Obedience and freedom
repeatedly shown than loneliness in old age is a stark marker for an increased likelihood of early death, while those who are most integrated into regularly, collaborative acts of community perform far better in the game of longevity. While being a social creature is undeniably among our defining characteristics we cannot ignore that the desire for freedom feels emotionally profound in the same way that loneliness does, indicating that it too may be hard-wired into us. This would certainly explain the universality of some idea of freedom across human societies. I offer two explanations for this persistent insistence on the freedom of the individual. First, Darwin and later Dawkins in The Selfish Gene have showed the immense focus of evolution on survival of the individual: the genes in our body want to survive and replicate, and this may to some extent explain why we have such a strong sense of self, as even in the collaborative tribal community one would face competition for resources, status, and reproduction. Thus, the sense of a self that is insulted when feeling unfairly treated, or of when occupying a lower status may begin to explain the internal push back of freedom against social restriction. However, I think a more compelling evolutionary explanation for this is that other deeply unique quality of humans other than our complex social organizations: creativity. This argument does not require an individual desire for self-preservation so much as the desire for the group to maintain itself and increase its power. I have often wondered why there is a unique sense of progress and advancement in human civilization while other creatures continue to do the same things they have done for millennia. The key differentiation here is creativity, specifically the creation of tools which allow us to expand our abilities beyond our physical evolution. Crucially, creativity requires difference; it requires a certain freedom of thought and action for the individual in order to operate. This is because the vast majority of creative ideas are bad, but we cannot make great advancements in our tools unless creativity is widespread and different in each person within in the tribe – this difference in perspective is both as a result of their differing physiology and past experiences. Thus, in order to find the one idea that creates a tool that grants the community and ultimately the species great leaps you must have a widespread sense of individual experience and freedom. The second area in which necessary restrictions carve out a path for freedom is through a more philosophical explanation of this evolutionary truth that I have outlined. We need other people around us desperately. The first reason for this is because we form our experiences of self in relationship to other people. As Seth argues in Being You , 1 neuroscience has identified two likely constituent parts of the self: the internalized and imagined social perceptions of other people about you but also a narrativization of your memories that tie you to who you were in the past (though almost every cell in your body is replaced every seven years). In terms of the internalized social perceptions of others, the need for other people is obvious. However, I think others are also crucial for your self as created by memory, as you negotiate who you were in the past with other people who validate the memories you have about yourself. Furthermore, the presence of other people in a simpler way allows you self- definition as you come into encounters with other equivalent conscious experiences that you are not having yourself, and different perspectives that you do not experience, helping you to weed out in the first instance you from not you. It is not at all necessarily obvious that this process would occur without the presence of others in life. In the early months of its life, the baby cannot distinguish its sense of self in any real way from its mother, so without social restriction we may well never form the self that cries out for individual freedom in the first instance. Furthermore, the presence of others validates not only
1 Seth, A. (2022) Being you: a new science of consciousness .
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