Perhaps you have to be a Kurd or a Palestinian to understand just what it means not to have one's own nation state today — ssu

...or perhaps a Finn?

The freedoms of an individual is a totally different issue than a freedom of a people. — ssu

I hadn't considered that. I guess your answer and mine to the OP deal with completely different issues.

PS...

...although perhaps the point I made regarding individuals in a society also applies to your point as well?

There are many kinds of freedom.

There's political freedom.

There's freedom from coercion.

There's freedom of speech.

There's freedom of ability (people who can walk have a freedom that people who can't don't, for example).

And then there's free will. Some people define free will as mere freedom of ability + freedom from coercion. Those people are called compatibilists (because such a conception of free will is compatible with determinism). To me, free will would have to be something deeper than that. Free will would have to be what most people believe it is. And what most people believe it is is something that isn't actually coherent in reality. Something logically impossible. The concept of free will that most people believe in is a delusion ... and compatibilists just confuse matters. Better to acknowledge that X doesn't exist than to redefine it. I have the same problem with naturalistic pantheists who wish to merely label the universe as God.

...or perhaps a Finn? — Theologian

Or Tibetan, or Danish or Bulgarian, etc.

...or perhaps a Finn? — Theologian

Well, we do have our own country.

Even if the majority of Finns know that they are or at least have been a totally expendable nation, meaning that nobody actually would have cared a rat's ass if about 4 million Finns had been killed or had been deported to Siberia, many Finns today can forget the past and take it as a given that they do have an own country and a government that has it's positions filled with their own people who speak their own language. A Kurd or a Palestinian simply cannot do that as it's evident that they aren't in charge of the land they live in. But they do have a possibility to have an independent country (especially the Palestinians). Yet for instance the Ainu people in Japan can only deam about having their own country.

I guess your answer and mine to the OP deal with completely different issues. — Theologian

Yep. Freedom can be discussed from the viewpoint of the individual or from the viewpoint of the collective.

...although perhaps the point I made regarding individuals in a society also applies to your point as well? — Theologian

In a democracy / justice state, yes.

Well, I simply think, if we were to take cogs as an example - that working for others and yourself is the same to the free man.

Whereas stressing on helping yourself or your neighbour puts up the cage bars.

Going with the flow is good for everybody and everybody who's ever looked at the sky knows this, though it may not be apparent - and that unstressed realisation is essentially freedom. — Shamshir

Human Instrumentality then, every man working for every other man. Essentially then, freedom is a state of mind, and doing what you are "supposed to do" (something decided through eons of social evolution) isn't necessarily a limitation on that freedom because it's what you are supposed to want to do.

Imagine having ability to do everything, would you feel free then? I think limitations are essential to feel free. The infamous “Arbeit macht frei” seems true for me. — Aleksander

Ah, but what if you had freedom from the fact that you need limitations to feel free?

I tend to think of freedom as being free of something, just what that is I’ll have to think about a bit more. — Brett

So you think more about what you don't have to do, as opposed to what you now can do. That's interesting. I'd like to hear what you have to say after you think about it more.

I think a sense of freedom is achieved in harmonious relationships with the universe, as much as we understand them. The more we interact with the universe, the more we understand, including what everything and everyone needs for harmonious achievement - and so the more we feel obliged to adjust our actions in order to achieve harmony, and consequently experience freedom. More freedom allows more interaction and more understanding, but more interaction plus more understanding demands what appears to then be less freedom, relatively speaking. — Possibility

This kind of reminds me how, at least speaking in terms of physics, everything in the universe (besides energy) is just made up of atoms. Where a wood table starts and a wood floor begins is ultimately up to us. All things, sentient or not, interact. Even with our higher awareness of this world, we are still bound by that which all other life and non-life are bound. That being the chemical reactions and laws of nature that make up the active, ever-changing world we live in.

It's a start, certainly. "Mind your own business" vs. busy bodies meddling in everyone else's affairs, sure. But "Everyone with their own little world", not quite. Society requires regular maintenance, and it is very desirable that the people who are minding their own business pay attention to the commons, the shared world, the community. Having the freedom to mind your own business, requires community maintenance. — Bitter Crank

It really relates to our own instincts as a species. We are territorial, but we are also social. We desire a place for ourselves, but we also belong to groups, and so we designate our land into smaller areas for individuals. However, when there is a threat to the group, all of the individuals are expected to defend the group's land.

