Translator: Zaraa Malvat Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Are we free?
Do we have choice?
Can we control our thoughts?
These are the types of questions that initiate the cycle of contemplation
and lays out the foundations for our understanding of human existence.
The depths of our ability to choose,
or not to,
evolves our ability to innovate, create and simply enjoy.
Due to this, we must consider the factors that enable us to pursue our choices.
That's if we really are making our choices.
We define choice
as an act of making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities.
This explains that we can derive our choices from a source
and then pick from one option or another.
However, this doesn't explain the underlying intangible force
that really propels us to making a decision.
We are faced with a variety of choices, on a daily basis,
that range from concrete to abstract,
whether we are aware of it or not.
Do you think the same factors that allow us to pick a car,
allow us to choose what we want to do for the rest of our lives?
Maybe it is a matter of what we value.
Maybe it is a result of our conditioning.
Maybe it is a conception of how we feel.
I suppose that as humans
we tend to formulate connections of where we think our choices will get us.
So just a nicer car for a sense of entitlement
and a better career for a fulfilling life.
Concurrently, our choices may reflect our sense of purpose in life.
That if we attach ourselves to what we find purpose in,
then our choices represent our idea of happiness.
This line of thought can be organized
into what many of you may know as the free will and determinism debate,
where free will explains that we can do and choose as we please,
and determinism claims that each event is a result of the last,
and that no matter what option you choose,
you will arrive at the same result, inevitably.
When we look at prominent historic figures such as Einstein and Hitler,
we vision a very different timeline of events in their lives.
Free will could argue that the extremities of these lifestyles
is due to the separate choices these individuals chose to make.
Determinism could argue that Einstein would have discovered E=mc^2,
and Hitler would've become the Fuhrer of Germany,
whether they liked it or not.
If so, then what is the purpose?
It seems inherent in our nature
to constantly strive for a greater good in all aspects of life.
But how does this apply when we witness something horrific?
It is possible that our ability to choose something negative
actually assures us how vital it is to choose what benefits us positively.
In retrospect to our lives,
if we can deliberately decide our choices,
then this must mean
that our meaningful choices should be in tune with our true selves,
where our innate intentions are the underlying factors of our choices.
Back to the scenario where picking a car
and choosing a career involve different values,
where one has a greater impact on your life than the other.
Picking a car may take less thought and time than picking a career.
Of course, this is relative to the person.
However, it is the idea that valuing one option over another
resonates either with who we are and who we want to be.
On a small scale, it is easier for me to decide what I want to eat
rather than what I want to watch.
Is this because I really know food will satisfy me?
Possibly.
Or maybe there are so many options on TV
that I become overwhelmed in my pursuit of what to watch.
Regardless, it is the freedom of my choosing
that allows me to arrive at the satisfaction of my choice.
On a larger scale,
when I have the power to evaluate a political candidate
who has the power to issue laws that correlate with my values,
it is the idea of what that politician will bring to a nation that I'm choosing
rather than the individual themselves.
This leads me to believe that our choices can be the intent of what we feel,
the manifestation of our choices
that matter more than the physical choice themselves.
As a species, we tend to use logic and reason
as a core foundation for our decisions.
We use ration to navigate our way throughout our lives.
But what happens when our feelings and emotions
overwhelm this logic and reasoning?
When we do based on what we feels right rather than what seems right.
Sigmund Freud claims that we do things for two reasons -
to gain pleasure,
or to eliminate pain.
So when we attend to our pleasures,
are we experiencing freedom
or actually being restricted by the ability to think rationally?
To put this into perspective,
when we are in dire need of love and affection,
many times we attend the first instance of love that we can grasp.
Well, yes, this can work out blissfully.
I would also ask you if a lack of consideration for your companion
is a choice that you deem free?
You may have embraced your human instinct, your human connection,
but what if you felt that that was the only choice you had?
It is almost as if our choices act as a catalyst
for the hope we wish to fulfill in our lives.
And sometimes, when we attend to these pleasures within our feelings,
our choices are ones of attachment,
not just the appreciation of them.
So we need to know
that we are making choices for the right reasons,
especially when we consider them for ourselves.
So, due to this, we have the ability to choose one or the other.
When we want to innovate within a new market,
and we need to analyze the industry,
we need to analyze its productivity,
we need to understand how it all works.
And understanding that allows us to understand what we are practicing for,
that we are practicing something that is true to us.
My point is that whether the industry is really in need of renovation or not,
we are doing, we are choosing, and we are practicing
what resonates with ourselves.
On the other hand, when we question what the origins of the universe are,
we have the ability to look towards religion,
science,
our own cultural beliefs, and more.
Our belief with what we attach ourselves to
gives us our peace and our happiness.
Perhaps it is
because we are not meant to know all the answers with complete certainty.
But the power alone in choice is what matters most
because that is what makes us human.
So as a species, if we can choose and therefore value peace,
this must mean that we can also choose a lack of peace,
involving greed and discrimination.
So when we wonder why events occur
that attack our well being and actually deter us from achieving our goals,
we must consider that it is in our nature to choose,
and not to victimize ourselves by the choices of others.
Instead, let us take advantage of the choices that we can control
and make sure to use it for the better.
