The Natural Linguist

What is Freedom? I always thought I knew: my right to swing my fist stops at the end of your nose. While it is difficult to know who originally formulated this thought, it is nevertheless a pithy expression of the concept of boundaries. The problem with this statement is that it only easily applies to things whose ownership is clear and unambiguous: property, persons, patents, etc. When the boundaries between meum and tuum are less clear, that's when things get interesting. Let us take the case of vaccination as an example. Much has been written on this topic and so I will not attempt a detailed excursus of the various schools of thought. Indeed, for the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter so much who is right or wrong. The question exercising me is how individual liberty relates to the public weal. The mathematician John Nash showed how our self interest depends not only on our own choices, but also in interesting ways on the choices of other people. The question