Of course, I wouldn't consider a dog relieving itself on a neighbors lawn a "threat" per se, maybe a threat to your neighbor's lawn.

These are to some degree at least empirical questions. I don't think we're going to be able to answer them entirely a priori. — Theologian

I suppose I was trying to get both from people, their experience and their speculation. The reason I bring this up is that I think when one person says "freedom", an entirely different set of rules and values can be thought of by another. I also think that if we want to have a useful conversation about freedom, we should be able to address what kind we are discussing.

Not only are they empirical questions; they are questions to which the correct answers may change over time, as society and technology change over time. Thus, they cannot be answered once and for all. They call for an ongoing program of research. — Theologian

Which is what I hope I can spark here. I think someone above said something along the lines of "freedom depends on your place in time and space". I think that holds up.

These are questions that go to the fundamental structural basis to our entire society. Whatever our answers, they have profound implications for our freedoms. And those answers will change over time. — Theologian

I suppose that means that some answers are desirable because they give us desirable freedoms. Let's hope we can answer those questions in a way that benefits us.

From this paragraph in particular, I take it that you intend to start a thread looking at the problem from the perspective of political philosophy. In other words, not to address (arguably) more fundamental problems such as free will vs determinism. — Theologian

I'll be honest with you, I'm notoriously bad at keeping anything in focus. My original intentions, my past intentions, my current intentions, and my future intentions rarely match up, I'm afraid. If you wish to discuss free will vs determinism, go ahead. I like to discuss that too. However, I don't think I intended to exclusively discuss political philosophy. It is certainly part of the question, but ultimately I think this question touches on much of what we know as a species, as opposed to just politics.

If you wish to discuss free will vs determinism, go ahead. I like to discuss that too. — TogetherTurtle

Well then! I'm just going to take the lazy way out and post something I wrote for an assessment task a little while back. It's on point...

***
Power to The Puppets

Whether free will is compatible with determinism, and whether we can have either, both, or neither, is entirely dependent on our definitions.

Determinism has traditionally been defined as the theory that every event is uniquely prescribed by antecedent events. Thus, anyone with perfect knowledge of the universe at one point in time, of its causal laws, and sufficient computational power, can infer with perfect accuracy the state of the universe at all other points in time. The problem with this claim is that it is incompatible with quantum mechanics, which holds that at a quantum level, the universe is random.

Free will may be defined in such a way that it is easy or impossible to reconcile with determinism. The psychologist Skinner argued that since all behaviour is controlled by our biology and environment, what we are actually talking about when we talk about freedom is freedom from aversive forms of control. Hume defined as free all actions motivated by desires originating from within the person. There does not seem to be any problem reconciling either kind of freedom with determinism.

Kant, however, derided Hume’s idea of freedom as “the freedom of the turnspit,” and claimed that in order to be truly free, the will must be an “uncaused cause.” This is clearly incompatible with determinism. Similarly so Descartes’ definition of freedom as the “ability to do or not to do something,” and his claim that “the will is by its nature so free that it can never be constrained.”

But the kind of freedom philosophers like Descartes and Kant demand is not only incompatible with determinism: it is incompatible with any naturalistic theory of the mind.

From Beyond
Suppose a mind is a physical process. Whether that process is deterministic or random makes no difference: the mind is whatever that process makes it. Hence so too are all its choices. Replacing the freedom of the turnspit with the freedom of the quantum random number generator renders it neither more nor less the puppets of physics.

Not surprisingly, the theories of both Kant and Descartes are heavily reliant on things beyond science’s ken. Descartes saw the mind as comprised of an entirely non-physical kind of substance, while Kant posited a “noumenal” realm in which the mind could be free. But such approaches are unparsimonious to say the least, and create many problems.

