All thought is 95% (accuracy +/- 3%) unconscious thought.
The mind is embodied.
The ego says, Halt, Hold it.
The container is one of the primary schemas in which we think.
If you put it all together its spells:
• Human ideas are conditioned by deep psychological and social forces.
• We can operate freely but our horizons are limited.
• To facilitate free action we must recognize these horizons and these forces.
• Our horizons are determined by the historical reality into which we are born.
• Knowledge of our horizons and forces marks a beginning of free action and an ideal marks the telos of our action.
• Democracy is a suitable ideal as our telos.
A rat in a cage has the freedom to run around that cage, unless you leash it to one tiny portion of the cage. If it can reach food and water it has the freedom to eat and drink if it so chooses, unless you take them away.
Heck you can always unleash it, open the door to the cage and let it run loose around the building or outside, but, it is not free to explore the universe.
There is always a cage of some sort or another is there not? Perhaps freedom should be thought of in degrees?
Another grain to think about: Sometimes the rat will not leave the cage at all even though the other rats have left. It will sit there quite happily eating its meal, drinking and playing in the cage. Its not afraid it is merely content. Perhaps it might be the smart one.
I am inclined to think that we humans are seldom capable of exercising the freedom of eating and drinking.
Yes,we are always in a container. However, we can, through the use of our intellect and imagination, expand that container endlessly.
It is in the use of our intellect that we can best exercise our freedom. I suggest to every adult that, after the school days are over, they ‘get a life–get an intellectual life’ and broaden your freedom greatly.
If you would like to see why I agree with your statement you can read from paragraphs 5, 10, 14 and the first sentence of 15 at the same link.
If not you should at least go here, click on page “1” at the bottom of the page, scroll down to about 1 1/4" from the bottom and for old times sake read Kriswest 04.28.01 6.1 (1). I was going to thank you for your effort at sometime and now is as good a time as any.
I will take me a while to read most of your statements. But in regards to your question I copy one of my posts.
Ego says, HOLD IT, TIME OUT!
The ego is our command center; it is the “internal gyroscope†and creator of time for the human. It controls the individual; especially it controls individual’s response to the external environment. It keeps the individual independent from the environment by giving the individual time to think before acting. It is the device that other animal do not have and thus they instinctively respond immediately to the world.
The id is our animal self. It is the human without the ego control center. The id is reactive life and the ego changes that reactive life into delayed thoughtful life. The ego is also the timer that provides us with a sense of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. By doing so it makes us into philosophical beings conscious of our self as being separate from the ‘other’ and placed in a river of time with a terminal point—death. This time creation allows us to become creatures responding to symbolic reality that we alone create.
As a result of the id there is a “me†to which everything has a focus of being. The most important job the ego has is to control anxiety that paradoxically the ego has created. With a sense of time there comes a sense of termination and with this sense of death comes anxiety that the ego embraces and gives the “me†time to consider how not to have to encounter anxiety.
Evidence indicates that there is an “intrinsic symbolic process†is some primates. Such animals may be able to create in memory other events that are not presently going on. “But intrinsic symbolization is not enough. In order to become a social act, the symbol must be joined to some extrinsic mode; there must exist an external graphic mode to convey what the individual has to express…but it also shows how separate are the worlds we live in, unless we join our inner apprehensions to those of others by means of socially agreed symbols.â€
“What they needed for a true ego was a symbolic rallying point, a personal and social symbol—an “Iâ€, in order to thoroughly unjumble himself from his world the animal must have a precise designation of himself. The “Iâ€, in a word, has to take shape linguistically…the self (or ego) is largely a verbal edifice…The ego thus builds up a world in which it can act with equanimity, largely by naming names.†The primate may have a brain large enough for “me†but it must go a step further that requires linguistic ability that permits an “I†that can develop controlled symbols with “which to put some distance between him and immediate internal and external experience.â€
I conclude from this that many primates have the brain that is large enough to be human but in the process of evolution the biological apparatus that makes speech possible was the catalyst that led to the modern human species. The ability to emit more sophisticated sounds was the stepping stone to the evolution of wo/man. This ability to control the vocal sounds promoted the development of the human brain.
