Thanks for the food for thought and excellent discussion.

You have touched many areas of Spinoza’s work and thought, providing great insights and critical feedback.

I am not sure how it fits in Spinoza’s views, but I believe that God gives every human the freedom of will to make their own choices. Although humans may end becoming slaves of their desires, they still have the freedom to make mistakes, and that is a freedom that God does not want to take away from them. Inevitably, they have to face the consequences, since it is a cause and effect situation.

As you pointed out, understanding the causes, i.e. increasing human knowledge, can save humans from having to suffer the effects.

Another aspect of freedom is that one’s freedom ends where another’s begins, but I believe that this is subjective, because everyone wants to be free and set their own limits to personal freedom.