One is that we have not so much reconciled free will with an orderly (be that order deterministic or probabilistic) universe as posited an entirely new universe or substance with no order at all, save perhaps for that which the will self-imposes. Another is that we are now faced with the problem of explaining how the different types of substances or realms interact; and of producing the evidence of this interaction, or else explaining its absence. Finally, we must somehow sidestep neuroscience, leaving us with what we might call “the free will of the gaps.” These are serious problems, so the arguments of the likes of Descartes and Kant need to be compelling.

Descartes first argued as follows:
1. Descartes could conceive of having no body, but could not conceive of having no mind
2. Therefore body and mind have different properties
3. Therefore the two must be different things.
But our conceptions of a thing cannot be properties of the thing itself, because if they are, then Donald Trump (very stable genius) cannot be Donald Trump (mania sufferer/malignant narcissist).

Closely related is Descartes’ second argument:
1. If you can clearly and distinctly conceive of something it is possible
2. You can clearly and distinctly conceive of your mind being distinct from your body
3. It is therefore possible your mind is distinct from your body
4. If two things are possibly distinct they are distinct
5. Therefore the mind is distinct from the body.

It is again possible to show by example that this argument form leads to false conclusions:
1. I can clearly and distinctly conceive of the morning star as distinct from the evening star
2. It is therefore possible the morning star is distinct from the evening star
3. If two things are possibly distinct they are distinct
4. Therefore the morning star is distinct from the evening star.
Yet both are the planet Venus.

Kant saw the existence of free will as implied by and inseparable from our rationality. But consider an artificial intelligence (AI) capable of simple reasoning. Now consider the chip on which that AI runs. We do not say that the AI is able to reason because it causes the chip to transcend the laws of physics. Rather, we know that the AI functions precisely because the chip obeys the laws of physics.

But if reason implies not other realms, but working hardware, it is no less reason for the fact. If it enables us to apprehend our environment, consider alternative courses of action, and implement those choices that appeal to us, this surely represents at least a kind of freedom.

We may decide what we decide because we are what we are, but this does not mean our own cognitive processes are not making decisions. It only means that there are also other things deciding us. As with the AI and the chip, our rationality exists not despite their determinations, but rather, because of them.

Conclusions
Determinism, as traditionally defined, prescribes a perfectly predictable universe that is clearly at odds with contemporary physics. Whether we consider the probabilistic order of quantum mechanics an alternate form of determinism, or an alternative to determinism, is a matter of definitions. Whether or not we get to keep determinism depends on which definition we pick.

In any kind of orderly universe, without recourse to something above and beyond that universe, we are all physics-puppets. But the “above and beyond” comes with fundamental problems with no clear solutions, and the arguments in support of its existence are less than compelling. It does not seem to carry its weight.

Whether it is possible to reconcile free will with our status as physics-puppets depends on our definition of free will. If we insist on a mind that has the potential to be an uncaused cause, which is to say an ultimate cause, then no such reconciliation is possible. If, on the other hand, we can settle for proximal causation, in which free will means only that the physical world has been arranged in such a way as to create a being with the potential for rational decision-making, then yes:

There is such a thing as a free puppet.

In a newly emerged nation the largest freedom is the freedom from the old nation that had people under it's control and had lost the legitimacy to it's power among the people. Typically this has been another people who either had been or had evolved into being foreign entity. This usually creates a very different atmosphere in the nation than in other more established countries where their Independence struggle is just a course in history, not something that happened just year ago or so. Hence newly formed countries look as to be very patriotic/nationalistic (well, they have to be actually) as they are still pouring the foundations of a new nation. The legitimacy of the state has to be earned, you know. Hence just what about in freedom is important changes through time. — ssu

A strangely vicious cycle this is. Eventually, the new nation becomes one of the old nations, and a new nation comes up to replace them. I think this might be a symptom of a people too anxious to settle down. I can't blame them for wanting something new.

Perhaps you have to be a Kurd or a Palestinian to understand just what it means not to have one's own nation state today, because today we take it as granted as our credit card working when shopping online. Of course there are many various people's that don't even have any dreams of an own independent nation and these people are really just fade away to being the another people as the last members knowing the language die of old age. — ssu

A survival of the fittest scenario then. It sucks, but sometimes you lose.

