First I would like to apologise to Slappy for what was interpreted as ‘flaming’, but as Skeptic noted, it was in jest, and I should have put a couple of smilies around the place or something. I did like his work, I think it’s just a social communication problem, with everyone coming from different social groups all around the world. Anyone around where I live would have thought I was trying to be funny.
I like what Slade7 was saying about Freedom perhaps being life where every decision has that option to not decide, at least I think that’s what he was saying. Maybe he meant freedom is having no motivation, which I think would also be true, but in reality wouldn’t leave much room for being happy, but then again freedom doesn’t have to bring happiness or contentment does it?.
Would a acceptable definition of freedom be to be able to have you way?
If you try to make something change and it changes then that is a freedom, if it does not change then the freedom belongs to that which opposed you. Or is that getting a bit too general?
In reference to Theoreticality’s work, how was freedom defined? He started with…
Which really begs for the definition of ‘freedom’ in that context, as that just doesn’t work as I see it. ‘not dependent on anything besides the person’ except maybe the cage we were all talking about which could limit your freedom considerably, but then again that was still being argued too.
I think the Theoreticality’s ‘self’ should be seperated as the ‘independent self’ as the Self would include the ‘herd self’ instead of being it’s opposite.
I would like to put to Theoreticality that his ‘freedom’ should be changed to ‘independence’.
As to Theoreticality’s last post in reguards to the decision making, as was mentioned above, you have freedom when you can decide not to dicide. And as far as being controlled by your desires, your desires are part of you, they make up part of who you are, but you can still act against your disires. That’s what real freedom is, the ability to create your own decisions. Well it’s part of it anyway.
Can we agree about that this freedom can be both good and bad? Or is it always good when we are able create our own decisions?
The term freedom can be reflected about in many different levels, and I also think that’s what we are doing here.
There is the metaphysical freedom. In a Newtonian universe there exist no freedom; it’s deterministic.
Freedom is limited to the information you are aware of.
Freedom have moral limitations.
Freedom have physical limitations.
The metaphysical substance will in it’s turn have influence over #2-3, that will change depending on what #1 is. #4 is quite static, but you can (in some cases) overcome such limitations over time by gaining information.
It’s hard for me to find some space where we can talk about that we are free from something else. Life is not about separated units; life exist in the space between the units. In my opinion the mental I does not exist at all, it just exist as a unit because of the communication flow between the different parts of your body. This is the same thing you will find in nature as a whole and the universe as a whole.
I still say that the only freedom we have is to go deeper in our calculations, that way we can interact with other units in a deeper way, and also gain new levels of information. But we are never free from what we will find when we go deeper in the calculations, and the new calculation-level will in it’s turn make us interact with new levels of information outside ourselves; both new input and output. We will also never be free from the full range of life’s relations that we must interact with. If your body should work it’s different organs can not seek independence of each other and seek freedom. Their goal is to optimize the interactivity so the organism as a whole reach new levels of information.
I thank you for your support and no harm done Mentat Monkey. I know that my post did not make so much sense to all of you, but when I read or write something, the best way for me to understand is to relate it to things that I have experience or thought of. When I, or any of you read it, I am certain that you understand some of it, not because I am explaining everything directly but because of its empirical sense to us. I think that philosophical belief is derived from the experience of the senses and not from reflection or reason alone.
Back on topic: Freedom is a mental condition-a condition of the spirit. All of us are free, if we choose to acknowledge it. To borrow from Rose Wilder Lane, freedom is control of self. The essence of your “self” is your mind, soul, and spirit. We all are always free to change our thoughts, improve our knowledge and understanding, change our attitudes and beliefs-the inner part of each of us. You can be free in a cage, if you chose to be, with no desire to leave, or it can be the opposite. I believe that I am free as a person. I can take a piss outside, drink pop or do anything else that I want to. The problem is irresponsibility and immaturity. If I want to kill your mother I know that I have no right to do so, thus I can think that I am not free because I cannot do what I want. If I go trough with this action, I will be thrown in prison and go mad with anger because I am not “free”. Freedom is completely accessible by everyone as long as it does not affect the freedom of others.
no, a man in ignorance is not free. this is because what is is within us all. concepts like ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘they’ etc. and their denotions and connotations and what they lead to are, well, misleading. As the reality is that there is nothing else than what is and it is within “our” and “others” bodies, ignorance of this makes you less free. To not oppress what is is freedom unlimited. It is loving everybody because our bodies are only cages (!) of what is. Being ignorant of this makes you captive of religions, ideologies or whatever concepts humans have created (like “the way to have a nice-looking hair”).
