Freedom

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I’ve had a go at this a few times, never really got a good discussion out of it.

An attempt to define freedom…

A simple question can get us started:
1) Is a man in a cage free, if he has no wish to leave that cage?

It seems to me there are two possible answers:

  • A) No. In which case we determine freedom based on the physical.
  • B) Yes. In which case freedom is in the mind.

No answers itself.

In the case of B, move forward…

However, if “yes”, that gives us one more question:
2) Is the man in the cage aware of a world beyond his cage?

If the man is aware of all the world beyond his cage, and yet chooses to remain in his cage, is he:

  • A) Still held captive by fears and such? (which takes us back to 1)
  • B) Free, because he has veiwed all options and made a choice?

In the case of B, he is free.

However, if the man is not aware of the world beynd his cage, that gives rise to a third question:
3) Is ignorance bliss?

  • A) Ignorance of other options means a lack of freedom.
  • B) Ignorance of other options does not mean a lack of freedom.

Would anyone care to create further logical constructs, or answer the final two questions?

2

We can’t judge if the ignorance is bliss without knowing the consequences of the knowledge.

3

Ignorance of other options does not mean a lack of freedom. If it did, only a true omniscient being would be free. There is alot to reality than what we simply think we know, we are just as irrogant as the man in that cage. Freedom is just a means for achieving bliss, when we reach true happiness whether we are ignorant or not is irrelevant.

4

Not so Raistlin. I agree with Adam on this for notice that he wrote

And this most certainly is true. You arn’t fully free unless you know every option you may choose from.

5

Maybe not. But you are still partially free (if it makes sense to speak in such terms) if you know that you have two options: to do or not to do A.

In any situation, someone who knows that he can to A or not do A is (or can be) free, even if he doesn’t know that there are also possibilities B, C and D.

So the fellow in the cage is in some sense free, as long as he is aware that he can leave.

6

but then, as I said before, only an omniscient being would be truely “free”. We can never know if we are aware of all the options or not but that doesn’t stop us from choosing between whatever option we have. You either free or not, you can’t be “more free”.

7

You should not be talking about “Free”. You whould be taking about “Free to do what?”

8

Ignorance can’t be bliss. The ignorant desires love. And when one does not get it he or one will suffer.

The enlightened does not want love, for a reason, and does not miss it, so the enlightened one does not suffer from the lack of it.

9

True. But this is a question of determinism vs free will. However, you can act more “free” if you do not fear.

10

What about options that we know exist, but we also know we cannot achieve.

Take flight. We know that there is self-powered flight, we see birds every day, but we cannot fly without heavy machinery.

In other words, we are not free to fly of our own power. However, we know that this option exists for other beings. Does this make us any less free than birds? Conversely, we can build many great things, but birds lack this power for a lack of opposable thumbs. Does that make them any less free than us.

11

The will to fly is a hunger for a sensation. You will enjoy it for a while, then you will get bored by it, it will be like driving your car. That is the law of all sensations. Freedom means you must get free of your hunger to experience sensations, and you must also be free from the fear of sensations. It is the middle way. Fear of sensation and hunger for sensation, you must take the path between the two extremes. The path of emptyness.

12

Exactly.

Some Ancient Rabbis thought: “Man has no natural desire for things he cannot possibly attain.”

13

The enlightened understands one gets love when one loves.

14

He sure does. But he also knows it will lead to suffering. Excpecting to get love back when giving will lead to suffering, cause you will not always get love back. So the only way to become free is to give without expecting to get something back.

15

The “enlightened” understands that it is pure foolishness to assert “I know what the enlightened know”. :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Hehe, so we are both fools? :wink:

17

I’m working on it. :stuck_out_tongue:

18

“Excpecting to get love back when giving will lead to suffering, cause you will not always get love back. So the only way to become free is to give without expecting to get something back.”

Do you undestand what I mean? I’d guess not, since you didn’t reply to this. So I will try to explain it again, or in another way.

The whole world, everything is interconnected, equations mixing, the future is settled, however, we can not see it. But the point is, since everything is interconnected, EVERYTHING affects EVERYTHING, yet in another form than it’s history. By doing a loveful action, you will set a trace, a part of, or a equation, we can call this “doing good”, because it does not result in suffering, atleast not for a while.