However, I do wonder about how outsiders feel. What if you are a citizen of a nation but don't consider yourself to be a part of its affairs. For example, a natural born American citizen who doesn't vote because the affairs of the nation don't concern them. It is strange to be a member of a nation that doesn't really care too much about the nation.

The freedoms of an individual is a totally different issue than a freedom of a people. So when you ask above about "if you were to create or live in a new nation", that kind of freedom is actually bit different from the question 'how much the government intrudes into my personal life?' The latter question is especially close to the American heart. — ssu

Whenever I make a post, I usually end up asking many more questions than I originally intended. So in a way, I asked about both the freedoms of an individual and the freedoms of a people. However, I do think these two are connected somewhat. A people is made of many people, is it not? On various levels also, apparently, as that map seems to show.

Aye.
If I had to be concise, freedom is right-being. You have everything, but don't need anything; akin to a dream.

Which is why, just like how a dream can turn sour if you don't roll with it, man is largely free but tends to deny being wholly free.
To go off on a tangent, that has to do with attachments, as attachments produce setbacks. Freedom is merely playing the game with nothing in mind; no win or lose, hence harmonious. It's ultimately a still joy.
And that's what's discussed in Genesis; the con with the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil robs man of freedom and provides the artificial prison bars' barrier I mentioned.

To me, free will would have to be something deeper than that. Free will would have to be what most people believe it is. And what most people believe it is is something that isn't actually coherent in reality. Something logically impossible. The concept of free will that most people believe in is a delusion ... and compatibilists just confuse matters. Better to acknowledge that X doesn't exist than to redefine it. I have the same problem with naturalistic pantheists who wish to merely label the universe as God. — luckswallowsall

I suppose it's also worth noting that we don't know if free will does or does not exist. If you think that X doesn't exist, that seems fine, but people who do think X exist should ideally look for why they think X exists.

Which is why, just like how a dream can turn sour if you don't roll with it, man is largely free but tends to deny being wholly free.
To go off on a tangent, that has to do with attachments, as attachments produce setbacks. Freedom is merely playing the game with nothing in mind; no win or lose, hence harmonious. It's ultimately a still joy.
And that's what's discussed in Genesis; the con with the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil robs man of freedom and provides the artificial prison bars' barrier I mentioned. — Shamshir

I can't help but think about how we could use the fruit to remove our artificial prison bars. Of course, that train of thought might just be a continuation of the prison bars. Well, if I never try, I'll never find out.

Well then! I'm just going to take the lazy way out and post something I wrote for an assessment task a little while back. It's on point... — Theologian

I'll have to set aside some time later to read all that. It looks good from what I skimmed through.

It looks good from what I skimmed through. — TogetherTurtle

Thank you! :grin:

That's fair. Poison and medicine differ merely in application after all.

Possessing the knowledge of the fruit innately, will remove the bars.
The con lies in that the knowledge gained from the fruit is second hand, so it is easily manipulated - which is how illusionists con the public.
You're essentially reading someone else's notes, rather than reading from the source.
Maybe you've heard the saying "Like the Devil reading scriputre"? This is the reference.
As if man is truly free, how can he be tempted to sin? I find it impossible; so the con with the fruit was a necessary impediment to man's natural freedom. Just like the fruit called money, for instance.

I wouldn't consider a dog relieving itself on a neighbors lawn a "threat" — TogetherTurtle

The tons of dog dung produced every day in every urban centre add up to a real public health and disgust threat when the feces are left on lawns and sidewalks. Fifty years ago, dog dung everywhere was pretty much the SOP. NOBODY picked up their dog's production. By the 1990s the social norm was shifting strongly in the direction of people cleaning up after their dog. Now one almost never comes across dog dung.

The tons of dog dung produced every day in every urban centre add up to a real public health and disgust threat when the feces are left on lawns and sidewalks. Fifty years ago, dog dung everywhere was pretty much the SOP. NOBODY picked up their dog's production. By the 1990s the social norm was shifting strongly in the direction of people cleaning up after their dog. Now one almost never comes across dog dung. — Bitter Crank

I suppose it's easy to be wrong about what is a threat when you've never had to deal with said threat. Good info though, it was interesting.

