Free thinking?

Question:can anyone ever end the process of free thought? Can a mind stop thinking by force? I mean... if a power were to try and limit or end free thought could they actually accomplish the task without intefering with the thought process they want to promote?
A power can stop your actions, questions, public or maybe even private conversation but can they or it stop your private thoughts?
Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are different.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: can anyone ever end the process of free thought? Can a mind stop thinking by force? I mean... if a power were to try and limit or end free thought could they actually accomplish the task without intefering with the thought process they want to promote?
A power can stop your actions, questions, public or maybe even private conversation but can they or it stop your private thoughts?
Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are different.

I think a power can end the process of free thought, by controlling what information gets put into your brain.

Consider Orwell's 1984: there the state controlled (for the most part) what people thought. Near the end of the book is a whole section where they convince the main character that 2+2 might just equal 5.

Hitler had the same idea, and implemented it in the Hitler Youth. If he could have kept control of Germany long enough for those kids to grow up completely within his system, their thoughts would basically have been limited.

North Korean indoctrination apparently does the same thing, so do cults. it doesn't necessarily work on everybody, but it works on many if not most.

To a (perhaps) lesser degree, the mass media also does this, by framing issues in the terms they choose. This prevents many people from thinking critically, and sort of forces them to think along the lines that the media provides. Media determines what 'the story' is -- and this often ignores what's objectively important.

To take the idea even further, society in general can sort of end free thought as well. it makes certain ideas impossible to be considered seriously. This can lead into paranoia and schizophrenia...

Possibly, if they ever develop the technology of telekinesis. Other than that, it would be impossible to completely stamp out "free thought". You can try to supress that free thought through intimidation.

EDIT: telekinesis is the wrong word, i mean some sort of mind control

Yeah in certain ways, say a POW is in torture, if they aren't into their happy place and even if they are a sudden shock of pain, or a loud noise, a hiddiouse threat, can pull them back to the hear and now so they are forced away from what they wanted to think into the reality of the offender, people do it with their childre, teachers with their students, Dr's at the ER, it goes on, maybe it is for just a moment but your free thought is lost to someone else.

Consider the lobotomy. Performed on around seventy thousand people... some of them to stop 'youthful defiance' in children. Or those who suffer brain damage and lose the ability to figure out addresses even though they can still perform math and use maps just fine.

We know it is possible to interfere with thought processes through crude manipulation of the brain, and we know that some of these interferences can be very fine in effect. What we do not know is how to perform such a precise manipulation ourselves. Yet.

Given current evidence, it seems quite plausible that some future tyrant figures out some way to prevent you from imagining a better life or prevent you from contemplating activities which are against socially or legally accepted bounds. Perhaps fortunately for all of us, such things seem to be some ways off. For now.

No. I do not believe that there is ANYTHING/ANYONE that can stop your ability to think, not without a club to he head or something like that. There is thought influence and disinformation, but non of these things can stop your reasoning and thinking ability, NOTHING!