Without it, that feeling of being constantly watched, you are harmed. But not all freedoms a reasonable or needed in modern society.

Good answer. What is the value of freedom, if any? Could there be a difference between being conscious of ones freedom, and being materially free in reality?

Such as some forms of economic freedom, it is best to restrict them in favor of collective gain.

Could there? I suppose you could believe you're completely free while being a slave, or the otehr way around.

In other words, are there any material conditions that exist the reduce freedom to zero?

🤔 Well, what is freedom truly?

Is it greater purpose or the ability to choose?

Is it both? Or is it only one?

Like I said, it's the absence of restrictions. You are "Free to do", means that you are not prevented from doing.

I'd say you can never really rip away someone freedom to greater purpose, you can hinder it, but even rid them of it without killing them. The ability to choose can almost completely be stripped away from someone.

EDIT: Actually, you can. But I argue they stop being human when their spirit, everything about them, is gone.

But you still have some natural freedoms. Such as when to shit and pee.

Well, freedom always has limitations, between wants and abilities. But I am more getting to the difference between the consciousness of freedom and the material 'reality' which you spoke of that causes it to break down. Presumably, as long as you are conscious you are in some way free. What I want to determine is the extent to which freedom is independent of material conditions. How much can it be reduced to pure Egoism and self-sufficient. But we could also talk about the different between 'freedom from' and 'freedom to', but first we have to see what freedom is its relationship to self and reality.

Apparently, from a purely material standpoint, freedom doesn't really exist in the subjective sense. It is just a reflection of deterministic reality.

Freedom is not a material construct, though. It is a social construct. It is entirely dependent on your relations to other people, the level, (if any) of power they hold over you, and how they choose to wield it.

Well, yeah. What Hosit said.

For example, if I pulled a gun on you, and made you give me your jacket, that would be a violation of your freedom, but if your jacket was merely blown away by the wind, that's not a violation of your freedom, that's just shit luck.

Kind of. No person is all-powerful. We are free to the extent we are able to express it, but is there an essence of freedom here? I can always passively refuse to comply. Resistance is a good example of freedom. It does not have to be in your interest to be free but you can do it.

Coersion is not consent, though. If I offer you the options of servitude or death, you are technically free to choose death, but if you then choose servitude, no reasonable person would say that you had a meaningful choice in your enslavement.

What is a 'meaningful choice' then? Is there some bias here?

There's also no objective measure to determine how free we really are in any given scenario. A person who appear free may not be or vice versa. This is why I meant the idea of an essence of freedom - at any moment you can refuse the status quo so long as you are conscious of this. Even a vegetable (paralysed person) can change their own mental content.

You've been reading too much Sartre mate.

Haha, how did you know.

Arguing that no matter how unfree you may be, you're still free to change your own mental content. Who else but Sartre?

It seems like the only way to defend individualism, and engaging in a material idea of freedom is a slippery slope to undermining all of this.

Thanks for the input.

You're welcome, mate.

Even so, not everyone and not at all times, are people aware of their reactions and free choosing of them. In the same way that a physical prison materially inhibits a person, so could there be, conceivable and mental prison blocking one's ability to self-reflect or be consciousness. Awareness is a temporal gift. All kinds of freedom can be taken away, and to suggest that a person possesses a freedom essence at all times is magical thinking. Furthermore, this temporal nature of freedom also challenged what it meant to be human. If a person is unaware and unfree, are they still human? All of this is inconsistent with material sensibilities. Freedom is neither here nor there. A sensation, at best, a subjective reflection of objective processes.

Somehow this is very unsettling.

Combatting long held assumptions, and questioning ideology you didn't even realised you believed is always unsettling.

@ego_sum_jeffum why not both?
https://cherryparkofzombies.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/stalin.jpg

>gif
>doesn't even move

Shut your face

or what

Punch a gay fascist in the face

I'm not a fascist tho @Valtiel

And so, politically speaking, not everyone is free and not at all times. The concept of freedom is bourgeois idealism. It is based on privileged material conditions at the expense of others, and the ideological push towards freedom in society also only serves the few with the material position to use it. Freedom is just an excuse to exploit others, and has no real objective reality. Since freedom is a destructive force, people ought to remove it from their minds as a bourgeois trick used to repress others.

Freedom was a mistake.

Youre a mistake