Possessing the knowledge of the fruit innately, will remove the bars.
The con lies in that the knowledge gained from the fruit is second hand, so it is easily manipulated - which is how illusionists con the public.
You're essentially reading someone else's notes, rather than reading from the source. — Shamshir

And where did the source get their information from? I suppose even the source is just notes. Even if you were to study the inner workings of a plant, you're just learning from what the plant does with the laws of nature, not the actual laws of nature.

As if man is truly free, how can he be tempted to sin? — Shamshir

There are things we like to do that aren't sinful, yes?

And that's what's discussed in Genesis; the con with the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil robs man of freedom and provides the artificial prison bars' barrier I mentioned. — Shamshir

In his book, "On Not Leaving It to the Snake" theologian Harvey Cox interprets the temptation story this at least somewhat heretical way: Adam and Eve were meant to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. However, for the fruit to be beneficial, they needed to proceed in a forthright manner, on their own recognisance, so to speak.

They didn't.

They bought into the serpent's seduction, and let the snake talk them into eating the fruit. Their failure to act on their own volition is what spoiled the apple.

This kind of reminds me how, at least speaking in terms of physics, everything in the universe (besides energy) is just made up of atoms. Where a wood table starts and a wood floor begins is ultimately up to us. All things, sentient or not, interact. Even with our higher awareness of this world, we are still bound by that which all other life and non-life are bound. That being the chemical reactions and laws of nature that make up the active, ever-changing world we live in. — TogetherTurtle

...and atoms are made up, ultimately, of relationships between interacting energy...and so into the quantum realm, where interaction collapses potentiality and determines probability....

I think the more we understand the role that interaction and relationships play in determining the universe at every level, the more freedom we feel to act.

Would you feel more free blindfolded or not blindfolded?

well, probably not blindfolded.

And where did the source get their information from? I suppose even the source is just notes. Even if you were to study the inner workings of a plant, you're just learning from what the plant does with the laws of nature, not the actual laws of nature. — TogetherTurtle

The source, more or less, is a self-written law.
When you study the plants, you're learning how nature has manifested itself as the plant, but there's plenty of other things; and the understanding of those things compiled with the understanding of the plant would be the understanding of nature.

To paraphrase your last sentence - you wouldn't be learning the recipe for the cake, but taking a slice and examining that; which would still be learning of the cake.

There are things we like to do that aren't sinful, yes? — TogetherTurtle

Aye.

So you're always free to an extent, but rarely wholly free. — Shamshir

Man can sin, but not necessarily so.
Think of it as one leg already in the pitfall.

In his book, "On Not Leaving It to the Snake" theologian Harvey Cox interprets the temptation story this at least somewhat heretical way: Adam and Eve were meant to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. However, for the fruit to be beneficial, they needed to proceed in a forthright manner, on their own recognisance, so to speak.

They didn't.

They bought into the serpent's seduction, and let the snake talk them into eating the fruit. Their failure to act on their own volition is what spoiled the apple. — Bitter Crank

That's an interesting interpretation.
I'd put it thus - they were supposed to grow the fruit as opposed to eating it.
And this very mistake is seen repeating itself in history, over and over.

The story of The Tower of Babel is just another version of this same con.

To be free is to be free of desire/need/concern. This definition of course negates life.

The source, more or less, is a self-written law.
When you study the plants, you're learning how nature has manifested itself as the plant, but there's plenty of other things; and the understanding of those things compiled with the understanding of the plant would be the understanding of nature. — Shamshir

You may have misunderstood my intention. Studying the plant for sure gives you understanding of nature, but it's impossible to confirm that the plant works the way you think it does without knowing everything else (or at least having some kind of theory to compare it to).

To paraphrase your last sentence - you wouldn't be learning the recipe for the cake, but taking a slice and examining that; which would still be learning of the cake. — Shamshir

To clarify my point a bit more, sure you would be learning of the cake, but how do you know its ingredients until you have studied every other cake and all of the ingredients you believe to be in those cakes?

To be free is to be free of desire/need/concern. This definition of course negates life. — Willyfaust

What if you were free from the need for desire to create meaning in life?

You know, on another thread I was just saying

"Like a thirsty man drinking salt water, desire can never be satisfied." — Theologian