Understanding Legal Concepts: Powers, Rights, Liberties, and Duties
"A liberty is what I may do without wrongdoing, a power is what I can do with legal effect, and a right is what others are obligated to do for me."
Definition of Power
In legal terms, power
is the ability to bring about changes in legal relationships. It refers to a
person's legally recognized ability to create, modify, or terminate rights,
duties, liabilities, or other legal ties—either for oneself or others. When a person
holds power that can affect the legal relations of others, it is termed
authority. When the power pertains to one's own legal standing, it is called
capacity.
Types of Power
Public Power: Held by
individuals as representatives of the state (e.g., lawmakers, judges,
executives). These powers include legislative, judicial, and executive
authority.
Private Power:
Exercised by individuals for their own personal or business interests, not on
behalf of the state.
Distinguishing Power
from Other Legal Concepts
Power vs. Right
A right, strictly
defined, is an interest protected by law, requiring others to act (or refrain
from acting) in a way that upholds that interest. Every right has a
corresponding duty imposed on another party.
A power, on the other
hand, allows a person to legally alter relationships or obligations. It does
not necessarily require another to act; thus, it lacks the correlative duty
that defines a right.
Power vs. Liberty
Liberty refers to a
person's freedom to act without legal interference—it’s the absence of legal
constraints.
Power is about having
the legal capability to change legal status or relationships. While liberty
speaks to permissibility, power speaks to effectiveness.
Power vs. Subjection
Subjection is the condition of being legally vulnerable to someone else's power. It is the opposite of holding power—it means your rights may be altered by another’s legal authority.
For example, a tenant
is subject to the landlord's power to terminate the lease.
Other Related Legal
Terms
Duty
A duty is a legal
obligation that corresponds to a right. If someone has a right, another party
must bear the duty to uphold it.
Immunity
Immunity means being
legally protected from another's power. A person with immunity cannot have
their legal situation altered by others. For instance, judges have immunity for
statements made in court proceedings.
Disability
A disability is the
lack of legal capacity—someone who cannot create or alter legal relations due
to age (infancy), mental incapacity (lunacy), or other disqualifications.
Liability
Liability is the legal
exposure to being affected by another’s liberty or power. If one person has a
legal liberty or power, another may be liable to bear its consequences.
The Hidden Senses:
Exploring Synesthesia and the Wonders of Perception
Can words be tasted?
Can sounds appear as swirling colors and shapes? These are not the fantasies of
hallucination or speculative fiction, but real experiences for people with a
rare neurological condition known as synesthesia.
Synesthesia is a scientifically recognized phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in another. It is not considered a disorder, nor does it usually require treatment. Instead, it is seen as a natural—though unusual—variation in perception where the boundaries between senses blur.
When Senses Intermingle
In lexical-gustatory
synesthesia, hearing a word or sound can trigger a taste—language becomes
flavorful, and the ears invoke sensations of the tongue.
A more common variant, chromesthesia, causes individuals to perceive sounds as colors or shapes. Music, for instance, might create a cascade of hues and forms, turning an auditory experience into a visual one.
Rather than being
limiting, these experiences often come with enhanced memory, creativity, and
sensory awareness. Many synesthetes excel in artistic or linguistic fields.
Synesthesia in
Creative Minds
Could literary icon
Marcel Proust have unknowingly been a synesthete? His epic Remembrance of
Things Past begins with the recollection of a madeleine cake’s taste triggering
vivid memories—an experience that resonates with synesthetic perception.
Though biographers
haven’t drawn this connection, other renowned creatives are known synesthetes:
Composers: Duke
Ellington, Franz Liszt, Jean Sibelius
Writers: Vladimir
Nabokov, Arthur Rimbaud
Artists: Vincent van
Gogh
These individuals experienced the world through a heightened, blended lens, allowing them to capture aspects of reality most of us never sense.
Expanded Consciousness
and Perception
In his book The Doors
of Perception, Aldous Huxley describes mind-expanding experiences under
mescaline—a substance that temporarily alters perception. He suggested that
consciousness itself could be broadened, whether through psychedelics,
meditation, or neurological differences like synesthesia.
Could mystics,
visionaries, and enlightened figures throughout history have had unusual
sensory experiences, now explainable by modern neuroscience?
For instance, the
Buddha, said to have reached enlightenment beneath the Bodhi tree, might have
consumed fruit rich in serotonin—a neurotransmitter that affects perception and
mood. Could his altered state of awareness be partly neurochemical?
The Brain’s Infinite Potential
The human brain
contains approximately 86 to 100 billion neurons, with up to 15 trillion
synaptic connections. Even the smallest variation in how these neurons
communicate can profoundly alter our perception of reality.
This intricate web of
neural pathways means that perception is not fixed—it is dynamic,
individualized, and sometimes extraordinary.
The Sixth Sense:
Wonder
Whether through
synesthesia, altered consciousness, or the marvel of brain complexity, we are
reminded that human perception is vast and mysterious. The true "sixth
sense" may be our capacity to marvel at the world—the sense of wonder that
reminds us of the boundless potential within our minds.
IF HE EXIST
I drive joy there was a doctor in Benaras who
spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this,
his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was
wasting 7 precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into
believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am
wasting 7 minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your
entire lifetime. I prefer to waste 7 minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should
you grudge me the 7minutes joy that I derive 4m.-
ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7thheaven moment of the week Shubhman gill
77 Top scorer in this series with 700+ runs
