UR Part of It

Freedom = Conscious possibilities

From a human point of view there is a wide range of possible states of awareness of living and non-living things apparently existing outside the individual self, thoughts, feelings, and sensations apparently within the individual self, and a wide variety of available actions in the domains where action is possible.

The known range of possibilities changes for the individual and for the collective species consciousness based on what is included within the individual or collective boundary of our awareness. Change in the size of our collective conscious possibilities is an ongoing dynamic process that occurs over time through the contributions of individuals and collections of individuals.

The scope (number of individuals aware of a possibility) and spread (how quickly that possibility becomes known to more individuals) of any particular possibility through the human collective is mediated by several factors. Mass communications, individual communication, writing, art, and reading, and formal education, are all avenues for the expansion of the scope of consciousness throughout the human community.

On an individual level change in conscious possibilities occurs through expansion and contraction of the individuals? boundary of awareness. Awareness at the individual level can be described in terms analogous to the dynamics of the growth of the universe. On the macro scale there is gravity that tends to make boundaries smaller in area through pulling material toward a central mass. There also appears to be a force that is pushing things apart or expanding the universe.

The boundary of individual consciousness is not much different functionally, there is a force pulling toward the center and a force pushing outward. The effect on the boundary of awareness is that the relative balance of forces of expansion and contraction mediate the size and shape of the boundary of awareness. Viewed over time the expansionary force is somewhat stronger than the contractive force and individual growth in the boundary of awareness occurs over a given lifetime. Any particular slice of time for an individual can be characterized by, expansion, contraction or equilibrium, but over time, except where illness establishes a new constricted baseline or causes a process of continual constriction, the overall trend is toward expansion.