Archiv der Kategorie: Meaning design

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Free willing – Deciding without obligation

Free will is an important quality of our life. For example the fact that you clicked this article, is the result of a decision that you made freely. Possibly some key attractions, like e.g. the words free willing, accompanied you since hours, days or weeks and made you susceptible to click on this link.

The free will is used increasingly, in order to analyze the situation of other people and cultures. This can be clothing styles, questions about employment, political elections or cultural rituals. How free can somebody decide to be dressed casual on Fridays? Is it possible that sex workers do voluntarily their trade? How free are elections that obtain over 90% voter turnout? Do Japanese go voluntarily to their Nomikais (i.e. drinking meetings)? To what extent these are decisions of one’s own free will is judged more and more by outsiders. In this context arises the question, what free will actually means. Free will – Deciding without obligation?

Freiwillig

As soon as someone acts without wanting it, we call it compulsory. This is valid for example for the 20% of the employed part-time women in Germany, who would readily work longer, but have to accept part-time jobs. In all other cases, we actually speak of free willing, since the decisions are made with more or less freedom. The following free willing variants go from forced up to unconsciously coincidentally ones.

  • Threats – I want, because I have to.
    Activities that are accepted due to fear of negative effects. This includes the menaces of violence and the fear of losing something, e.g. an employment, property, or a partner.
  • Feigned, false facts – I want, because I believe.
    Activities that are done based on wrong assumptions. This includes wrong promises of politicians, lobbyists or other opinion leaders.
  • Necessities – I want, because it is necessary.
    Activities that are executed due to comprehensible reasons. This includes the insight to go to work, to stop at a red traffic light, or to obey laws.
  • Conscious, personal motives – I want, because I would like to.
    The closest to the natural term of the free will are activities that are decided due to personal motives. This includes the accumulation of possessions, quitting a an unloved job, or the marriage of the beloved partner.
  • Unconscious, personal motives – I simply want.
    Spontaneous activities that take place based on subliminal, personal motivation. This includes gut decisions for an impulse buy, the selection of today’s lunch, or the book for bedtime reading.
  • Unconsciously and coincidentally – (Just do, have, or think)
    Unforeseeable activities that take place for no obvious reason. This includes haphazardly strolling, a spontaneous talk with an unknown person or a daydream.

The question that remains is, whether these freedoms are not also an illusion.

  • Do we really have the opportunity to decide differently, if we are threatened?
  • What is the free space that the wrong basis for decision provides?
  • Do taught reaction patterns offer real options to specific needs?
  • How free are we, if we make our decisions based on conditioning through advertisement and society?
  • Do we really decide or is it the belly?
  • Is it free will, if we are simply driven by fate?

This shows that even free will decisions are not completely free from influence. To what extent this influence allows freedom at all is disputed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Bottom line: The free will is stretchable. For this reason, evaluations of free will of third parties should always be checked, whether it is actual obligation or one of the voluntary variants. Beware of cheap propaganda that is using the free will as a mean to slam potential opponents.

The volatile stuff

Information is the volatile stuff. One cannot grasp it. It is everywhere. And by its use it does not disappear – on the contrary. The more humans utilize it, the “more valuable” it becomes. Although it can be found everywhere, the question arises repeatedly, how to deal with it. The ownership, the application and the protection of information is hard to define due to its materiality, or better its non-materiality. For this purpose, first, a way should be found to define its tangibility.

Information

Since time immemorial, information was passed on mainly by oral tradition. Over time, the knowledge could be recorded in stones, clay or on papyrus. Starting with the letterpress, information became accessible for a broader public. As long as data are bound to a physical media, the tangibility can be ensured with the material carrier of the information. If someone wants to get the information, he or she must buy or borrow paper, celluloid, vinyl or the like. The massive duplication began with devices for reproduction, like copy machines, cameras, cassette and video recorders. With the Internet, information (i.e. texts, images, films, music, and tones) is again detached from a physical carrier material. All over, where electricity and terminals with net access exist, the information is available. The use is latently possible for all.

By looking at the many on-line exchange services, download centers and email attachments, it becomes clear that the free flow of information cannot be inhibited. Even out of strongly secured, top-secret sources, the information finds a way to the public.

A first step to regulate the information flow is to be aware of the types of information usages.

  • The private use
    is certainly the most frequent one. We know for years the use of newspapers, videos, and music CDs that are bought one time and circulated within families and friends. At least remuneration takes place with the purchase of the physical object.
  • The commercial use
    is the best-regulated one. As soon as texts, pictures, films, and music are used for commercial purposes, royalties have to be paid. That way, for example, the organizer of a concert, who is paid for the event, honors the work of the authors.
  • The indirect commercial use
    is difficult to control. In this case, customer data that was collected in a completely different context is stored, evaluated and even sold for further exploitations.
  • The governmental use
    is mostly not regulated. Although more or less strong privacy guidelines are proclaimed, the data leakages of for example American authorities’ show, what the government is doing with information.
  • The criminal use
    is still a completely unexplored area. About virtual „money laundering facilities“, credit card fraudsters, Internet-based sex industries as well as other criminal areas that happen in the Internet, we actually know very little.

If a conclusive structure of the information usage is found, a fundamental information ethics can be developed that offers the basis for further steps. Core element should be the informational self-determination of the creators.  Purely legal frameworks do not seem to work well, since unscrupulous users always find a gap in the law, in order to side step it.

Bottom line: The use of information has to be better regulated. Originators should decide upon the use of their information. It requires an independent instance, which is free of the interests of the players. 150 years after the wiring of the world, we lose control of the most important commodity of the future – the information.

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