But, since we all contribute to this psychological interconnection, a person doing an action which will lead to suffering will also affect you, since you are probably(?) apart of samsara, meaning, you depend on others to reach happynes, we are all, I believe, a part of samsara, dependant. Some might have reached Nirvana and are alive, some are dead.

Since you and me depend on others to not suffer, we depend on getting love back, but we might not, we don’t know what our actions result in. Even if you do 100% good actions, you might get the result of a lot of bad actions, meaning, you will suffer, eventhough you do 100% good. If you expect this, to recieve what you give, you will get dissappointed, and you might give up doing good. However, this will, as you probably understand, result in more suffering. Some are lucky, they do a lot of bad things, but they do not recieve the good of their actions, others might recieve it, they get the love you cause/give.

It is unfair, so don’t expect it to be fair. This will lead to suffering. Give with out expecting to recieve, that is the key to happiness. But that requires a full understanding of “not-self” and a lot of progress in the buddhist practice. Hope you get there m8, hope we all do.

Because, I believe, at the moment, the world i moving to darkness. Egoism is winning ground.

19

Highwind wrote:

I respectfully disagree. And this is precicly what I meant. To love, to give I depend on no one. If my love is not returned it has changed nothing in me. I may still love without my love being returned and what I was pointing out is that I feel loved (even if love is not returned) when I love.

A person may be loved by many and still feel un-loved would you agree to this? Therefore how does one get love? By loving. He is not dependant on the return of love for he is enlightened to the fact that he feels love when he gives love.

Let me quote Buddah for you to help demonstrate my point a bit further.

A man heard about Buddah and he wanted to test him. So the man set out to meet Buddah and test him, to see if he were truly enlightened. He met Buddah and right away started to verbally abuse him constantly. He was relentless in his attacks. However the man was producing no effect on Buddah. Now after a while Buddah decided to stop the man and ask him a question, he said “sir may I ask you a question?” The man stoped his attacks and said “sure.”

Buddah said to him “If a man offers another man a gift and the person refuses to accept the gift to whom then does the gift belong?”

The man replied “Why to the person who offered it”

Buddah smiled and said “Well then if I refuse to accept your verbal abuse to whom them does it belong?”

With that the man was speechless and walked away.

You see my friend this may be said of a lot of things and I do not believe one’s self is dependant upon others, rather we are free to choose how we feel and react to the world.

If I love and my love is not returned to whom does my love belong? :slight_smile:

20

True freedom—the most truthful instance of freedom, I suppose must be thought of in a metaphysical sense. That is the freedom of choice always exists, and therefore, even the choice to do nothing is still a choice bounded by such freedom. If such a philosophy is in place, then it is rather easy to answer your quandries:

1) Is a man in a cage free, if he has no wish to leave that cage?

The man in the cage is free regardless if he wishes to leave the cage or not. If he wishes to leave, he freely made such a choice despite being bounded. If he wishes to stay, once again, he exhibits the freedom to choose stay.

Though this may not answer your questions in some “pragmatic” sense, there is still some benefit in viewing freedom strictly metaphysically, since it puts the onus on decision and action and choice, rather than determining freedom simply as some state of being.

3) Is ignorance bliss?

The problem with asking such a question is that it presupposes both terms to co-exist in the same temporal frame. What the real quandry is: “Will being in the state of ignorance bring bliss at a future moment in time?” From this perspective, it is clear that being “ignorant” is a choice. And as such, this choice can bring one any future instance of happiness/fear/loathing or otherwise.

In the event that I am ignorant of an NHL hockey series going to 7 games; and let us also assume that my team is winning 3 - 2 in the series; then such ignorance will bring about a future state of bliss. However, once someone informs me that an NHL hockey series goes to 7 games, such bliss may be lost since I will now be aware of the future possibility of my team losing.

Conversely, if I am ignorant of an anvil thrown off a skyscraper and seering toward my skull… chances are my ignorance will bring about a future state of immense pain—if not death.