The Right to be Wrong - What is Free Speech and What is it Not?

Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing, but I believe it is something which is misunderstood by many. The Right to Free Speech is exactly that, it is the Right to say whatever you like without censorship. It is the Freedom to express your ideas and beliefs without fear of repercussions.

It is not the Right-to-Get-Upset-if-Somebody-Disagrees-with-You. Refuting a point is not and Free Speech gives people the Right to disagree with you, in public, if that is where you choose to exercise your Right! It is censorship  not the Right to be Abusive but it is the Right to Cause Offence, where the line must be drawn is when Psychological Harm is being caused.


Right to Be Wrong

Many people forget that with Rights come Responsibilities. When you exercise your Right to Free Speech, you must accept the Responsibility to deal with criticism in a reasonable manner, without censoring, intimidating or otherwise manipulating your audience. Threatening, deceiving or being abusive is stepping into the territory of Psychological Harm and is a perversion of the Right to Free Speech.

Certainly, Free Speech gives you the Right to be a racist/sexist bigot if you choose to be. But it also gives everyone else the right to tell you that you are one. You cannot expect to broadcast your views in a public space without being challenged on them; if you can't handle defending the views you express in the name of Free Speech - then don't express them.

The Right to Counter


Now comes the subject of "Hate Speech", many people will argue that this should be censored in the name of decency and protection of the vulnerable. However, censorship does not tackle the problem at its source, it merely reduces the outward expression of it and drives such views underground.

People will still hold these views, but they will be harder to identify and be challenged over them. We need to allow these people to express their views no matter how bigoted, misinformed or dangerous they may seem so that we can publicly counter them. We must organise counter-demonstrations, challenge them to open debate or question them about why they hold these views - censorship is not the way.

Educate, Liberate

If you are out with your kids and you happen to pass by someone expressing particularly discriminatory views, take it as an opportunity to educate your children. They will inevitably encounter such opinions in their lives, so better to teach them the errors of them early and build up their intellectual armour to the short-sightedness and generalisations of such perspectives. We should be trying to help them better understand why some people buy into these ideas.

Ultimately, I guess my point is simple. If we start to censor people because their point of view is unpopular, dangerous or potentially subversive - not only do we force this ticking time bomb out of public view where it could be diffused - we potentially open up the flood-gates for thought-crime and further censorship, which could be extremely dangerous.

We only need to look at the labeling of "Conspiracy Theorists" and Political Activists as Domestic Terrorists, or the recent attempts at gagging legislation (preventing anyone but Political Parties from discussing politics publicly around election times) to see how close we are to an Orwellian Society. Do we really want to take any further steps in this direction?




Namaste,


Fanfare for The Conscious

What's the Matter? - Missed Messages in Science

Science is important; I think we can all agree on that. It is the action of curiosity and intent to understand the Universe and Ourselves more completely. Science is the Eternal Question of Why and the relentless Pursuit of Knowledge.

But, in our thirst for measurable results and mathematical relationships, could we have missed some of the more profound implications of the discoveries we have made? In all our urgency to balance our equations of explanation, did we miss the simple and beautiful messages which come from our discoveries?

 The Great Balance

The most simple, profound realisation about the Universe provided by Science, can be taken straight from the way in which its relationships are expressed. Relationships, such as cause and effect, are described in Science using Mathematical Equations. For an Equation to be true (valid), it has to be complete and balanced (or EQUAL). Both sides of the equation must have equal value. For example, 1 + 1 = 2 is complete because all the terms are present and it is balanced because both sides of the equation have the same value.

Also worthy of note is the fact that all mathematical operations used in these equations are polar in nature - they have opposing functions. Addition is the opposite of Subtraction, as Multiplication is the opposite of Division. Just looking at the way that Maths describes the Universe tells us some really fundamental things. Which is that everything in the Universe is Polarised, Balanced and Equal. Everything has an equal and opposite, in true balance, a Super-Symmetry.

 The Great Unity

Einstein is, I believe, a misunderstood scientist. Many people will quote him like gospel, as if he is the be-all and end-all of Physics. However, I feel Einstein's work has been misinterpreted because many of his famous quotes seem to hint at a much deeper, more spiritual view of the Universe - which goes unrecognised by many who follow his works. Simply looking at his most famous equation - E = mc2 - in a qualitative sense tells you something incredible about our reality. You see, the relationship described here is one of a Unity between Energy and Matter. They are interchangeable and fundamentally connected to one another.

