Thread: The Best Things in Life are Free

True or false, or a bit of both? If possible back up your ideas with those of influential philosophers.

(I have to write an essay on this and am lacking in inspiration :P).

You cannot buy love.

...And there's your essay.

It's gotta be more than 500 words. lol.

Excessive repetition of a single point ain't allowed either.

Well, food isn't free. And you're in quite the predicament without food.

Make the point that Westerners think the best things in life are free because they're taking everything for granted.

The notion is complete bullshit.


Let's take love as an example. Forgetting all the energy, time, and money (in varying quantities) that is required to have a loving relationship in it's own right, it stands on many things that are not free.

As someone pointed out above, you're not going to have a very enjoyable life without food, something that is most definitely not free.

Conversely some of the worst things in life come for nothing. Famine. Disease. Thirst. Cancer.

The best things in life are not free, and the come from many other things that also require time, energy, and money.

Originally Posted by Serkat

Make the point that Westerners think the best things in life are free because they're taking everything for granted.

This This THIS.

Originally Posted by Serkat

Well, food isn't free. And you're in quite the predicament without food.

Have you ever seen an apple tree. Hey, free food.

The best things in life definetly are free. Nature. The best thing in life, and it's quite free. Everything you need can be found in nature, for free.

Everything in life has a price, and you typically get out what you put in. The more you put in, the more you get out. The harder you work, the better you'll find yourself. Obviously efficiency and some imagination can make your benefits greater based on a smaller amount of work, sometimes.

Love requires work. It's difficult to love yourself if you don't take care of yourself, take care of your interests and of things that are important to you. It's pointless to love another if they don't love you back and to maintain mutual love, you have to work. You have to give love to feel it.

It costs nothig to give love, though, or to feel self love. People simply don't allow themselves to for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by stonedape

Have you ever seen an apple tree. Hey, free food.

Except someone usually owns them. Also you'll most likely starve and not be able to participate in social activities if you restrict yourself to free food. You're essentially making yourself a bum. So, yeah. Being a bum is free. But being a bum is not one of the best things in life. So fail.

Originally Posted by Xei

(I have to write an essay on this and am lacking in inspiration ).

Please tell me your teacher didn't select your thesis for you...

(I have to write an essay on this and am lacking in inspiration ).

"Everything in life is a function of time (and therefore money), and energy, therefore there is a cost for everything and therefore nothing is free, rendering the basis of this essay incorrect and meaningless"

How about that?

Love on its own is free

Is it? Love requires socialising at the very least which costs time and energy (and money). Courtship costs time and energy. The relationship which gives birth to love costs time, energy, and money.

It's not free by any means.

maybe not so much as the best things in life are free...

but freedom is the best thing in life.

heh heh, i don't know, just wanted to sound smart

Originally Posted by Photolysis

"Everything in life is a function of time (and therefore money), and energy, therefore there is a cost for everything and therefore nothing is free, rendering the basis of this essay incorrect and meaningless"

How about that?

Hmm...

1. Time is not real.
2. Life is energy.

1. Time is not real.

If this is right then why aren't you out there getting a Nobel Prize in Physics for your definitive definition that has eluded countless geniuses? Money and everlasting fame are yours!

Seriously, if you could prove time was not real, when it is currently a fundamental concept in modern physics then it would completely overturn the field.

Quit talking out your ass about stuff you have no knowledge of.

2. Life is energy.

And? It requires a supply of energy to continue to function. What is your point (if there is one)?

Originally Posted by Photolysis

If this is right then why aren't you out there getting a Nobel Prize in Physics for your definitive definition that has eluded countless geniuses? Money and everlasting fame are yours!

Seriously, if you could prove time was not real, when it is currently a fundamental concept in modern physics then it would completely overturn the field.

When you realize time does not exist, it does not change anything but your spiritual awareness, because it is a realization. This is because time is based off movement, which only exists relative to something, such as memory or a linear viewpoint.

Schmaven has expressed similar views to mine, including the explanation of why time is irrelevant and the phenomena which are free for revelation.

If we do not reveal this very moment, we are not truly "living" in the now, and thus we are thinking of the past or future to a clouding extent.

Since the ego generally assumes cause and effect paradigms and ideas of "time", it then goes on to thinking that time has a beginning and end, when really, there is only eternity. In this way can no time be wasted, because it isn't even real.

Originally Posted by Photolysis

And? It requires a supply of energy to continue to function. What is your point (if there is one)?

In the context of energy there is always transformation. Therefore through this we could relatively say nothing is free, or rather, all is free. Yet if we remain unattached to what is relative, we realize the universal - that which never changes, which is always free, and is Reality itself.

Now, when we see this free universe to a relative, linear perspective, we automatically divide it into assumed opposites, i.e. "free" and "not free". Since these are based upon flexible positionalities - we drop them by realizing how they are illusions. This means we can look within ourselves to see that nothing needs to be gained or lost. In this way we can see all things as divine, and therefore free as Reality itself.

Other examples: Money is free when we view work as costing nothing. Work is free when we view that an interview costs nothing. Purchases are free when we know that the money only goes towards another's life. Life is free in that is was brought about through the conditions of the universe.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

It all depends how you define free.

Yes, that's right. In the end you will have an essay based upon optimism or pessimism.

Originally Posted by Photolysis

Is it? Love requires socialising at the very least which costs time and energy (and money). Courtship costs time and energy. The relationship which gives birth to love costs time, energy, and money.

It's not free by any means.

courtship is not love. courtship is a ritual. a human created relationship.

love is not created by humans. therefore it is not defined by man made relationships or costs man made items.

love is free in that it doesn't cost a penny. come on. not all cultures even have money.

the real price of love, is love itself

I would just fuck with the assignment and define "free" not as costing money by definition but as being freely accessible. It doesn't matter if stuff costs money, even if love and bunnies and rainbows cost money, it only matters if it costs so much it gravely restricts your possibilities. It is the best to have the things in life you like to be freely accessible.

Or something like that.

Or you should totally make up a scenario where the person you love is being held hostage, and you have to pay ransom. Best things in life are free you said? I guess we'll have to let the bitch die. Or at least Somehow fuck with the pretty empty statement 'the best things in life are free'.

No wait! I will logically prove you how the statement is blatantly false.

xA = x costing time
xB = x Costing money
xC = x is fun

p1. xA ↔ xB (time is money)
p2. [all]xA (everything costs time)

..............................1. xC → x┐B (it it's fun it does not cost money)
.............p1 + p2. -> 2. [all]xB (everything costs money, because everything costs time)
..............................3. Assumption : [there is x] xC
..............................4.

Okay, shit, it's still vacation, I can't bring myself to remembering how logic went. There is a way to prove, with first-year philosophy logics, that -if time=money-, saying 'fun/best things in life are always free' is false. I promise.

Good luck with your essay.