Quark Cognition: Freedom Of Inspiration

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Freedom Of Inspiration

     It may seem on the surface level that I'm referring to a freedom associated with stimulating the mind to a high level of mental activity. In fact, the title of this page has an unwanted psychological effect. Inspiration, among other meanings, means the act of drawing in air, or simply - breathing. Those of you that have taken some Latin already know this simple fact. Those of you that don't believe me can refer to a standard English language dictionary.
     The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees U.S. citizens freedom of speech. It may appear that freedom of inspiration and freedom of speech are not related, but they are almost precisely the same thing. All people, everywhere, are allowed to breathe freely. There are no restrictions on the amount and type of breathing that one may engage in. If, for instance, one wishes to breathe underwater (without any type of SCUBA - self contained underwater breathing apparatus), one may do so. However, there is a penalty for breathing in certain places, such as underwater. Just like one may breathe anywhere, one may talk anywhere.
     Freedom of speech is precisely that. We all have complete freedom to say whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want. Just like there is a penalty for breathing in certain places, there is a penalty for talking in certain places and times, and saying certain things. The freedom cannot be violated and anyone that thinks otherwise needs to remember their place in things. Freedom of speech not only applies to YOU, but to everyone else. If someone decides they don't like what you are saying on TV and cuts you off, your freedom of speech has not been violated. Remember - we all have freedom of speech. Even the censors. If someone censors your words, they are merely exercising their freedom of speech.
     So, there are 2 main types of freedom of speech...

Freedom, but with penalty.
Freedom - with no penalty.

The first type of freedom is the one that we, along with the rest of life, experience. It is the same in every country. Whether one lives in North Korea, Cambodia, Russia, or the United States, the freedom of speech is precisely the same - the kind that has a penalty. To explicitly state that Americans have freedom of speech is no different than stating that we have freedom of breathing. This type of freedom is not an illusion, as one may suspect, although it is deceptively contradictive. The second type of freedom, actually, is the illusion.
In order to realize the second type of freedom, humans would need to form a single mind or live in isolation, singly. Neither situation is palatable nor allows life to flourish; thus, freedom must carry
a penalty.
The seemingly contradictory nature of freedom is so problematic that the definition ought to be heavily modified. But this is reality, not an illusion.

NOTE:

This post was originally written sometime in 2007.

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About Me

I am made of particles, known as quarks and electrons, that are at least 13.72 billion years old. Although my body is very young, the constituents are very old and come and go as they please. It's astonishing that individuality exists when each one of us are made of the same basic parts. It's even more astonishing that self-awareness exists, since even objects as simple as paper clips are made of the same parts as human beings.

My body was here before I was born and it will be here after I die.

So while I am in this brief configuration known as life I try to learn as much as possible, since my personality enjoys it. My first fascination in this short life was dinosaurs; I won a Dinosaur Expert Award in kindergarten. For most of my childhood, I read about the Animal Kingdom. I also read more than 100 Choose Your Own Adventure books and numerous other young adult fiction from my school library. Since age 5, I have been reading at a sometimes voracious pace. I didn't start seriously reading science fiction until age 19, though.

My interest in politics is as great as my interest in professional sports and I drink alcohol as often as I get lung surgery. I am heterosexual, but I rarely date women and prefer to read a tale, rather than chase some tail.

Qool Quotes

"The brain, knowing that a person can't live forever in this world, rationalizes a future, or other-dimensional, world in which immortality is possible. In other words, religion is the earliest form of science fiction."
-Philip Jose Farmer (1977)

"Forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be born."
-Lawrence M. Krauss (2009)

"When you ask what are protons and electrons I ought to answer that this question is not a profitable one to ask and does not really have a meaning. The important thing about electrons and protons is not what they are but how they behave - how they move. I can describe the situation by comparing it to a game of chess. In chess, we have various chessmen, kings, knights, pawns and so on. If you ask what a chessmen is, the answer would be that it is a piece of wood, or a piece of ivory, or perhaps just a sign written on a paper, or anything whatever. It does not matter. Each chessmen has a characteristic way of moving and this is all that matters about it. The whole game of chess follows from this way of moving the various chessmen."
-Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1933

"You will be astonished when I tell you what this curious play of carbon amounts to. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid! What a quantity of carbon must go from each of us in respiration! What a wonderful change of carbon must take place under these circumstances of combustion or respiration! A man in twenty-four hours converts as much as seven ounces of carbon into carbonic acid; a milch cow will convert seventy ounces, and a horse seventy-nine ounces, solely by the act of respiration. That is, the horse in twenty-four hours burns seventy-nine ounces of charcoal, or carbon, in his organs of respiration to supply his natural warmth in this way, by the conversion of carbon, not in a free state, but in a state of combination. And what an extraordinary notion this gives us of the alterations going on in our atmosphere. As much as 5,000,000 pounds, or 548 tons, of carbonic acid is formed by respiration in London alone in twenty-four hours. And where does all this go? Up into the air."
-Michael Faraday (1860)

"In modern war, one individual can cause the destruction of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. He could do so by pushing a button; he may not feel the emotional impact of what he is doing, since he does not see, does not know the people whom he kills; it is almost as if his act of pushing the button and their death had no real connection. The same man would probably be incapable of even slapping, not to speak of killing, a helpless person."
-Eric Fromm (1955)

“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that people don’t have to experience it."
-Max Frisch

Quark Cognition

I may not seem like it, but I am a human.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Freedom Of Inspiration

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