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The Ultimate Paradox Of Freedom
Is it freedom to be rebellious? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? There is this concept called Reverse Psychology which suggests that sometimes to obtain a wanted result from somebody it's better to push that somebody in the opposite direction. But reverse psychology doesn't work always. Only when the person feels like his or her freedom is at stake. For example when a parent doesn't allow a teenager to engage in a particular activity. The parent might not be an inherently evil person. He might not desire to exercise any kind of power. He maybe just really wants to protect the teenager. But the teenager feels like his or her freedom is being betrayed and taken away. So they rebel. Is it freedom to be rebellious, though? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? Is there freedom at all? Or is it just a big paradox?
Mendel: Why are you so strange?
Sheiny: What do you mean?
Mendel: You always seem to find weird solutions to everything.
Sheiny: Weird?
Mendel: The guys at work all have this green app thing on their phones. What is up? Or something...
Sheiny: Whats App.
Mendel: Yeah. I know you told why you hate it. But it seems like you hate everything that normal people do.
Sheiny: I have a very strong reason to hate it. By the way, have you tried arguing with them to stop using the app?
Mendel: I did actually.
Sheiny: What are your results?
Mendel: Zero results. Nobody cares. Besides I'm not as good as you are at knowing everything.
Sheiny: Well, I'm also not as good myself.
Mendel: Well, you are good enough... About this app, though... ah... My boss. Well... He wants me to be in the group chat.
Sheiny: Decline.
Mendel: Yes. But...
Sheiny: But?
Mendel: You know you are talking about freedom all the time. But I don't feel it. I feel like you are just restricting the apps I can use.
Sheiny: Oh crap...
Mendel: What?
Sheiny: I spoke to Mr. Humbert the other day, we talked about Reverse Psychology. It seems you are effected.
Mendel: Eh... What?
Sheiny: You see what you are describing is kind of a paradox.
Mendel: Well, yes. That's what I'm saying. How am I supposed to be free when I can't install this app?
Sheiny: What is freedom?
Mendel: I know what it is. You ate my ears repeating yourself over an over.
Sheiny: Well, is loosing freedom freedom too?
Mendel: Eh... Yes!
Sheiny: So freedom is unstable and leads always to the loss of freedom?
Mendel: Not always. But you have to have the freedom to loose freedom.
Sheiny: I think it's quite always. On the other hand you can try limit it to not loose it, in which case you loose immediately. But maybe not immediately. Like there is a question to be had about it as well.
Mendel: What are you talking about?
Sheiny: Let's take democracy for example. What is it?
Mendel: Eh... When people can vote for a president?
Sheiny: When people can control the state. By vote... Yes. But the idea is. Say you want to have democracy forever. And people always choose laws. Or representatives. It doesn't matter. So we have laws allowing people to vote on laws. Right?
Mendel: Okay, but get to the point.
Sheiny: I'm trying.... Now, what if people decide to abolish the laws that give them the rights to change laws? This is a kind of justification for, say, a ban on spread of communistic ideas or something. The fear is that if communistic ideas could spread, people could believe in them and therefor vote for the state to become communistic. And as we all know, communism is almost entirely opposite to democracy, or freedom. So it's like freedom is only possible when it's non-existent. Because otherwise there would be free speech and therefor you could spread communism and therefor you could loose freedom. So you have to not have freedom to have freedom. It's a paradox.
Mendel: Ah?
Sheiny: You didn't understand what I said?
Mendel: Ah... No!
Sheiny: You want to have digital freedom, for example.
Mendel: Yes.
Sheiny: This includes installing whats app.
Mendel: Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Sheiny: But by installing whats app you loose your digital freedom. So to keep it you have to not install whats app. Therefor to not have the freedom to install whats app. Therefor you don't have freedom to begin with. But if you will have the freedom to install whats app, it will eventually lead to installing it and loosing freedom anyway. There is either no freedom at all, or the whole thing is a paradox.
Mendel: But I can have the freedom to install it, but just choose not to.
Sheiny: Is your choice systematic? Like have you pre-meditated not installing it ever? Or are you asking yourself the question of installing it every time you have the chance and then just so happens that you choose to not install it?
Mendel: What's the difference?
Sheiny: Well, if you decided ahead of the time that you will always choose one particular answer to the same question, you have no freedom to choose otherwise. Therefor you had no freedom to begin...
Mendel: Aha! And if I ask myself the question every time. I might install the app and loose my freedom that way.
Sheiny: Yes! ... Well... Alright, perhaps you don't install it. And you always happened to choose not to install it. Technically you do have freedom. But it's extremely unstable. It's very easy to go one way or the other and ruin it.
Mendel: Yeah, but wait a second. Isn't that also a freedom to choose ahead of the time that I wont install it ever? Like, you know. Controlling your own life and shit. Isn't that what freedom is.
Sheiny: Freedom is control over yourself and things belonging to you. Yes.
Mendel: So if I can't tell myself to always answer the question with the same answer ahead of time, which will ruin my freedom, I already ruined my freedom to begin with. By not allowing me to set myself this rule.
Sheiny: This is a paradox after all!
Mendel: So does freedom actually exist?
Sheiny: You have to be extremely lucky to be free.
Mendel: But it's a paradox?
Sheiny: I think there is still a chance that it's still possible. It's like winning a lottery. You have to randomly stumble upon just the right answers all the time, that never takes your freedom away from you. Maybe this is what heaven is?
Mendel: But if it's all just lucky random chance, do you control anything?
Sheiny: Fuck! You are right.
Mendel: From the other perspective. Can you control everything about yourself? Like what if you want to walk through another person? That other person has his own freedom, right?
Sheiny: You are describing a freedom collision.
Mendel: So there is a freedom paradox on one side and a freedom collision on another?
Sheiny: One freedom ends where another begins.
Mendel: But does it even exist if it's so paradoxical?
Sheiny: Regrets!
Mendel: What regrets?
Sheiny: Imagine you let yourself install whats app then regret it and return back into freedom. You can control yourself. But also can control yourself from your own control over yourself.
Mendel: But doesn't your ability to regret mean that you didn't have control over yourself to begin with?
Sheiny: When you controlled yourself first you didn't know that you were to regret it later.
Mendel: What if you did know? What if you planned to regret?
Sheiny: Then your plan was all along something else entirely. You plan, then, was to install the app and then delete it. But you could regret having this plan anywhere during the plan itself. And, say, cancel the installation process early.
Mendel: So is it a paradox or not?
Sheiny: It's a paradox of whether it is a paradox. So I think it's at least a paradox in that way.
Mendel: Paradoxical!
Sheiny: The strange thing about paradoxes though, that they do work inside our minds.
Mendel: Paradoxes brake logic.
Sheiny: I'm not talking about logic. You know there is this paradoxical image of a staircase that closes in on itself. It's impossible in real life. And it's impossible 3-dimensionaly. Yet the brain can imagine it. And can even find some sense in the paradoxical situation. I mean even the universe is a big paradox. From one side you have the quantum realm which is just paradox after paradox. From the other side the size of the universe is probably unlimited. Yes there is a limit to what we can see. But there is matter beyond the observable universe. And it's probably endless. Which means that there is infinite matter. And infinity is a paradox in an of itself. The universe is a paradox. Yet I think, therefor I am. Freedom is a paradox, but it's real. And it means to have control over yourself. If you loose it, you loose freedom. But then again. It's a paradox. So it's extremely unstable. I think the great question is what exactly do you want to achieve. Or - what do you want? But this question perhaps is a great paradox in and of itself.
Happy Hacking!
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