In my mind it seems wrong to look at the purpose of something if your goal is to determine whether it makes an individual more free. Freedom, as I see it, has something to do with the choice and consequence sets available to a person.

Certain aspects of education go beyond productivity and serve to help the individual live a more balanced life. Physical education and many of the options that were available when I went through grade school are such examples. In many areas of higher education it seems that the immediate goal is the expansion of knowledge rather then any productivity gains. Many of the realizations of philosophy have little value in promoting efficiency.

Does education make you free or does it make people free in general? Is this the main component in freedom in your mind?

OK, it could be said this way Education is a tool to Freedom. Some people may not make use of this tool. They may even use it to enslave other people.

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______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Freedom is the process of expanding our intellectual horizons. We live in containers. A domain of knowledge is a container. By examining the assumptions of any domain of knowledge we can grow into an ever larger container. Freedom is becoming less confined by small containers.

We all serve in order not to steal. The hunter/gatherer serves as well.

I see. We just develop immunities? And you think the bugs are OK with that?

I don't immediately see a connection between the population size and freedom. I'd say that freedom is proportional with the number of choices with known or knowable consequences (and thereby I agree wholehearted with Sucre about the role of education). So if an increased population size increases my number of choices then I must disagree with you.

Nah, it just gives you the freedom to work without having to carry your kids around. Your (and your familys/tribes/societys) need for food and shelter forces you to work. Nothing else, really.

How can I tell those hunters/gatherers since, according to you, they aren't hunters/gatherers?

Andrew, they are still hunters/gatherers (as are we, by the way) but they may be hunters/gatherers with a little more freedom than others with more scarce food resources. And I'll be happy to discuss this with anyone who thinks their food is free and abundant, including the people you refer to.

Who moves around if food is not a scarce resource??

Sure, and that Victorian view is probably why most associate the word survival with struggle. Sometimes I wonder when people who make that association look at themselves and realize that they don't really struggle, if they think "Oh, I don't survive"

I have no intention of saying that anyone is hungry, cold and full of pain. I'm saying that everyone, except the thief, must work for food. That includes the indians on the Pacific coast as well as you and me. And we can all be at ease, full, warm and happy doing it. But we must do it. However, when it's not ALL we do then I say that's because we've gained freedom to do something else as well.

I haven't moved an inch from post #48, in that moving away from some more natural state (whatever that may be) must be considered a move towards freedom.

This is getting comprehensive - hence two posts

Food is not more locked up than it's always been. Food was never free and it never will be.

The hunter/gatherer could not simply walk over the next ridge to find more food without trespassing on the property of others. The hunter/gatherer usually had and have the same proportion of weapons and production tools as we've always had, meaning that food is such a scarce resource that the hunter/gatherer was and is prepared to invade the property of others and/or protect the property it has already invaded succesfully in order to get at it. Including the property of other competitors than human.

When they did/do have contact with others, they traded/trade when they saw/see the big balls of those who had/have the sought after resource. Nothing has changed. Don't pretend that hospitality can replace hostility. That's an error that many didn't live to tell about (including many people that came in close encounters with Europeans during last millenium, - and Europeans that came into close encounters with other people, of course).

How we keep the continuence that is the human population is far from simple but the basic premise of the continuence is really really simple: We need certain things or we die and we generally want to live. And that latter desire is the costly bit, meaning that as long as two or more organisms need the same things lest they die, it costs the respective organism to get at it. All I'm saying is the lesser the overall cost the more freedom.

I don't think the thief breaks the law for a warm jail cell Nor do I think that he believes he gains something if caught doing a crime. But hey, it takes all people.

Ok, you call it technology. I call it health. I have no problem with asserting that health is a sum of the know-how that's needed to stay alive. Whichever way you define health, the duration of life is still a function of it. Again, you are into an evaluation of your own idea of quality of life. I have no problem with that. It wasn't the issue.

More then anything I am wondering in what way does education makes one free. I agree with you that education access to education improves my freedom and I would be inclined to generalize it if I actually understood what freedom was. There are a number of things that I would say make me free but most relate to having the choice to do as I wish when I really value something or really value the existence of a choice between two things. Looking at it this way it seems freedom is similar to a series of economic goods. This seems to be problematic because it becomes dependent on the preferences of the individual in question and general statements about a free society become complicated.