I believe that Bill Hicks described it best when he said, "All Matter is merely Energy condensed to a slow vibration." It is as if Matter itself is simply Energy in a state of low vibration. As though Light itself has been condensed and concentrated into physical form. Light (Electromagnetic Radiation), seems to be some kind of border state between the realms of Matter and Energy. It exists in a state of Duality, as both a Particle (Matter) and a Wave (Energy). If we also consider the hypothetical Tachyon then our understanding of this can be extended further.

Tachyons only exist as a particle when traveling slower than the speed of light. When they are traveling faster than this, they exist only as energy. When you consider this, the Speed of Light seems less like a barrier and more like a transition zone, where Matter becomes Energy and vice-versa. As Light itself sits exactly on this hypothetical boundary, it displays the Wave-Particle Duality that we are familiar with - the Unity of Matter and Energy.

 The Great Perception

In our early journeys into the Science of The Small, we found out even more astonishing things about Matter and our influence upon it. We found that what we see as Solid Matter - physical things - are actually 99.9999...% empty space. Even more profound was the discovery that the mere observation of Matter changed it - observation has been scientifically shown, scientifically, to affect the outcome of that observation.

To clarify, if an atom was the size a football stadium, the nucleus - the most solid part of it - would be the size of a full stop. Furthermore, the electrons exist as a probability field around the nucleus and, until they are measured, have no fixed position in space-time! It is as though the perception of matter itself causes it to condense into existence, a concept pursued long-ago in the Philosophical Existentialism and the thought experiment; "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Confused yet? Consider the Schroedinger's Cat thought-experiment. A cat is placed in a box with a flask of poison and a radioactive source, while a radiation detector is rigged to release the poison on the release of a radioactive particle from the source.  Because radioactive decay is random, it is unknown when the poison will be released and thus whether the cat is dead or alive. Essentially the cat, unobserved in the box, can be considered to be both dead and alive and neither dead nor alive, in a state of Unity and balance between opposing states.

To determine the state of the cat, a Change of Perspective must be made in order to make an observation - at which point the condition of the cat is determined as one of the two states. Until that observation is made, it is impossible to determine the state of the cat or even prove its existence at all. We can only provide proof of existence for things which have been OBSERVED. Until that observation, the Matter may exist only as Energy or even Data embedded in the fabric of the universe itself.

 The Great Observer

So, if Science has determined that observation directly affects the results of those observations. What can we determine about the Universe itself, with regards to the Observer? Many would argue that the Universe continues to do what it does even when it is unobserved by a physical being, so what impact does that have on our understanding of consciousness itself? What if consciousness itself is not local to the brain? What if consciousness exists instead as an energy field which is spread throughout the universe?

 Let us imagine for a minute that our physical being is like a radio. If we had no knowledge of Radio Transmission and we were to investigate the radio, tuned in and playing a broadcasted radio station; it would be easy to assume that the electrical activity we see flowing around the internal circuits was what was producing the audio signal independent of outside influences. We could argue that the electrical signals themselves were responsible for producing the patterns of sounds we hear coming from the speaker, but this would be incorrect. In reality we know that the radio simply converts the radio signals into the electrical signals - they are being generated by the radio waves.

Recent studies have begun to show that the assumed cause and effect between electrical activity in the brain and conscious thoughts may not be in the direction we have always assumed. Almost everyone will agree that electrical activity in the brain indicates the presence of Life, of Consciousness and it is usually assumed that those thoughts are caused by the electrical activity. But what if they weren't? What if our brains and bodies were merely a vessel, an antenna which is tuned into a very specific frequency of consciousness? What if our Consciousness, our Soul - the thing which uses our bodies to think, to feel and to experience - was not confined within the body?

For those of you who doubt what I am suggesting here, I ask you one simple thing: If you believe that your thoughts are generated by the electrical activity in your brain, why can you not "turn them off"? Try it for a moment; try to switch of your thoughts and think of absolutely nothing. Harder than you might have imagined. Now think about WHY that might be, REALLY THINK about it.

Namaste.

Fanfare for The Conscious

Sources

Wikipedia: Schrodinger's Cat
Wikipedia: Tachyon

Waking Times: Consciousness is Not Local to the Brain