Free Your Mind

by M.P. Neary

skull

harnessing

accurate

beforehand.

harness

airy

unshakeable

threshold

ego-enhancing

gambling,

frantically

embrace

bonkers

bills

twitch

pounce

saber-tooth

grief

damn

stillness

amok

outcome?

sip

boost

peach

halt

damn

poin...

bu...

nuis...

crackle

chatter

uphill

hell

unfulfilling

anyway?

Earlier I mentioned the fear of missing out (FOMO) which is basically an internet addiction that ruins people’s lives. This shouldn’t happen at all. Technology shouldn’t turn people into network slaves or i-zombies. Technology should empower minds to think creatively and freely. It should boost freedom of thought - providing no harm is done to anyone, of course. An individual can never be free without freedom of thought.

In his famous story, a gathering of people exists chained to a wall of a cave for all their lives, facing a blank wall. In front of them is a roaring fire casting

shadows that look like moving figures. They give these shadows names and make up stories for ‘them’. Over time these flickering images eventually become the prisoner’s only sense of reality. One prisoner, the philosopher, breaks free from the cave, refusing to believe in this false view of the world. He escapes into the real light of the sun and perceives true reality for the first time.

freewill,

Poor Neo. This is like Plato’s prisoner returning to the shadows of the cave and chaining himself back up again.

surrender

deluded

Technology must be used in as neutral a way as possible, not blind us to the truth about whom we are as real people.

Some people give far too much personal power to this false reality. Instead of viewing technology as it really is - a set of tools that should improve our lives - it is viewed by many as a substitute

trolls

enslavement

v...

‘Catfishing’ – this is an online dating hoax where internet predators fabricate online identities with false pictures and life stories in order to trap unsuspecting people into emotional relationships or extortion.