What is freedom?

[Jox]

What is freedom?   
Chapter 11 (Page 77 - 82). 

[Junko]

What you make out of it!

[Karl]

It is flawed logic to offer 'conditioning' of the mind as a refutation of freedom. This speaks to Plato's forms once again. Freedom being an intangible something otherworldly than man has but a pale representation of, an illusion.

 

Freedom is freedom from coercion. Reason can only be applied when there is no coercive force being used on a human being. it comes down to this 'don't hurt people or steal their stuff'. Freedom, in this sense is purely a political concept. A mans rights are to his life, his property and his freedom to pursue happiness. As this pertains to every man equally the ramifications are that one man may not steal, enslave, threaten, incarcerate or otherwise prevent another man exercising their own equal rights.

 

Freedom is freedom for a man to use his mind, it has nothing at all to do with what the man thinks, only that he is free to think. Freedom is therefore purely about the external. Yet man is not free from gravity, the need to eat, to breathe. He is no free of the potential to fail in an endeavour, to flounder, to get disease, or grow old and die. These things man cannot choose and is not free to choose, so freedom, where there is choice, is purely freedom from the coercion of other men and of himself on other men.

 

I will be neither my brothers keeper, nor he mine.

[Marblehead]

Interesting concept.  It actually goes againt my current thinking.  (Damn!  Another contradiction!)

 

Are we really free if we have to make choices?

 

I have, for a long time, associated free will (freedom) with the capacity to make choices.

 

Now I am caused to think.  Damn!  How boring.

 

If we need make choices are we really free?  If we need to make choices we are not living intuitively or spontaneously.

[Karl]

You equivocated on the word 'free'. That's because you arent defining it. You are using it in an arbitrary and fluid way to mean different things. You are not free from nature because you are part of nature. If you see yourself as you are then it's clear. I've said previously that you have refused to integrate two opposing philosophies and where they interface you find yourself in a quandry. You have chosen that ;-)

[Marblehead]

 I've said previously that you have refused to integrate two opposing philosophies and where they interface you find yourself in a quandry. You have chosen that ;-)

But my life is very interesting and entertaining.

 

Yes, I am a part of nature, part of Dao.  And nature is dynamic; Dao is dynamic.

 

So what is freer?

 

Either

 

Or

 

Both

 

Undefined

[Karl]

But my life is very interesting and entertaining.

 

Yes, I am a part of nature, part of Dao.  And nature is dynamic; Dao is dynamic.

 

So what is freer?

 

Either

 

Or

 

Both

 

Undefined

What is, is.

[Apech]

Freedom is when they delete your account.  But it never happens.  So freedom is a myth.

[Apech]

What is, is.

 

What is?

[Karl]

What is?

Is what ?

[Marblehead]

How about:

 

Freedom is being without the need to make choices?

[Brian]

Freedom starts with sovereignty over one's own energy and the fruits thereof but progresses towards (and through) the liberating awareness that energy is not one's own. Most find that disquieting or even threatening and instead find comfort in the idea that freedom is the ability to choose between material options (iPhone vs Android, Coke vs Pespi, fries vs chips (cheezboigie, cheezboigie...)

Edited August 11, 2016 by Brian

[Karl]

How about:

 

Freedom is being without the need to make choices?

That's the communistic version. The communist party make the choices for you, thus freeing you up from all those nasty, horrible, unpleasant choices. Utopia. Tyrants of all shapes and sizes do the same and of course slave owners that are really just doing the slaves a favour by freeing them from those oppressive choices.

 

Orwell said it best 'freedom is slavery'. You seem to agree with Big Brother.

[Karl]

Freedom starts with sovereignty over one's own energy and the fruits thereof but progresses towards (and through) the liberating awareness that energy is not one's own. Most find that disquieting or even threatening and instead find comfort in the idea that freedom is the ability to choose between material options (iPhone vs Android, Coke vs Pespi, fries vs chips (cheezboigie, cheezboigie...)

whos is it and why do you think it's liberating ?

[Marblehead]

That's the communistic version. The communist party make the choices for you, thus freeing you up from all those nasty, horrible, unpleasant choices. Utopia. Tyrants of all shapes and sizes do the same and of course slave owners that are really just doing the slaves a favour by freeing them from those oppressive choices.

 

Orwell said it best 'freedom is slavery'. You seem to agree with Big Brother.

 

Wow!  That's just the total opposite of where my thoughts were.

 

NO, you didn't even get close to my thoughts with that one.

[Jox]

What you make out of it!

 

Hey, miss Junko, is that your dog ...  hahaha ...       

Edited August 11, 2016 by Jox

[Brian]

whos is it and why do you think it's liberating ?

I've written a number of times over the years about the expansion of self and how this impacts self-interested motivation but those comments have always been in active threads and therefore tend to get buried in digital dust. Perhaps some day I'll create a thread in my PPD on the topic.

[Karl]

Wow!  That's just the total opposite of where my thoughts were.

 

NO, you didn't even get close to my thoughts with that one.

I know, but I stopped you evading and brought you down to earth on the implications of that line of thought.

 

That's what I meant in the other post. You can evade, but you cannot evade the consequences of doing so. In contrast to the tyrant is the omniscient, indestructable robot that requires nothing at all. This would be the alternative for being free from choice. This robot would have no need to do anything at all, it could not even kill itself, it would exist forever devoid of feelings, passions, or creativity.

[Karl]

I've written a number of times over the years about the expansion of self and how this impacts self-interested motivation but those comments have always been in active threads and therefore tend to get buried in digital dust. Perhaps some day I'll create a thread in my PPD on the topic.

It wouldn't be self though would it ? If you have the realisation that there is no self because you cannot own that energy of self, then self is gone and so has any motivation along with it. You could no longer hold any opinion on self because there would be no self to hold any opinions.

[Marblehead]

Well, from a totally nihilistic perspective I will agree with you Karl.  But we know I'm not a Nihilist.  Just not one of my labels.

 

Yes, no need to make choices because someone else has made all the choices the need be made in our life.  Damn!!!  That sounds like marriage.

 

I'm on the other side but then I'm not a Hedonist either.

 

Just trying to walk the middle path my way.

[Apech]

How about:

 

Freedom is being without the need to make choices?

 

 

Don't know, can't decide.

[Karl]

Well, from a totally nihilistic perspective I will agree with you Karl.  But we know I'm not a Nihilist.  Just not one of my labels.

 

Yes, no need to make choices because someone else has made all the choices the need be made in our life.  Damn!!!  That sounds like marriage.

 

I'm on the other side but then I'm not a Hedonist either.

 

Just trying to walk the middle path my way.

You and that bloody middle path :-) A hedonist is someone that chooses pleasure as the value, but as pleasure is the result of obtaining a value the hedonist has it all back to front. They are chasing a phantom. You cannot really eat with your eyes, but that's what the hedonist is trying to do. You aren't that. You aren't the robot or the tyrant either. Neither should you attempt to walk a line between these extremes, all you get is the position you are now in. Wrestling yourself into a big ball.

[Karl]

Don't know, can't decide.

That's because you don't have a choice. Your free.

[Brian]

It wouldn't be self though would it ? If you have the realisation that there is no self because you cannot own that energy of self, then self is gone and so has any motivation along with it. You could no longer hold any opinion on self because there would be no self to hold any opinions.

Self begins to dissipate as it expands and the trajectory becomes clear even while duality still remains. Ultimately, the observed and the observer simultaneously merge and vanish, which seems paradoxical from a dualistic perspective and irrational from a physicalistic one.

 

<shrug>

 

De tarbaby, he say nothin'.

[blue eyed snake]

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

 Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune