What is Freedom?

What is Freedom?

Freedom is Ability

Now imagine a picture. In this picture there is a person in a cage and a guitar sitting outside the cage.

The person, let's call him Casper, does not have the ability to play that guitar (operating under the premise that he of himself has no way of getting out of that cage). It does not matter whether or not he knows how to play the guitar, because he's stuck in that cage he can't play the guitar.

But oh! Now he's been let out of the cage. But does he have the ability to play the guitar now?

Actually, no, even though the cage isn't restricting him from playing the guitar. He has never learned to play the guitar so he is still "bound" from playing it until he learns how to play it.

Freedom is ability/capacity, whether the limits placed on it are external or internal. Although a person may be free of all exterior restraints from doing something they still can't do it if they don't personally posses the ability to. They still do not have freedom to do that thing.