with it. Whenever we talk on such morbidity I'm reminded of the 5 stages of grief, first proposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book "On Death and Dying." In it she talks about people facing their own mortality. We all know the standards: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance.





Why has this been so popular? Because it is so common. Because it strikes a chord in those who have gone through serious loss and hardship, and because looking at the decomposition it appears to make complete and utter sense.

So were we really munching salad and talking about the stages of grief at a restaurant? Not really, the grief was a minor point. The major point was the much more philisophically fun question of whether we have free will and, if so, what exactly is free will?

My question being, if we have so many areas in our lives where our behavior is almost pre-defined can we really state we have free will? If we will always go through the 5 stages of grief, if we always have behavioural patterns, if our reactions to certain events are truly predictable, what on earth is free about that?

How many times have we said, have we known how someone will react to something? How many times have we used the phrase "I know him/her like the back of my hand"? I would hazard the guess that the entire successful science of psychology is based on the fact that we, collectively, obey behavioral patterns.


So let me fast-forward through the soup, salad, and entree portion of the discussion, throw out some dessert, and backfill in subsequent bloggings on the subject. I think free will does exist but requires such tremendous emotional energy (resolve, discipline, commitment) to actually execute that many, many people simply abandon free will for convenience. In that context, freedom is not free. It involves some work.

And by free will, I mean self-determination, self-improvement, goal attainment, attitude adjustment, or any other desire. But I explicitely exclude whim. My ability to wave my arms and make a noise is separate, to me, from an ability to manifest personal destiny.

Of course, my follow up question wonders if free will is nothing more than the ability to switch behavioral patterns. If the emotional energy involved in the transfer increases with the disparity between the source and target "ruts". That's clearly a reductionist view, but one which I'm not yet done exploring.

-Ed