• Human ideas are responses to physiological need, a behavioural cypher.
• We operate almost purely in a reactive fashion to perception.
• To facilitate greater effective internal bargaining between short-term and long-term desires we have become (more) conscious.
• Our horizons are determined simply by our location at any point in time.
• Knowledge of our horizons and the forces influencing us makes very little difference, except for the purposes of internal narrative.
• The stockroom floor is a reasonable allegory of the mind, or perhaps an old Greek forum.
Another way of thinking about freedom is as possibility or potential or detachment or independence.
As such we can then formulate the opinion that freedom, in any degree, is an increase in the attainment of potential and so a detachment from possibility.
Any increase in freedom would be accompanied by a decrease in caring and dependence.
Within common sense limits yes. But if you mean freedom that transcends our nature and environment, of course not. Daniel Dennett addresses the problem in Freedom Evolves (2003). In a nutshell, the more we know, and the more we empower ourself to know of and access as many choices as possible, the freer we are. I would add to it that one should identify their fears and fly in face of the maladaptive ones so as to lose the constraints they impose. Dennett’s book is a great work of philosophy that works like self help.
Freedom is self-determination. At the time when a decision is to be made what determines our degree of self-determination? In a nation such as the United States we have a great deal of self-determination, in fact, I would guess that our latitude for options is much more a factor of our character and our knowledge than it is determined by forces outside of our self.
In a nation like the US we determine our degree of self-determination by what habits we have developed and how those habits have molded our character, curiosity, self-reliance, self-esteem, etc. In other words the manner that we have prepared our self previous to the moment of determination dramatically determines how free we are. We set our own boundaries by the way that we have developed our character before the time of any particular decision.
Just like an athlete who has trained for an event. The moves that the athlete can make and the degree of skills brought to the contest is determined before the contest begin. The tennis player can only make the moves that s/he has formed into habits before the match.
laughs such bizzare contexts to freedom. self determinazation, choices within boundries, an illusion of safety, potential and detavhment, this is truly an interesting context that I shall ponder greatly. to say the least it has made my day.
I am more inclined to the concept of freedom being an expression of self determination, one that can be expanded by realizing the nature of our limitations, that and expanding upon them.
by the way, for someone whos name refers to a clean slate you sure seem to have a number of pre-set ideas.
I’d laugh but for some reason it’s not that funny. if you are proud of your Ideas and they grany you peace than perhaps you are right to have them, but if you beleive they themselves are right than I’m afraid you may need to rethink them.
Or at the very least let them take a break while you ask questions regarding the deeper topics. A great tradgety among many is to beleive themselves right and the world to be limited when only they are limited and what we concider right is mearly a shadow of the truth.
I’d say I was like you once but you wouldn’t beleive me so it would be pointless, I’d tell you that what I say will make sense some day but you would scoff at this and treat me like I’m ignorant. simply said do as you will, beleive what you will, and in turn die as you will. perhaps you will see my meaning then.
Free - Open - Chaotic - Changing - New - Unique - Deviant.
Entrapped - Closed - Stable - Linear - Old - Same - Conforming.
Too much freedom, or too much control, is deadly, depending on the case. For example, imagine powerful ancient monarchs, managing to enslave and control everyone else, having far more power, influence, and freedom than them, causing a disharmony between choice and autocracy.
Life is a mix of both slavery and freedom, especially in the human case, because it requires both stability and change. Too much of either would destroy you or degrade you.
Strange, you are the second person to try and save my soul today.
I would not say my answers, my answers of the moment anyway, give me peace exactly, but they do comfort me in that there is very little that life could have changed in its crawl from the muck to the skyscrapers. A certain degree of inevitability soothes regret and sweeps sin from your shoulder.
So, okay, to suspend my beliefs for a while, what are the deeper issues…?
And if I say we are free only in that what we will do at the point of a given decision cannot be predicted with exactness, either by ourselves or another - discounting an omniscient being, and that it is only this that saves us from absolute determinism, will you think of me less harshly…?
You wouldn’t be the guy who sent me a book not so long ago would you…?
laughs I have no intention to save your soul, simply said though such views are more harmful than they are useful, but then this may entirly be my own oppinion.
