Title: 7,000 Million Degrees of Freedom: One Earth, Seven Billion Worlds
Author: Sehdev Kumar
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-1-5320-6476-0
Genre: Philosophy
Pages: 237
Reviewed by: Carl Conrad
Pacific Book Review
Filled with a near endless list of references and accompanying explanations or anecdotes of their meanings, Sehdev Kumar’s book 7,000 Million Degrees of Freedom explores the many concepts and rationales for freedom that have been purported by many of our greatest thinkers, philosophers, religious leaders, politicians, poets, song writers, and authors as they sought to reveal the character and qualities upon which this virtue rests.
Mr. Kumar discusses the issue of freedom, trying to discover its basic elements from the writings and speeches of historic figures as he divides it into various categories: freedom from things – like fear, suffering, ridicule, and mockery – to the freedom of having things – like life, love, happiness, and dignity. In his pursuit of freedom, he speculates as to whether it is a concept or an action; that is, is it something we seek, or something we do, and he seems to find that it is both.
For the entire book’s exhaustive list of quotations and anecdotes, there never seems to be a single defining and conclusive statement to summarize the concept of freedom, yet perhaps this is because Mr. Kumar believes the subject is too extensive to be narrowly defined, or perhaps it is too specific to be broadly defined. This makes it, as he has labeled it in the title, 7,000 million degrees of freedom.
It is difficult to determine if freedom is the absence of certain things or the presence of them because, in many ways, freedom is, as much as anything, a state of mind. How one views freedom depends upon how much freedom one already has as much as it depends upon how much freedom is available beyond that. So, like the answer to the question “How much farther do we have to go?” it depends upon your destination not just the available choices.
Perhaps it is the final two sections of Mr. Kumar’s book — “Freedom to Live and Die With Dignity” and “Live Free or Die: The Enigma of Freedom” – that the ultimate questions about the permissibility of suicide and assisted suicide (with a doctor’s help) bring questions of freedom to choose life or death to their most direct confrontation. While not advocating either an acceptance or rejection of either position, he impartially describes the essential factors in both choices, and shows how crucial our concepts of freedom are to the way in which we make or accept those decisions.
So, for the reader who enjoys philosophical discourse in easy-to-understand language, but also wishes to learn about the bedrock issues upon which that discourse can be built, 7,000 Million Degrees of Freedom will enliven your reading at the same time that it enriches your thinking.
