To Be a Free Agent

I came upon an idea, gradually, a while ago. Excited, I gave it a name and made mention of said name without going into the nature of the idea. It is as follows.

The debates between different religions and philosophies have raged violently since the dawn of such ideas, and will continue to do so for the remainder of humanity's existence. There are innumerable points of contention, innumerable arguments supporting each, and innumerable individuals who have dedicated themselves in one way or another to defending one. This is a good thing; if the ideas embraced by humanity are many and conflicting it creates an environment within which thought can flourish and ideological paradigms, caught in the tumult, can be cleansed of fallacies and made "stable", or resistant to the wear and tear to which they are subjected.

And yet it's far from perfect. The battles rage on, the oldest and bitterest among them seeming now incapable of making "progress" save by the wretched means of war or separation. What's going on? Why do these systems of thought remain so separate?

One possibility is that stable systems of thought can exist and stabilize separately from one another, structured differently and incompatible in fundamental ways. Indeed, one would have to be very closed-minded to think it's impossible for wisdom to exist in any single [major] school of thought. I'm irreligious and I've read the words of highly enlightened philosophers both with and without faith in a personal God. It's not unreasonable to suggest that a difference in base assumptions could produce entirely different rational structures. However, I'm inclined to have my doubts that it's the primary cause of our predicament. I'll explain why in due time.

Another is that the process of ideological evolution is being subdued. That individuals are shielded somehow from open discussion of their ideas or taught not to question them. This I see as a strong culprit, manifest almost entirely in the phenomenon of like-minded individuals forming groups based upon ideas. They form a consensus and strong personal bonds, intertwining their respective paradigms until (often) it becomes difficult and unappealing to move away toward new ones that go against the collective. This is characteristic of religious communities (and organized atheism), political parties and all number of other social groups of which I and (I expect) the vast majority of other human beings are regular participants.

This second cause I see as a monstrosity from which humanity must free itself; many people are discomforted at confronting new ideas, removing the old, and having to reconstruct paradigms which have had gaping holes put into their bases, demolishing any idea which is no longer supported. Many human beings prefer the security--not only ideological, but physical and emotional--which is to be found in groups. But I see great costs incurred by this, of which ideological stagnation is one.

A third culprit, and most relevant here, is that two ideologies may develop with similar rational structures and separate semantic makeup. That they have the same ideas and express them differently. I've come to suspect (and experienced firsthand) that many conflicts between individuals and groups seem to appear an unresolvable difference in assumptions when they are in fact simply a difference in the meanings those individuals assign to various terms. Sometimes this is realized; often it is not. Two men speak the same words in different languages and believe themselves to be arguing!

The cause behind the stagnation apparent in society are, in my opinion, a product of these last two phenomena. The reason I don't include the first is my conviction that the most basic assumptions people uphold don't differ much from person to person. In brief, I think that these are few and intuitive in nature, and any other ideas which go unquestioned as these do are so for specific reasons. Rather than going further in explaining myself there I'll simply ask this: Are you comfortable with the idea that two separate truths can come to be and will never mesh? That once these stabilize humanity will be forever in the grip of an unmoving and fruitless battle, or shattered into groups forever unable to communicate with one another? This first problem is a fundamentally unresolvable one, and so regardless of its existence or nonexistence I see no need to address it. I do not believe it to be a matter, and this assumption is reflected in the ideas to come.


Now, having narrowed our suspicions down to two demons--groupthink and semantic disunity--we must find solutions. And my solutions to these (for now) are simple--they are solutions for me and me exclusively, rather than revolutionary changes to the social system. [Those come later, bwahahahah!] To defend myself from the stagnation of groupthink I must disallow myself from being a member of any collective in the sense that I accept their ideas. Contrarily, to retain the benefit of a chaotic ideological system I must immerse myself in people who uphold different systems of thought--the more alien, the better, with the stipulation that rational exchange must be possible.

The solution to the demon of semantics meshes well with this first solution, and amplifies my ability to develop my own paradigm by promoting a better understanding of others. This solution is to identify common threads amongst what appear to be vastly different ideologies. At present, to seek the various philosophical holes which most ideologies address, and what they are filled with. What the hole and the piece seated in it are called. Looking for nearly equivalent objects, separated as they seem only by trifling connections and their all-important names.

