State of the Game
- Thread starter Fuglydog53
- Start date
Morning team! Good to see the existential quetions of life are being probed, and thus far Brother Ender's Nietzschian nihilism has not yet awoken from slumber...
Every week Rat Catcher says: "It's a mercy, you know", and opens his mouth as a sad-looking rodent wanders in of its own volition.Exactly. They end up depressed by the end of the episode. That is why they should die.
Hi Ratty,
I'm a bubble-dweller at present (do plan on heading out of the bubble at some point though... Definitely need to check out Colonia!)
And yes, forum name is the same as my CMDR if you'd like to add me as a friend... I'll do the same to you (If I haven't already!)
The first paradox of love that comes to my mind, is that many people claim to "feel free" when they are in a (fresh) love based relationship.
BUT
Actually ("technically") love is the exact opposite of "freedom".
It literally strips you of being able to make ANY choice that is NOT fitting the linear, narrow path restricted to actions that serve (in your opinion) keeping the loved person close happy enough to stay with you.
It's as much "becoming free" as switching from an off-road vehicle cross country trip to a train on a single track railroad.
I'd love to. I just need to be online at the same time as you
Speaking for myself, the off-roader found a river, there was only a railway bridge and the far bank is much nicer.
Do you consider getting stuck on this "nice bank" fitting the idea of freedom?
(I am not asking how does it feel to be there).
Freedom is an illusion in all senses - every human is constrained by the social 'programming' of the society in which they grow up, life experiences, genetics, neural anatomy, and that then overlaid on a persons internal representation of reality which in itself is a pastiche of reality tempered by fallacies and expectations.
Generally when someone says they feel "free" what they mean is "free from angst", and for most people, free from angst equates with being happy with one's position in the world and one's lot in life. Given, as you rightly say, love restricts freedom at the expense of feeling comfort, coupled with a tendency to reduce introspection and increase altruism (which is well linked to a sense of wellbeing), it is not surprising that people when asked define that as "freedom"...
Generally when someone says they feel "free" what they mean is "free from angst", and for most people, free from angst equates with being happy with one's position in the world and one's lot in life. Given, as you rightly say, love restricts freedom at the expense of feeling comfort, coupled with a tendency to reduce introspection and increase altruism (which is well linked to a sense of wellbeing), it is not surprising that people when asked define that as "freedom"...
Easy-peasy... You are awake and active during the hours I can play - so all it takes is the suggestion hereI'd love to. I just need to be online at the same time as you
(Almost) exactly my point.
Circumstances when feel free (so, being "in" freedom) are not "in sync" with our descriptive answer to question "how do you understand freedom (in general)".
Those are usually two totally different things.
I didn't have the freedom to get here any other way, so the alternative wasn't meaningful freedom. I am free to get off and return to the offroad if it doesn't suit (and I am absolutely sure here, because I have done it and remained on good terms with the.. err, train drivers on other lines?). I have lost no freedoms, I just actually like the choices I made and the people I made them with. Saying love is a loss of freedom is like saying you lose freedom by doing a job that fulfils you. The only loss of freedom is the loss of choice. You're not trapped because you didn't throw away the positive consequences of your free choices.
Well, I understand freedom more general, as an idea not restrained/defined by personal feelings, expectations and rationalising of (already made) choices.
Anything that restricts my freedom of doing ANYTHING that comes to my mind in any following moment of my life is COUNTERING freedom, so it can not be part of it.
Those "freedom interferences" can be both forced by internal processes, or external pressure/environment.
It's a simple as that, but as it ruins the feeling of "safety" we mix with how we FEEL about freedom, so it's not very popular idea/approach.
PS. some "personal" context : I was in "official" relationships for like 90% of my adult life, so it's not like I try to rationalise my problems with building relationships/getting attached emotionally.
I just try to see things from "inside" and "outside" of my personal, emotional filters simultaneously, even if it results in not too convenient conclusions.
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Oh, so THAT'S the power of suggestion. "all it takes..."Easy-peasy... You are awake and active during the hours I can play - so all it takes is the suggestion here
If only that were true; then Elite Dangerous would be the game that "everybody" wants it to be.
Only if those players wished to fly / walk / die alongside another player or two...Oh, so THAT'S the power of suggestion. "all it takes..."
If only that were true; then Elite Dangerous would be the game that "everybody" wants it to be.
With us being on opposite sides of the pond, timing is a little more 'difficult' then being in the same part of the world
ETA: ED 'could' be the game 'everybody' wants it to be, all it takes is a willingness to play it - and to play the version best suited to the playmates: Misha can't play Odyssey currently, so rather than exclude a squadron mate I'm very happy to play on the version both of us can enjoy.
Really that is all it takes - a little willingness to make a small effort to get along!
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The only freedom we ever really have is the freedom to choose our own behavior/mind set. Its just that sometimes the number of choices are limited, and each have some undesirable side-effect making it seem like we have no choices. But we always do, unless we're dead or otherwise incapacitated.
EDIT: added "otherwise incapacitated"
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Well, there is the next paradox - choices vs freedom.
Problem with choices is usually not the path we eventually decide to follow,
it's realising that we are gonna miss the other, unchosen possibility that COULD HAVE led to better outcome and make us more happy.
We all know this on some level even if we never realised this directly, this is why choices are the curse of our life for most of the people - because they force us to deprive ourselves from "potential happiness" thousands, millions of times before we finally rest in peace.
And this is absolutely incompatible with our "emotional layer".
Because deep inside everyone has a soul that screams:
So, this is why we tend to FEEL free when we actually are on a RESTRICTED, linear path, when we don't get to and do't have to choose a lot.
Like when we are in love with someone that seems to love us back.
Then, as what comes to mind is frequently interacting with my family, taking them stories I have found, playing games, staying in your off-roader would have, by definition, restricted my freedoms too, because the opportunities to do these things would be lost. Honestly, if you define freedom so broadly you can fit anything into the increasingly large rubber bag marked "restricts my freedom", and I think you reach what a mathematician would call the trivial solution.
Going by your definition here my freedoms are both restricted by looking before crossing the road (because for some reason safety has to be excluded from freedom) and by being hit by a truck, because it will leave me unable to pursue other things that come to mind. Words are tools, and abstract words tend toward semantic drift depended on the cultural context of the speaker, but I this version of freedom seems too semantically light to have much use.
