StrictlyLogical

I'm sorry, but as far as I know humans and animals choose between equal values all the time. Watch your dog eat a bowl of dog food. Every pellet is for the purposes of the dog's hunger and even by the standard of the dog's "differentiating capacity" perfectly identical. Again the truth is "If all values are equal ALL choices are possible" As for a halting problem, in an artificial system that really would require bad programming (equal values to cause inaction causing lack of value), and from a biological evolutionary standpoint if ever such a mechanism appeared in the variation of species, it would almost certainly ensure extinction of that new species within a paltry few generations.

I think there is a distinction here. An employer asking you to do something which violates the rights of others (regardless of the employer) is one thing. An employer, say a person in the business of X, asks you to perform things which IF YOU were running the business X, you would not do because it is a waste of resources. Here the mere fact that you are asked to do something in a chain of production and decision which you know to be a misallocation of resources is not an issue of principle. The question is whether what you are being paid,is enough for you to do what is asked even though it may drive you nuts to know it is a waste. Businesses are allowed to make bad business decisions, it is not a principle of Objectivism that you substitute your judgement (even if correct) for your bosses judgement, said boss the entity with whom you have a contract.

BA: All I mean is if there are 100 real things you need to trade, and if no one translated the value to any standard, if you wanted to know the market average of each and every possible trade you would ideally have tabulated a direct exchange rate for every possible pair. Gold and water, pizza and water, gold and pizza. The formula is simply an expression of how many direct pairs there are between N things, i.e. how many direct exchange rates that would be. Of course you might also want to double this number by keeping track of which side is initiating the exchange: asking for gold with pizza may differ from asking for pizza with gold. In any case setting sell and buy prices according to a universal standard unit as we all know removes many of the administrative problems with trade.

BenArcher It may be that the temporary "currency" is really just two things offered by the private organization (or government) offering the mode of exchange as a service: 1. A single unit to express value to enable trades between N products and services without having to maintain and calculate N!/(N-2)! possible trading rates... this is a universally used magnitude within the service... something by which to set prices. 2. Use of the units in a temporary fashion to allow actual exchange of things of actual value according to a (momentarily) fixed "prices".

*Bump* We really need Mushroom to weigh in on this. To some degree we are speculating about positions taken by two groups as described in Mushroom's course... a course to which no here one other than Mushroom is a witness.

I agree entirely with the summary of what Biddle says... but I have not actually bothered with hearing Biddle himself.

I agree entirely.

What I mean by "normalise" is translate and replace "temptrons" as displayed to the party to the transaction with the preferred standard of value of that party. e.g. Bob pays for everything with seconds of supercomputer time and charges using the same, while Jim sees all prices in terms of grams of silver... while in the background the App is using the current or projected asks and puts expressed in temptrons which will be used for the transaction.

Totally agree with sN

This premise is flawed: "If all values are equal no choice is possible." The truth is "If all values are equal ALL choices are possible" Imagine the animal approaching a single bail of hay in reaction to a hunger it has chosen to satisfy, as it nears they hay bail it realizes that the bail of hay is not rectilinear but is actually a small angular section of a circle of hay and lo and behold the animal is at its center, all of the hay now being equidistant from its snout. This I suppose paralyzes the animal, because all of the hay it was it intending to eat is now equidistant and it "cannot" choose which way to go? The answer here is not that there is no way to choose, it is IT DOES NOT MATTER which way is chosen. Here the choice is to eat or die, the particular patch of hay chosen for munching is immaterial. Please note, the choice to not place any significance upon the particular bit of hay to eat is not non-rational, in a choice between life and death, choosing life and ignoring the irrelevant is imminently rational. I'm afraid this flawed thought experiment, in addition to being flawed in more ways than one, simply does not prove anything.

We all agree "money" is an arbitrary but useful social construct... which in physical form had its day. Permanent electronic currency is also having its day but owning it for any appreciable time to store wealth subjects it to inflation. What about replacing money with an electronic transaction facilitating "mode" of exchange which has a limited life? "Temptrons" that last only for the duration of a single exchange. In essence no one can "own" the stuff for any appreciable time because by its nature it IS transitory, it lasts only the time for a transaction and is not used for any other purpose (it cannot be parked). If the transaction fails, a new bundle of "temptrons" are issued according to the then current market price of the real stuff of value being exchanged. Because these things do not exist beyond a single transaction they cannot (I don't think so anyway) be subject to inflation. they cannot be parked kept or hoarded and given the absolutely arbitrary use of the things no one would want to. The "arbitrary" price of real stuff can be set based on the transitory "temptrons" without the absolute value of the temptrons having any meaning whatever. the final piece of the puzzle, personalized apps can normalize the temptrons to whatever value each individual consumer or producer deem important. A consumer may choose something like the cost of water or 10 killowatthours or 30 seconds of 10000MHz of computing time, whereas a producer may choose ounces of gold or 1000 manhours of median salaried electrical engineers. Both producers and consumers could "set" by what standard the "exchange units" are gauged, in units that made the most sense to them. Since asks and puts will make more sense to each party to each deal and the probability of maximizing value on both sides of every exchange would increase.