As for thinking you less harshly, perhaps, at least it opens to the possability of more.
Now concider this assuming determinism as a factor where inate training pulls the strings, and assuming you are aware of this, then assume you decided to base your choices on their outcomes knowing this, rather than your feelings on the issue.
The choices you make will likely be diffrent than the ones you were trained to make on reflex. Or at the very least have a diffrent reason behind them.
now also bearing in mind that determanism depends on absolutes, now if their are said absolutes why are their so many unknowns remaining. and why are their still variants to the known rules. just something to consider.
i don’t unedrstand what you mean by telos. telos means an ultimate end according to m-w.
if you meant an end, what does ‘democracy is a suitable ideal as our end’ mean?
yes, you can say we are limited by our psychological forces, or you can say they represent the possibility for even greater power. we have some freedom already, and to the will, the subconscious psychological forces may as well be considered its context, just like our physical environment is our context. but what if some of our environment (i.e. our subconcsious)is actually in our mind? then that gives us greater potential power over our environment.
so it’ sa matter of perspective whether our horizons are limited by part of our minds being subconscious/conditioned/deep, or are broadened by the fact that part of the context in which we make decisions is our own mind and therefore theoretically changeable.
introducing this idea doesn’t make our horizons any smaller than they were
but it does give them the potential to be greater
I have chosen democracy as our telos, as our ideal to which we strive, as our North Star that guides our choices. Democracy is like the carpenters level, it is what we can measure the correctness of our decisions along the way. Everyone needs a compass when trying to decide with fork of the road to take.
I apologize for not posting sooner, I have been laid up and still should be But, I suffer rat in a cage syndrome forced bedrest is so horrifically painfully trapping. I feel better but, am risking aggravating it, but, my mind cannot lay down. When are you going to publish? That whole thread is the best thread I have ever had the honor of participating in. You and your thread bring out the best and most interesting parts in people as does your site. So while you thank me , it is I who should thank you.
I have read what you asked and agree.
I find that the subject of freedom is a wellspring of emotions.
Some believe that the more choices one has the more free they are, but choices can be the bars on a cage if one is not careful. Too many choices and you mire yourself in decisions. One or two choices give you the freedom to act and move. Perception and what exists within are the freedoms. A slave may feel better off if he/she sees starving poor while they are housed, fed and treated well and so in a sense they are free.
A starving poor may look at the slave and decide they are better off because they have the freedom to choose even though they die. Is freedom of body better than freedom of spirit? Perception and personality. Some people are meant to lead some are meant to be lead.
Each one sees the other as less free.
Coberst, The human animal is in fact able to fast, to override the instinct for food and water. Other creatures cannot do this at will. At will we all make our own freedoms. What each individual perceives as freedom will no doubt be seen as caged by someone else. Those that have less education are not less free than an educated person. They have their perceived freedoms as much as anyone. A poorly educated person has less choices yet are not mired in choices.
A cage is still a cage as long as there are walls or bars. The size is irrelevent. It is actually what you do with that cage and within that cage that matters. An uneducated poor may see their cage as quite comfy and they may see themselves as quite free because they are not fighting the bars. Do you understand?
Hi Kriswest, it is so good to hear from you again. I am sorry to hear that you have not been well. Could the cause be partly due to the stress of living in the path of hurricanes with 25 or so cats?
To answer your question, I think I have published on my web site. However, the number of visits to my ILP thread notwithstanding, I am still looking for people interested in reading something outside “the void” (box). I told Colinsign the same thing in http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=1878813&highlight=#1878813. The experience I have gained here at ILP has been invaluable. Everyone who participated in my thread forced me to go beyond where I had come to rest, some more than others. The experience has given me the confidence to seek a wider audience in an academy of independent scholars. They will use the material on my web site to determine if I am worthy to be a member. Even if rejected I will submit my precis and several of my poems to be considered for publication in the first edition of their new journal. HEAVEN will be at the top of the list. Perhaps I will find more interested readers. O course I will continue to contribute to ILP. Who knows, I may encounter a few more “angels”.
forced bedrest is so horrifically painfully trapping. I feel better but, am risking aggravating it, but, my mind cannot lay down.