Now,
what if I told you that it may all be an illusion,
that I must examine the contradicting side of choice:
where it doesn't exist,
and it isn't real;
where our choices may actually be manipulated and controlled
in the sense that control is a reflection of our conditioning.
What I mean by this is that what you know
may only be a reflection of what you have been governed to know.
With that being said,
do our choices, both daily and life changing,
have personal merit to them?
You know, very recently, I was asked if reality and truth are the same thing.
And that really stuck with me.
Are reality and truth the same thing?
Is what I know, or at least think I know, known to be true?
And in turn, does that make it real?
This led me back to my thought about how subject we are
to the systematic structures of our society.
We must conform and have these obligations
so that we can prosper productively.
And for that mentality to be distributed around the world,
a form of control must be constituted.
But what happens is, this control,
it promotes a unison among our behavior,
and sometimes this unison inhibits the ability for us to think for ourselves.
It is like being thrown into a game,
and our subjective experience within it is how well aware of it we are.
This is because our ability to be aware of manipulation and control
can actually serve us in ways
that we make choices in accordance to what we truly value.
So when making a decision,
are you making the choice, as a being, for yourself?
Or because you've been subject to the systematic structures around you
that tell you what to do, what to think, how to act, and how to feel?
Is it this repetition that governs our conditioning?
And sometimes our choices may not really be ours,
they may be the product of the environment and the people we are around,
or simply, how we are governed to be around.
So, due to this, let us say we go to a store,
and we purchase something that we ever so desire.
It is very likely that a form of marketing had been done to promote this.
Well, when this marketing happens, ads or word of mouth,
may seem like a direct form of advertising,
we still do not know why we are choosing it.
Does it give us pleasure?
Possibly.
Maybe even eliminate pain.
However, when we are being convinced
to attach ourselves to these things that we desire,
that they will make us a worthy citizen,
we fail to recognize that they don't have much inherent meaning in them,
and will not fulfill the being of who we are.
Similarly, our idea for some of our passions
can be solely reflected for our desire of money itself.
This is really a choice because so many of our decisions all the time
revolve around how much something costs,
what its value is,
or how much we can earn from it.
Well, yes,
I would agree that this is a very rational way of exercising decisions
so that we can manage financial stability.
I would ask that we dig deeper
so we understand how the dollar bill itself
has allowed an entire species to revolve around its basic existence.
This shift in conventional thought
has changed us from making decisions about what matters
to what is the most practical.
And in doing so,
we need to understand that we operate within a system,
and the system, again, conditions the way we think from day one.
So we need to take a step back and analyze our choices
so that we know that they are our own,
because if they aren't, we need to also understand
that the way we relate to situations and circumstances and events
also guides our outlook of them.
Just because you're not aware of something doesn't mean that it is not happening.
It is the very essence of our consciousness
to direct our focus to what we are conditioned to understand.
When we ask a question,
we have the ability to arrive at the source of our choices.
We may feel like the more choices we have, the more free we are.
But how do you know that all of our choices haven't been distorted
so we have an altered perception of what all our choices really are?
I remember when I first delved into online shopping,
and I've got to say, it definitely felt more free.
I had no restrictions of specific companies
and exclusive rights on brands,
especially while being in the comfort of my own home.
And in doing so, again, yes,
I did feel more free that I could choose whatever I'd like to have.
However, I was only free enough
to choose within what's being displayed to me right there on my screen.
A more precise example is when I was shopping online for some soccer cleats,
and I had the ability to customize any cleat that I wanted,
from the color to the stud to the shape.
It felt even more free.
However, it was then that I realized
that I had the inability to even think of a new color.
It is that how illusions can be pertinent
in so many of our choices within our daily lives,
where we don't really know if it is within what's being displayed to us
and within what we can see.
So on your next creation, your next design,
I challenge you to think beyond what you already know.
That you are innovating because your choice and visions
extend beyond the visions that you were accustomed to.
Anything less than that
is a disruption.
A disruption that's like a background noise
that you can't help but force your attention to,
that tells you to abide to the ways of the norm.
Because we have that spark within all of us.
We are all inherently creative, inherently prosperous.
We all know what is true to us.
We must utilize that and live through our experiences
because it is the choice
that determines who we are and who we want to be.
But I think when we try to analyze everything,
we can comfortably say that we don't know what we don't know.
That factors of illusion, factors of freedom,
both influence our choices.
Jean-Paul Sartre says that we are our choices.
Understanding this highlights the importance of choice itself.
So if our choices are a direct reflection of who we are,
then we can do, and we can be anyone we want in the world,
that our restrictions do not lie
in the things that we cannot change about ourselves,
but in the things that we can change and do nothing about.
We must resonate with our choices
and know that they will always be the right ones,
because our physical experience in this world
is a reciprocation of our internal ideals,
and owning our choices allows us to look beyond the cloudiness
of institutionalized thought and disruption.
I know that my choices, and even all of yours,
will always be the right ones
as long as they are inspired by our natural and true selves.
How do I know this?
Because I choose it,
so it is my unconditional reality.
How powerful is an illusion of choice anyway
if I know I am constantly engaging experiences that I please.
So I may ask you again:
Are we free?
Do we have choice?
And can we control our thoughts?
Thank you.
(Applause)