To act upon these two proposed solutions is to gain an odd assortment of friends and acquaintances. To be what I call a Free Agent. Separate from all groups and yet connected with as many as possible. Learning and gaining a greater perspective on the striking similarities between them. And the potential for unity here is something I've perceived--albeit at the back of my mind--for a long time, watching people argue and separate. Watching the futility unfold.


As practice goes, I've spent my summer seeking out such groups, although I've only now crystallized the ideas you see written here. (Writing is wonderful for this!) My two primary in-groups are a Bible fellowship and Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. I've also attempted to get into contact with a local Buddhist group (which has disintegrated) and visited the School of Metaphysics. I intend to cease using labels (eg 'agnostic') to describe my ideology directly. Rather, I prefer my own term 'Free Agent' which is without an implied collective and without the baggage other words carry.

I've employed the semantic bridging technique to wonderful effect. To see the ideas and labels I like to use see the (rather lightly written) 'Dictionary of Important Stuff' I posted recently. I've made mappings with sufficient success that when speaking to a Christian friend she remarked that I spoke like a Christian. The conversation in question had been about the Trinity, and through it I discovered how closely its members mapped to ideas in my own paradigm. The Father is equivalent to what I term God--the process underlying all, and the ever-receding but never-vanishing limn betwixt known and unknown. The Son seems to reasonably represent what I term the Ego--the conscious, communicating, rational mind. (That might be a bit of a stretch but consider 'Jesus the Logos' in the words of Christian Philosophy. And, I'm making the relation indirectly. Not equivalent ideas but closely related.) The Holy Spirit, of particular interest, maps well to what I term Intuition--a reasoning thing which manifests itself as a second voice, and in the stuff of dreams; a source of feelings and basic, unquestioned ideas which gives me a moral and rational basis for reasoning. Also, a thing with which contact can be lost, to be regained only through conviction.

The same ideas port neatly to the taste I've gotten of the SOM's ideology. (Though, it apparently caters to people of various faiths, acting as an extension to their systems of belief.) Intuition and dreams are held in high regard and use semantics akin to mine. Mention is also made of the 'cosmos' and 'collective unconscious' which map reasonably, again, to the God of which I speak.

They can also stand in the face of the modern scientific paradigm, again something which is often combined with other systems of beliefs. My God is in the Higgs Boson, and beyond the visible universe. It is Dark Matter. It is any processes we have yet to discover. My Ego is the conscious mind or Freud's Ego. My Intuition is the unconscious or Freud's Super-Ego. (The Body would be equivalent to Freud's Id.)

I'll take the scientific paradigm to be representative of Atheism. But consider how peculiar it must be to use a term such as God in their context. No matter! I see no sin in changing my words to fit, though at my last opportunity I made a point of explaining my take on the idea. (Incidentally, my usage of the word God is not an innovation of my own; it appears to have been used by Einstein and I've seen it proposed elsewhere, in the writings of individuals.)


The only great differences left are connections taken on faith. Christianity connects the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together as a singular God. Science places God in a position starkly separate from the Ego and Intuition, which are housed in the physical mind. Other faiths make themselves clear on all sorts of other connections drawn. But some are recurrent. The peculiar link between Intuition and Ego, the wide schism between the Ego (an individual in Christianity's case, not Jesus) and God (The Father) and the dualistic or triadic nature of Body, Ego and Intuition or Body and Mind. (This last is starkly evident in philosophies from the ancient to the modern.)

The ideas I've used to describe semantic bridging are a small subset with which I've been toying. With luck I'll have more chances in the future to explore apparent ideological universals. When such time comes I should be able to give clearer examples in support of this idea.


I hope I've made clear how I intend to operate as a philosopher. I hope my position is understandable and my decision as well. Honestly, I hope to see at least minor improvements upon the situation of the social system--specifically, to see other people such as yourself taking a greater interest in relating to alien ideas and enjoying a more reserved sense of membership in any groups you participate in.

Perhaps this is a means to the Unity to which so much effort is dedicated. Perhaps [and certainly] this already exists, maybe even with prevalence, in the things I've heard called 'interfaith' and the like. But perhaps aside, I reap from it benefits of my own--increased perspective to feed my undying curiosity, increased understanding to back my faith in humanity, and a position which will with hope make my position an acceptable one to all, that I might seek kinship unfettered.


I call myself Free Agent.