It appears to me that freedom is first mentioned in the Fourth Meditation when the meditator first states that her errors depend on knowledge and "the faculty of choice or freedom of the will". Here is seems the most simple definition of freedom is choice. In fact later, after she discusses the faculty of knowledge she switches the terms in saying "the will, or freedom of choice". Thus, I think it is safe to say that freedom in this case is interchangeably freedom of choice or freedom of the will.

The tricky part is decifering what this means. This freedom of choice in the will turns out to be the greatest faculty the meditator can conceive of and thus because of the will that she considers herself to bear some likeness to God. Although God's will is greater due to knowledge power and object of the will, the meditator sees the will as simply the "ability to do or not do something (that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or avoid)". Take an apple: one may affirm its juiciness or deny it, one may eat it or not eat it, one may pursue it by going towards it to partake of it or avoid it because maybe one's seen too many still lifes and it creeps him or her out. From here it seems that freedom is found in the will and the will is the ability to do or not do something, so given an object or a situation or an idea or whatever, freedom is the ability to do whatever with it.

Of course it is not that simple as the meditator lays out degrees of freedom (in the non-statistical sense). She goes on to explain the will further stating that "when the intellect puts somethin forward...our inclinations are such that we do not feel we are determined by any external force". Given that, the meditator continues stating that to be free does not mean we need to inclined both ways. In fact, and here's the tricky part, if we are inclined one way "the freer is my choice". Divine gracea and natural knowledge apparently only increase and strengthen freedom. Further, indifference in a choice is the lowest grade of freedom. If the meditator always saw what was true and good, she would be "wholly free" because she would never feel indifference.

So let's break that down. Indifference is the lowest grade of freedom. This makes sense to a degree to me because if we are indifferent about something than we won't utilize our freedom really, or if we do there's no passion or cause behind it. Some people may be indifferent towards say playing a sport. They don't really care either way, so they just play because whatever. Whereas, there may be people out there who want nothing more than to play a sport and they play because they are inclined to and they are really utilizing their freedom, it seems a higher form of freedom to me somehow. Most see the fact that higher freedom is when one is divinely inspired to be a form of determinism. Wholly free as always being told what is true and good seems to leave out the choice. However, I think it's really just a negation of relativism. If we are say divinely inspired or just always know what is true and good, well that may incline us one way, but for some it could still incline them the other way. We still have the choice to do or not do, we still have our will. We just happen to know what a true and good choice is. However, since we are finite and imperfect we are capable of deceit and wanting to do what isn't good and true. We've all done things we knew ahead of time weren't the best things. Just because we are given the knowledge does not mean we are forced to do anything. The fact that we have the knowledge makes us freer because when we utilize our will we know what we're getting ourselves into either way and we aren't just making a blind choice.

When I first thought about what it is for an idea to resemble a thing I thought it was pretty obvious. If one’s thinking in images then well the idea is a picture of the object, it resembles the appearance of the thing. If one’s thinking in language, well then the idea resembles the world in that the language refers to the object. However, we discussed in class how oftentimes our ideas are not in either of these forms. We do not usually think in pictures or in language necessarily. So if our ideas are not pictures or sentences how can they resemble the world?
I guess the first step to figuring this out is to figure out what an idea is. When Descartes discusses ideas he names only particulars. I feel that particulars would be easy enough to talk about. Our ideas of particulars resemble the world in the same way that Florka’s scribbles on the board resembled a cat. I feel that our ideas of particulars resemble the world in that for each individual person his or her idea refers to the given thing. My idea of a cat may be different from someone elses, but they both still resemble the world in that my idea of a cat leads me to be able to think about a cat, talk about a cat, picture a cat, and if I talk to you about a cat, you will know what I am referring to even if your idea of a cat is different. The idea does not resemble the world in the way a photograph does or the way a similar object does, but rather is resembles the world in that for each person the idea refers to the particular and allows one to be able to do different things with the idea.
I get a little iffy when it comes to considering ideas that are not particulars. However, maybe it is not as big if a problem as I may think. Take the generality of the idea of being a cat or the idea of justice. How much can those ideas even resemble the world? Is justice a thing that can be resembled? It can be exemplified, but I do not see how justice can be “resembled”. For something to be resembled is for a thing to be like or similar to it. Perhaps other generalities can resemble justice, like fairness, and maybe our ideas can resemble generalities in a sort of descriptive way. However, I do not see how our ideas can resemble generalities in the same way they resemble particulars.

Nature vs. Natural Light

The meditator finds herself classifying ideas in this section of the Third Meditation. Seeing that judgments are the only type of idea open to falsity, she considers the arguments behind her current "Resemblance Theory" which states that the judgments she makes are based on actual objects outside of herself. Her first reason behind holding to the resemblance theory is that nature taught her to thing this. This idea is explicitly defined as it is states "When I say 'Nature taught me to think this', all I mean is that a spontaneous impulse leads me to believe it, not that its truth has been revealed to me by some natural light." Taking nature first, what is meant is that as Hatfield states "we experience objects as having various properties". It is simply the idea that sensory perceptions present objects as they are outside of you. Nature teaching is to say that sensations are true representations of the world outside of the self. The meditator dismisses this as valid reasoning however as natural impulses have been wrong in the past and thus cannot be trustworthy at present.

When defining nature as teacher the meditator distinguishes it from the idea of natural light. She uses the cogito reasoning as an example of knowledge from natural light. She then goes on to explain that ideas from natural light cannot be doubted. Afterall, she maintains, "there cannot be another faculty both as trustworthy as the natural light and also capable of showing me that such things are not true." It seems, as Hatfield suggests, that the natural light may be another form of clear and distinct perception. However, it adds something to the equation in the idea as Hatfield notes that it is "all we have somehow makes it uninpeachable as a source of truth".

After consideration it seems that ideas that come to us clearly and distinctly seem to come from natural light, whereas ideas that come to us from the sensations and appear to be outside of us are things which nature has taught us. Furthermore, the former cannot be brought into doubt, while the latter can easily be doubted.