About this episode
The episode explores the concept of human freedom as an illusion and its implications through a blend of satire and personal reflection.
I have read two longer book reviews in recent months, both in influential journals, of the growing consensus that human freedom is an illusion. The consequences elude me, and I turn to satire for relief. “Scientists around the world reach consensus that freedom is an illusion, they have now turned to the question of what the significance of this conclusion can be given they are unsure exactly what conditions have brought it about.” Thinking stalls and turns in on itself in free fall. I am trying to get a small piece of shell out of the egg white and each time I stab with my finger it is displaced. I am an artist that is drawing the world but when I try to draw myself, graphite becomes rubber and suddenly erases my presence. I am a latent view from nowhere. I live in an element that conducts world-consciousness and insulates self-knowledge, a substance that reveals a world to me while concealing myself. As far as I am concerned, celebrated conclusions of thought accentuate riddles they profess to solve. But of course, there is, after all, natural science and the expanded majesty of the universe. Satisfaction wells up as thought marries action in physics and rockets fire and fly…
People in this episode
Host: Nathaniel Williams
Topics covered
- human freedom
- illusion
- satire
- self-knowledge
- natural science
- consciousness
Keywords
- freedom
- illusion
- satire
- self-knowledge
- natural science
- consciousness
- thought
- action
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