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What does it mean to be free? What is the overall aspect of freedom that is desirable? Does the human really need to have freedom? Or, can humanity be sufficient on the principle of oversight by a government or authority.

But really, apart from partisanship, what does it mean to be free? What are your concepts of freedom? Is it freedom from money, state, or military? What does it mean to be free and is such a poorly defined word capable of existing in reality?

rolleyes
Tank...
Why is there no freedom? Am I not free to say 'hotdogs' the next time I decide to speak, or to not? I believe I am... I just expressed that right in saying 'hotdogs.'

And since when is the idea of free will, because that does seem to be the sense you are using the term 'free' in, meant to invoke some idea of divinity, or 'centre-of-of-the-world'-ness?

Anyway, you should know Tank: the question to be asked is freedom for who?

Choices are probability which= mathmatical. They are based on prior experiences and nueral connections which make up the subjective stimulus consciousness. Which means that the subject has his or her own subjective interpretation of an experience which is again probability.

Some say infinite, I say limited due to the social environment.

Who says I know what? Knowledge is based upon past experiences which must mean your knowledge begged you to ask that specific question.

Some people dont have much of experiences, thats why we say common sense isnt so common nor scientific

Here is the issue though, you don't know what information really is. What is thought or choice that it is defined by mathematics or even experience. If humans tend to look for patterns where they do not exist then how can anyone say that something is subjective when they do not know were the objectiveness comes from.

I understand what you are saying tank, but you still haven't answered how you know. You told me about about why you know but not how you know something is or is not what you accept about freedom. To say it more accurately, you merely told me the why not the how. Two things to be different for sure. Additionally what is knowledge that you can say what you have said or deduce anything without first having experienced a completely new set of variables dependent on what is already known?

More over, is freedom something you currently believe to be experiencing right now? Can you sum up all your relationships for me based on your idea of freedom? Start with the person you love the most, the one that would cause you the most pain to loose.

That does not mean you know but I understand your point. However, in regards to a free action that does not seem to work very well. Why does anyone need to know why a rock moves when you kick it?

Not to be an ultra dork about this but I am interested in what people think about freedom.

Engels in Anti-Duhring (Yes, I am the high priest here, dispensing holy wisdom razz )

Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the insight into necessity {die Einsicht in die Notwendigheit}. "Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not understood [begriffen]." Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves -- two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject.
My bold and italics.

We do have freedom. But tank would disagree here: Marx is too hegelian for him, and so must be this piece of Engles citing Hegel.


For the lulz? Maybe they want to replicate it under different conditions? In any case, I didn't say why there is a cause and effect relationship, only that there is one.

If you want to play with definitions outside of reality, go ahead, but we can, for the limited purposes of this thread pretend the following:
KNOW: to have certain knowledge of
KNOWLEDGE: infotmation, data, whatever.

I know that if I kick a rock it will move.
I possess certain knowldedge that if I kick a rock it will move.

If you are finding the 'what do you mean' part too much, then go to a philosophy guild. Here, we concentrate on much more practical things: the application of our worldviews.

How do we know? What does it matter? If we are indeed in a cartesian dream, then how will the knowledge of such affect out interations with the dream world? This dream world that I may be imagining has very consistent physics on the level I can percieve, and everythingelse seems to be how it should be, and by that, I mean that I have a worl view which accords to the phenomena encountered.

I guess this is the big difference between you anti-communists and us: We don't care about that because it makes no difference in practice.

So the slaves on the latifundia were free, just scared of sharing the fate of Spartacus?
Does that mean it isn't rape if the victim follows the rapists orders out of fear of violence?