Do we have the freedom to think?

But would you have originally done that action if he didn't influence you Arya? If you wouldn't have originally done that action then yes doing the action physically is your doing but mentally is it? I would say it is his.

 

No, I wouldn't have. That is irrelevant, though.

Unless your ultimate point is that he's literally controlling your mind, it's still your thought.

It's like if someone changes your mind on something. "Oh, Johnny told me that Sonic opened up, so I went".

Well, you wouldn't have originally done so if he didn't influence you. Nonetheless, he did. It's still, however, your action, and thought.

 

The influenced by your friends stuff is a little more off topic, I wanted to focus more on the media. I accept that the point is quite pedantic and pointless if you are talking about everyday advice and influence from friends etc but from the media it is different.

 

If you look at the basics, it's the same thing.

 

On one point we are free to think but on the other we aren't. As you said, a lot of people are being manipulated (not directly) by the media. In other words people create their opinion based on "what the television is saying". Though these are most likely the lower educated people, if someone with a lot of "power" would like his voice to be heard he would make sure the media would pronounce his "opinion" as "reality" and people would give up thinking by themselves and would say "oh that's probably true".

For example if we're watching the news here they're saying: "The U.S. troops have killed bla bla bla Taliban terrorists and are fighting for peace". If I'd ask for example me neighbor "what the hell are those U.S. troops doing in Afghanistan or Iraq he would tell me "they are helping the people and trying to make peace by elliminating the Taliban/Al Quida." Then if I'd ask him "how do you know what our troops are doing out there" then he would tell me I saw that on television.

Something else I noticed are the changes in facts with History lessons (I'm still 14 and go to highschool). F.E. Our teacher is telling us that the Sovjet Union was being ruled by the Communists and the whole system in the Sovjet Union was Communistic in Stalin's time. I asked my teacher then "hmm is that so? first of all why could nobody else make a decission then but Stalin alone? This sounds to me more like Dictatorism and based Karl Marx' manifesto a country who'd been Communistic would NOT be a state. and how about religion? Karl Marx' manifesto forbade religion, churches etc. Stalin had studied priestership in his past and Moskou was especially in Stalin's time known as a big centrum of the Eastern Orthodox Church."
My teacher gave me the following answer "hmm I don't know that's not what the books say." I told him "but who has written those books then? Someone who has experienced history himself or someone who is just binding the facts." End of discussion.

 

So to sum that monologue up, it would seem as though the powerful are heard, and the weak listen?

I can't disagree with that logic.

 

What I want to say is: The powerful ones speak and the weaker ones listen but the intelligent one decides whether this is the truth that we are talking about or not. and the lower intelligent one just takes it as it is. And unfortunately every voice counts the same in a democracy so there's a lot of wrong decissions being made so the wrong persons gain f.e. political power which leads to manipulation, corruption etc.

 

Answer: Yes.
But do people know HOW to think properly, no most people i don't think anyway.

 

No matter what laws you live under you are always free to 'think' but are you free to publish your thoughts?

 

Read the implications stated at the beginning of the thread, how do you know these thoughts are false messages from the media?

 

Yes we do, although the way most people think is influenced by someone else.

 

Do you have to watch the news? No.

We have freedom to think. My 2 cents ☺

 

Our brains work in just a series of reactions in a specific and never ending pattern. Therefore we do not have the ability to think. Everything is pretty much set in stone believe it or not.

 

Who told you to say that? Or did you think of it yourself.

 

i think we can think... you are determining how you will take in other information etc.

 

Depends who you listen to through life.

Everyone can affect how you think.

 

exactly.

 

Off-topic: That's why hearsay isn't allowed in court.

But, wasn't it your freedom of thinking that let you make this thread? Clearly you see the news as a demon, as well as an angel. You may have been swayed on that ONE story. However, your opinion about the news hasn't changed.

 

That's something I wonder about too. How do a bunch of chemical reactions in our brains work together to create (or at least give the illusion of) consciousness?

 

pointless thread is pointless

Yes we are. If we aren't then this convo doesnt matter