Businesses/producers could arbitrarily set their "asks" for their goods or services in terms of whatever commodity (exchangeable ownable quantity with exchange rates defined in the market) they wanted to "express" their "price" with. Others could look at that, and based on what they would have to trade (through a series of trades perhaps) the deal would happen or not.

I was trying to see if we could abstract away from the specific context of currency ... your answer indicates "no". I think I am starting to understand your point. Perhaps technology is the solution to facilitate this ... and well this might sound strange... using currency only for the purposes of transaction and not for "storage" of value. i.e. currency is not used to "store" value but only to "translate value" when things of some actual (tied to reality) value are exchanged. I.e. currency itself has no value other than its ability to translate value. This sounds like a floating abstraction... and at this point it may be one. Perhaps such a thing cannot be devised or is incoherent (self-contradictory). Perhaps the solution is simply the non use of currency of any kind... Maybe technology could help removing the need for currency and providing the necessaries for transactions which are actually based on trade, not based on the arbitrary "value of currency", not based on physical trade of actual goods, but based on trade of OWNERSHIP of actual useful/valuable things. Owning money is like owning nothing... physically trading real goods is ridiculous (the barter system), trading ownership of things having some utility/value seems difficult but solvable with technology. If a burger joint and a customer both had the same technology informing them of the exchange rate of gold, interest in the music industry,interest in flour companies, IBM shares, and silver, and the burger joint and the customer could easily buy and sell what was needed to facilitate a transaction, a path to determining how many of what the customer had would be exchanged for a burger could easily be determined. I can see an app on a smartphone using all the current market rates and settings determined by the owner of the phone, to say "this is a good deal" and "It will cost you 3 tenth shares of "Rapper D" or 1/245th of the cost of the most popular viewing device (TV) currently on the market" (in particular because the user chose to use TVs as his standard of value). The user of course would have put "1/240 or less" in his app and "willing to sell any non physical thing I happen to own" in exchange for the burger.

Is "inflation", as an observed economic phenomenon, restricted to a "currency" based economy? There are reasons WHY "inflation" occurs in a "currency" based economy, I.e. there are mechanisms which cause it, so then WHAT is the difference in an economy shifted away from "currency" which makes it immune to the same mechanism?

An Objectivist police officer could never act based on "obligation, imperative and duty" as such, in the way Kant describes "acting from duty". In a non-Objectivist society an Objectivist police officer would act based on a contractual agreement which necessarily includes voluntarily chosen obligations and duties. In an Objectivist society the police officer would be acting based on a contractual agreement but also in accordance with his/her own interests to live in a society where the protection of individual rights against the initiation of force/fraud are of paramount importance. If an Objectivist police officer finds his or herself violating individual rights on behalf of the State, whatever the form of that State, dictatorship, democracy, etc, I think the police officer could 1. quit, 2. not quit and abandon Objectivism, or 3. not quit and evade the fact that he is no longer an Objectivist, the first being the only rational choice in accordance with the principles of Objetivism.

What is the difference between AnarchOs and pure Anarchists, i.e. in AnarchO what government controls, checks, systems, are in place, that act for or on behalf of all individuals? i.e. Currently a policeman, although perhaps working in response to a call by person A in regard to behaviour of person B, still has an explicit mandate to uphold the law in connection with BOTH person A's rights and person B's rights. In a democracy such a mandate is tied to the state, in a minarchy it is explicitly a mandate to protect individuals rights. Is there anyone in the AnarchO system that acts on behalf of or consistently ensures in respect of their actions that ALL individual rights are upheld? Is there accountability? ( I am speaking of Objectivist concepts of rights here)

Anarcho-nothing. This is supposed to be a variant of Objectivism? no thank you Sounds so much like what you'd hear from a leftist egalitarian. Whether we live in a "free" or mixed economy, at least the Objectivist principle of non-interference comes through loud and clear in arguments against the imposition of minimum wage, rather than some "bleeding heart sounding" plaint about the "artificialities" the government is supposedly intentionally using to keep the little guy down. I suppose Anarchos advocate redistribution of wealth before complete disintegration of all government because the system wasn't fair man.... just not fair.

