Going analog

This isn't going to be the first time in my life that I decide to buck a popular trend, but I want to say something about the analog part of our lives. The focus of the last couple of posts has been "equality" and in the last one I specifically maintained that it is, in fact, a digital notion: equal is equal, or weren't not talking equal; it is or it isn't. I can't emphasize enough how important this notion is, nor can I stress how important it is that every single one of us come to terms with what we think about the concept and how we are going to deal with it. It's essential, if not existential.

Like all good concepts, however, it is, and should be, often paired with another idea, for one because they are in a sense interdependent, but they are to a large extent co-dependent as well. And if usually the case when we get to such fundamental notions, one of them is digital (equality), but the other is analog (freedom). I know, I know, I can hear you all grumbling already, but suspend your disbelief for just a minute and think about this:

Complete and utter freedom is an illusion. We can't (and shouldn't) just do anything we please whenever we want: yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, taking your neighbors new car for a joy ride, walking into any given woods and just cutting down your next Christmas tree, just to name a few (granted, innocuous) examples.

On the other hand, our thoughts are often free, or as free as we would like them to be. We can imagine just about whatever we want to whenever we want to (though I'd appreciate it greatly if you wouldn't do so while driving). In other words, we exist somewhere between complete and limited freedom, and it is therefore not unreasonable to conceive "freedom" as a continuum, one that crosses mere physical boundaries but which extends from absolutely none to an idealized, unbounded limitlessness. This is what makes "freedom" analog.

It is for this reason that I believe it is a bit more difficult to really grasp the notion. What is "freedom"? What does it mean "to be free"? Yes, what?