Freedom and Rights: some thoughts.

The Good Reverend Roger has talked quite a bit about this in the past. Appologies to him if I infringe upon his material..

It seems to me that free will is an entirely useless concept. It assumes that freedom is something granted, by deity, creator, or whatever supernatural force you believe in. But if freedom can be granted, it can be taken away. If freedom can be taken from you, are you truly free? Freedom granted is not freedom at all.

Real freedom, if it exists, must come from oneself. It originates in our own action, and specifically, our choice of action. Its not a part of a society, an abstract principle. The American Declaration of Independance speaks of the inalienable liberty, something that can not be taken away, even if one tries. This liberty is inherent in every person, and it exists as choice. Not the ability to choose, but the choices made themselves. Ask yourself, do these choices follow my own path, my own values, or do they follow those of someone else? Its not important if your choices coincide with other peoples, or do not. Freedom is having the choice be your own, considering and deciding for oneself, not letting you be blindly dictated, or not. Self responsibility nicely follows. "I take this road. It is my decision, and mine alone, and thus the concequences of that action I take upon myself."

The possession of that choice is where the freedom lies. You may be taken to jail for an action you are responsible for, yet your freedom is not hindered. In actuallity, you may have excersiced more freedom than the guards who block your exit. This is because freedom is not the opportunities that life presents, but what you choose to do with them.

The same can be said of rights. If they are truely unalienable, they are not granted by someone else, they are part of oneself. A constitution is just a piece of paper with some scribbles. The freedom of speech is truly free not because its an amendment. Besides, many say that the US Constitution is dead from injury to its precepts.

I continue on with these as a part of myself. No deity grants me freedom, no document grants me rights. These are things I take for myself now and will continue to. I choose myself. That is freedom.

Ramblings, yes. I had to say it though.

We really don't have any idea.

Something my Animal Physiology professor said recently:

"The sense of taste is a really complex thing, and we really have no idea how it works. We don't even actually know how proteins work. I mean, there used to be this whole lock and key mechanism to describe how proteins can be made to change shape, but now there's this thing with electron fields and activation, and even that may not be true. Protein channels, we don't know how those work either. I mean, why does a potassium channel only let potassium through when sodium is about the same size and the same charge? Why can't clorine get through the same channel, since its so much smaller? We really don't know. The models we have, they're just kinda made up, we say, this looks like what it should be, so thats how we're gonna model it."

We really do know very little about the universe. Our understanding is far from complete.