Posted by ttbn

"Freedom is doing what you want to do, and thinking what you want to think. No deep philosophy needed. You cannot have your freedom of thought removed, but authorities can certainly take away your physical freedoms. Sometimes loss of freedom is for the common good; sometimes it is sheer bastardry and politicians' lust for power (China and Victoria). Protests are useless, because the people who curtail your freedoms will use brute force and hurt you (China and Victoria)."

Answer- In philosophy they have viewed freedom differently throughout history. The definition of Aristotle (300BC) was different than the definition of Mill (about 1600-1700s).

Aristotle Freedom paraphrased- The person that is a slave to their desires is not free. The Platonic tradition believed that men needed to dedicate their lives to improving society- in a sense. For this reason they needed slaves to free them from the mundane activities necessary for life.

John Stewart Mill Freedom paraphrased- Negative freedom- Freedom so long as it doesn't constrain the freedom of others. The problem is freedom often does impact on the freedoms of others- even Mill admitted this in his "On Liberty".

Nietzsche (1900s) in Thus Spake Zarathustra also had his own complex views on freedom. He conclusion seems to be that everyone needs to create their own morality- these moralities seem destined to fight each other to the death. But perhaps there must be some fence of constraint should the victory not be hollow

ttbn,

You are missing the point.

What it means is that because it is not transmittable from humans to animals it is deemed to be not naturally occurring or derived from animals and then passed to humans as suspected ie people eating bats, etc.

It is therefore deemed to be artificial, fabricated by humans with the purpose of infecting humans. In other words - germ warfare developed by the Chinese.

One thing is for sure - the Chinese don't want outsiders investigating what happened so I'm guessing that it is a biological weapon that went wrong or totally out of Chinese control.

Did the Chinese deliberately infect themselves in Wuhan with the intention of testing it or creating an epicentre for spreading the virus by letting infected people in Wuhan travel around the globe?

Don't you think it a bit curious that the Chinese eradicated it when the rest of the world cannot stop it from getting worse.

Of course Popper’s ‘paradox’ remains, since freedom cannot stand alone in a diverse society.

1. Freedom – of thought, expression, association, and endeavour – while a key value to be prized overall by a society intent on surviving and thriving, is necessary but not sufficient.

In my reflections - from a mathematics of complex systems perspective – I would add the following necessary values

2. Capability for critical thinking and transparent engagement;
3. Social responsibility; and
4. Deep respect for tradition, culture, and intangibles (beauty etc.).

I see the four as being in dynamic balance and tension – relative, not absolute - but also irreducible. I would - but have not been able to - articulate them with precision, and even devise some “proof” or derivation that they together provide a society with its best prospects of success in the face of challenge or competition, drawing on the thinking and discipline of “complex adaptive systems” studies

An old debate, coloured by the Make Trump Great Again "freedom" to die.

"Planto", that's using "hip ABC lingo. Its about time you realised that Trump should/might/will win is a serious reality. Where are you going to run, hide and bury your head in the san ... "Chania", Iran, Venezuela? Na,,, probably North Korea!

Freedom is the topic, why not stick to the authors article rather than fart around with the same old platitudes? Life is tooooo short for that. Happy evening Planto.

I think this little clip does a good job of explaining some of the selfishness we have seen exhibited by the freedom flogs during this pandemic.

http://youtu.be/-KW7BrkzI1s