Want Freedom?

Well, do you? Do you want freedom? The answer to that question is always "Yes!!" We all want to be as free as possible, that goes for me too. But "freedom" is not as straightforward as it might seem, so here's a short post about how wanting freedom often limits our freedoms.

The discussion about freedom, or freedom of choice, is as old as humanity and has been debated by people from all walks of life. I won't go too much into the question if free will even exists but I'll say this: all evidence seems to point to the fact that free will does not exist. But all evidence also seems to point to the fact that we need to feel as if free will does exist. For a functioning society we need to be able to hold people responsible for their actions, and on a basic level we want to be held responsible for our actions, and that can only be done if we live our lifes as if free will exists. But it doesn't really.

We define "freedom" as the ability to choose to do what we want. Sure, there will always be limitations, many of them dictated by the laws of physics, but we want to be free to choose from the available options and we generally believe that it's better to have more options; somehow we've come to believe that we expand our freedom by expanding our options. But that's not necessarily true; there is something as too much options, and we call that "overchoice":

The phenomenon of overchoice occurs when many equivalent choices are available. Making a decision becomes overwhelming due to the many potential outcomes and risks that may result from making the wrong choice. Having too many approximately equally good options is mentally draining because each option must be weighed against alternatives to select the best one. The satisfaction of choices by number of options available can be described by an inverted "U" model. In this model, having no choice results in very low satisfaction. Initially more choices lead to more satisfaction, but as the number of choices increases it then peaks and people tend to feel more pressure, confusion, and potentially dissatisfaction with their choice. Although larger choice sets can be initially appealing, smaller choice sets lead to increased satisfaction and reduced regret. Another component of overchoice is the perception of time. Extensive choice sets can seem even more difficult with a limited time constraint.
_{source: Wikipedia}

There's one example of how perceived freedom limits our actual freedom. This phenomenon of choice overload is discussed in this enlightening TED talk by Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice. Often real freedom is gained with freedom from choice. Just think about it: many health-insurance companies give you freedom of choice in determining what exactly you want to be insured for. But that also is a false freedom; no one can look into the future, so we all want to be insured for any possible illness. When you buy fire-insurance for your house you don't want to pick and choose which parts of the house you want to be covered; it's the whole house or nothing.

What is freedom? This short post is merely an invitation for you, dear reader, to delve deeper into this much debated subject. And my hope is that you'll conclude, as I have, that our current consumerist society is the cause of much stress and mental discomfort, with much of that coming from an unhealthy emphasis on individual freedom and freedom of choice. If you want more on that specific topic, I've written a post titled Freedom From Choice last year on Steemit. I'll close with this: even if you're free to do what you want, you're not free to want what you want. How "free" is the freedom to give in to desires, to do what you desire, if you're not free to choose those wants? Our wants and needs may be the logical argument against the existence of free will... Here's a video on that mighty interesting question for you :-)

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, keep safe, keep healthy!