The philosophy of freedom.

I think it would only work if people had achieved a certain level of respect and wisdom. And probably enlightenment.
What kind of world would we need to have, how would we have to change, to no longer see each other as potential threats? That is when we can live peacefully I think. It won’t happen until there is no competition for food, water, sex, drugs, etc.

Socrates held that you can’t appreciate pleasure without intelligence, by the way – but that intelligence by itself was not pleasure.

I think in order to have perfect existence there needs to be a radical change within ourselves, not the ruler, or anyone outside of you.

Like Caitlin said, there needs a certain level of wisdom in society, and a powerful underlying feeling of peace in everyone. There needs to be a change in consciousness.

We need a ruler in our current state otherwise everything will go to shit. When we achieve a collective level of peace in co-existence, then we can maybe not have a “ruler”, who tells us what to do, but a “figure head” who redirecets the collective opinion.

Right now we are not suitable to make a collective opinion to either help run the country or to make decisions based on a collective whole, as people are still acting like children who need to learn to love, live and respect one another.

Freedom is something of a made up concept. I want to be free to fly through the air, or to breathe underwater, or to live from now until the end of the universe. Can I do any of these things? No, I am bound by the laws of nature and science, and nothing I ever do will change that. I can use the laws of science to make certain alterations; I can make a machine that will let me fly, or a device to breathe underwater, and maybe I can build a monument that will carry my name for thousands of years. But they are all cheap substitutes. The laws of nature cannot be broken by any mortal being. This is absolute, and if freedom on this scale is impossible, then freedom on any level is impossible.
So the real question is this: If freedom is just a figment of human imagination, is there any reason to contemplate it? It gives us hope to think about being free, but what will we do when that hope is inevitability crushed? Is it better to hang our heads and trudge through life in a dreary fugue?
The key to me it seems is to rework the human understanding. That we crave freedom is fine, but we must learn to find happiness in our slavery to the universe as well. This seems entirely probable. After all, you’re only as free as your mind is.

It occurs to me that people may not take me at my word that “If freedom is impossible on the largest scale, it is impossible on any level.” To demonstrate my point, I’ve prepared this example:
Let’s say you’ve been imprisoned in a facility. Why is unimportant. As part of your imprisonment, you have been chained to a wall. Are you free? No, you are not free. Then one day, the warden appears and says “Because of your good behavior, we have decided to let you move about the courtyard.” You are now unchained and free to move about. Are you free? No, you are still confined to within the four walls. Then, the warden appears again and says “Because you are a model prisoner, we are releasing you on parole.” You are now free to leave the facility. Are you free? No, you now have to appear before your parole agent and report on your activity, and any infractions can have you placed back in the facility. I could go on forever with this, but I think you now see the underlying paradox in this assessment. With each level, you gain more freedom, but you are still not free. You can view these increments as coming closer to true freedom, but as long as some chain is wrapped around your neck, you will never be truly free.

Absolute freedom in its literal meaning would hold no boundaries at all. We could move through walls and such. We could kill people but because they are absolutely free then they are free of death, and life for that matter. If it is absolute it is everything.
The best idea would be optimization of choice, but choice would then become a factor in what directly affects others. But say only issues that directly affect others negatively or potentially directly against a choosable preference that you would need their consent before acting. This is probably the most ideal version of freedom, at least to me.

Absolute freedom is when you accept yourself how you are, take life as it is, without any regrets, objections of fears. ‘Without’ in this sentence symbolizes ‘acceptance’. Of course you cannot live without fears, since there would be an imbalance in your life, but when you accept them, it is like you live without them in my opinion. So absolute freedom is losing all your boundaries, and accepting everything. Living in the eternal now.

@tangledupinplaid21, I’m curious, did you read my response, because if you didn’t, we think very much alike. However, I stand by my assertion that if absolute freedom is impossible, then all freedom is impossible.

Only reality itself has absolute freedom and, as proof, it chooses to be what it is right now ;)

On a more human level, I think it’s more productive to think in terms of degrees of freedom. Thinking in dual terms (absolute freedom and slavery) isn’t conducive to growth. And out of all types of freedom, the freedom inside yourself is by far the greatest thing to achieve. You can be chained and tortured for 20 years but, in the meanwhile, you can have the freedom to choose your internal life, such as to be filled with ecstasy and appreciation of life and to fantasize about making love with the torturer. :)