“Freedom” is a phenomenon in the natural world. This phenomenon—and indirectly the question of free will—is explored using a variety of systems-theoretic ideas. It is argued that freedom can emerge only in systems that are partially determined and partially random, and that freedom is a matter of degree. The paper considers types of freedom and their conditions of possibility in simple living systems and in complex living systems that have modeling subsystems. In simple living systems, types of freedom include independence (...) from fixed materiality, internal rather than external determination, activeness that is unblocked and holistic, and the capacity to choose or alter environmental constraint. In complex living systems, there is freedom in satisfaction of lower level needs that allows higher potentials to be realized. Several types of freedom also manifest in the modeling subsystems of these complex systems: in the transcending of automatism in subjective experience, in reason as instrument for passion yet also in reason ruling over passion, in independence from informational colonization by the environment, and in mobility of attention. Considering the wide range of freedoms in simple and complex living systems allows a panoramic view of this diverse and important natural phenomenon. (shrink)

Speaking of truth inescapably confronts us with paradoxes, i.e., correct deductive propositions like a Cretan claiming that all Cretans lie which (due to negative systemic self-reference) end up as circular contradictions, indeterminable questions, or dilemmas. Faced with the numerous paradoxical statements (apparently 82) found in the Bible, the German Protestant reformer Sebastian Franck (14991542), for example, conceded that any truth of God cannot be found in language but only in the immediate silent experience of God. Likewise, believers in an uncompromising (...) search for true facts about this world would certainly agree with (though arguably misappropriate) Wittgenstein in claiming that Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Paradoxes this article claims must neither be feared, nor avoided, nor become subject to hopeless attempts in searching for logic solutions. Paradoxes lead the way to truth in demonstrating that questions of truth, or truth claims, cannot be adequately addressed within the same system of communication (ortho-system) in which they are raised. The encounter with paradoxes (e.g., a God who creates but is uncreated) elevates language and communication onto a meta-level (or system) of communication in which new means (like for instance Gdel's numbering) are needed to speak of what is real but apparently cannot be true. These means, however, will turn out to be likewise paradoxes that furthermore call for new and creative ways of speaking of such truths that previously could not be communicated. The creative admission of paradoxes into communication philosophy will not solve age-old problems or dilemmas; however, it will playfully open up the conversation of science with religion to the creative means of the arts were truth is not argued but performed in paradoxes. (shrink)