DOES FREEDOM EXIST?
OR DOES THE BRAIN RULE?
“With the flick of a chemical switch, researchers can now exert unprecedented control over the activating molecules that wire the developing brains of mice. The new technique permits researchers to use drugs to switch the molecules on and off as precisely and reversibly as a light switch controls a lamp.”
Press Release, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, April 7, 2005
NOVEMBER 1, 2010. Most Americans are brought up to think that practical questions with practical answers are the only ones that matter.
And when it comes to philosophy, well, who has the time or inclination to worry about that? Professors in ivory towers?
Unfortunately, when everyone deserts the field where the philosophic questions are being asked and answered, the results can be devastating—and the after-effects of those earthquakes can sever the moorings of the Republic. People may wake up, but it’s too late.
That’s the case with an item called freedom. It turns out that scientists have been hacking away at it for a long time.
The answer to the question, does freedom exist, would certainly be the cornerstone of any modern philosophy.
Contemporary thinkers who want to straddle the fence claim that a better understanding of the neurochemical processes of the brain will deliver us better answers.
One of those answers? “You” are just a concept involuntarily generated by your brain. There is no “you.”
People tend to blink when they hear that one. But again, who has time to worry about such a bizarre idea?
Meanwhile, we have a whole host of questions about freedom that impact society every day. Should a convicted criminal be sent to a mental hospital for treatment because, in his childhood, he suffered abuse sufficient to render him incapable of choosing to live a lawful life?
This deterministic argument leads us into a massive social and political context, in which large numbers of people, given special treatment and assistance, claim they are not free to advance their lives on their own. Freedom takes another hit.
In the scientific arena, determinism is leading directly to the assertion that the brain rules; it is the cause from which all human effects flow.
But the brain isn’t free. It’s a biological organ. It operates on chemical/electrical pathways. It’s remarkably adaptive, but it doesn’t choose. It follows alternatives in the same mindless way a computer does—depending on what prime directives and software are guiding its actions.
Therefore, if we accept the premise that all our actions stem directly from commands the brain is dispensing, freedom is nowhere to be found.
The 21st century is the century of the brain. If ongoing research has its way, preferred mental states will be defined for us by a psychiatric/neurological elite. These mental states will be induced (as they are now) by chemicals and other means—but with far more precision.
Behind this campaign, there is the assumption that freedom doesn’t exist, and life is simply of matter of inhabiting more pleasant states of mind (brain).
What we now see as instances where doctors and law-enforcement authority demand that citizens be treated with certain drugs—this will expand enormously into the engineered society.
FREEDOM? WHO CARES?
WE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD.
THEREFORE, YOU MUST FEEL GOOD.
A surprising number of people look forward to that day.
Against them stand people who know they are free, who take great and powerful joy from their freedom, who build their lives on choices that reflect their highest and widest aspirations.
These are the sides in the battle that is both real-life and philosophical, and ignoring the intellectual aspect is not merely careless, it consigns us to a future in which, by default, scientists and their government partners will make our decisions for us, utilizing arguments that are vacuous and bankrupt.
The brain is not some holy grail. Without a widespread understanding that individual freedom exists apart from any facts relating to the brain, we will find authorities dictating us into sedation.
I’ve long been warning, in a variety of contexts, about the onrush of the politicized Medical State. Its ultimate victory would come if we abandon the ideas of Self and Freedom. Casting aside these twin pillars, we would consider ourselves vague “pleasure apparatuses,” to be manipulated by experts for our own good.
I recall, as a young college student, studying the history of Western philosophy. My hope was at the end of it, I would find answers, finally, to great questions. I never really reached the end. At the close of the 19th century, Western thought reached an impasse. There was science, which seemed to be reporting that the entire universe, including human beings, was merely the whirling action of tiny particles in motion. Determinism. Materialism. Against that notion, there was the assertion of absolute Ideals, vague and other-worldly, non-material. And there philosophy remained. In a knot.
It took me a while to wonder why the concept of individual freedom, expressed so brilliantly and powerfully in the founding documents of the American Republic, had been omitted from the philosophic debate.
Were we supposed to believe our Revolution was just an illusion? Establishing individual freedom was merely jumping on to another synapse-highway of the brain, another comforting pathway to nowhere?
History is replete with examples of ruling elites rationalizing their control over the populace: the gods will it, kings are blessed with divine right, we must all submit to a specific higher power. And now we have a pseudo-scientific framework claiming: the workings of the brain show us that individual freedom and self are passé superstitions.
Are you buying it?
More and more people are. They prefer to leave the future to “brain science” and the chemicals it spawns. They prefer to believe their only problem is Mood, how they feel at any given moment during the day.
Was that what Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were all about? Is that what we have left of their legacy?
JON RAPPOPORT
Jon Rappoport has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years. He is the author of a unique course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS, for homeschoolers and adults. To inquire: qjrconsulting@gmail.com