Skylab72 1. Many of the concepts borne of philosophy have been labelled misleadingly. You are approaching concepts such as Empiricism or Rationalism as though the proponents of the these schools of philosophical thought had in mind something which actually makes sense objectively. They DID not. You would be surprised where "empiricists" end up (mostly skeptics) and where rationalists end up (mostly mystics). If you read my post carefully you will see I introduce these as examples of false dichotomies. I should probably have said "values" not "virtues", but I included that example because you stated you were familiar with LP (possibly OPAR?) 2. I do not embrace the Kantian dichotomy... I state clearly it is a false dichotomy. I think here, and we need Mushroom to verify this, the "Realist" camp and the "Anti-realist" camp represent such a false dichotomy that misses the truth. Again I am assuming the name "Realist" is not being used in the sense an Objectivist would use it.

This is very interesting. Maybe it would be more fruitful to allow people to present their favorite jokes (we don't all write jokes), and then analyze them.

I recently upgraded to IE 11.0 and for some reason quoting posts no longer works for me even though I have made no changes to the security (or any other for that matter) settings of Internet Explorer. Any ideas? Oops I made a mistake in the Thread title... any way to edit that?

Skylab: It would be more effective for you to focus on statements of fact rather than people/personalities when having philosophical discussions. Emotionalism and insults are just not effective to engender an atmosphere conducive to a mutually beneficial dialogue which is illuminating and thought provoking, that is, if such is your sincere and genuine wish and intention and reason for visiting this forum. I know how to think logically, and the law of "excluded middle" is as obvious as (and in a sense equivalent to) the law of identity. Realism and anti-realism are schools of thought regarding science, and like other schools of thought, subjectively labelled/named by their authors, do not necessarily form a logically exhaustive and mutually exclusive pairing. Recall other false dichotomies for which philosophers have claim there is an exhaustive and mutually exclusive pairing (and no alternative) thereby in fact, leaving out the truth. E.g. Are virtues "intrinsic" or "subjective"? Which school of philosophy is correct, "Rationalism" or "Empiricism"? Is proposition "A" a synthetic or an analytic truth? None of these pairs are of the same nature as A and non-A, and are in fact more like subjective Cs and Ds. So, calm down. We are not your enemy. Let's have a rational discussion if you think it is of value to you.

MAPS Insofar as the Muppet map is not misleading, it is as true AND as useful as the Google map in respect of finding the X. The NUMBER of facts contained in the Google map differ from the Muppet Treasure map, many real facts (where exposed bubblegum wrappers visible to satellites are located) are present in the Google map which are not present in the Muppet Treasure Map, and the location of the X, is at least one fact contained in both maps. The reality the maps refer to is an identity, a single reality spanning the size represented by the maps. Each map says a great many things about the reality, each of this things claimed by the maps is either true or is false. Whether or not the truth of any of the facts revealed by either map is useful is not something residing in the map but in the relationship between the fact and man. If the fact is useful to man, insofar as each map stated the truth regarding the fact the map is useful. Knowable? (false limits) Perhaps this is really not a debate over models or theories but the extent of knowledge to be sought. AS IF there were some sort of limit to what Man can or should seek to know. Man should seek to know EVERYTHING, even knowing that omniscience is impossible. Knowledge of an entity is precisely to know the nature of the thing,, what it IS, what it does, including all the properties, qualities, attributes, interactions etc. It may be that "anti-realism" is imposing a false barrier on knowledge, i.e. not to seek the nature of things but only their effects, whereas realism may be attempting to find the "true" nature of things "in themselves" beyond their effects. It may be in some sense this is a false dichotomy, similar to all the others arising from the analytic synthetic dichotomy. Entities and their Effects Since ALL of our knowledge of reality is based on perception i.e. effects on our sense apparatus, we must be happy with not having a "mystically direct" knowledge of things "in themselves" independent of effects, and so in a sense entities we discover and come to know must be defined based on effects they cause. Equally, since effects are effects of something and cannot exist independently of their existent causes, we must be comfortable with effects not being primary metaphysically speaking. In reality entities and their effects must be looked at as having the same footing, they simply ARE, and the choice of realism versus anti-realism is a false dichotomy. When we get to the most fundamental aspects of nature, it is very possible we will define the most basic of things based on the most basic effects they cause which we can observe (perhaps through a long chain of causation and a multitude of instruments). But this is not an empty definition of these basic things. To want more, i.e. to want to know, and "see" more than the effects they cause would be to look for something mystical, something we could know independent of perception by means of our senses. AT the most fundamental level (and we must not misidentify it too early) there is no further reason WHY X causes Y, or X effects or exhibits Y. Once the fundamental level of reality is reached, X simply causes, effects, or exhibits Y, for no other more explanatory or more fundamental reason than X is simply X and that happens to be its nature. Summary In summary I think there is a false distinction/dichotomy here. Truth (knowledge) is the goal of science and utility of any particular knowledge is only dependent on the particular fact it reveals not the manner by which it was discovered. Things and their effects are inexorably related as part of the nature and identity of reality, either what we say about reality is consistent with the totality of our knowledge of reality or it is not. [bTW I tend to avoid the P word, as it is associated with a very unethical short range view some adopt in ethics and politics...] PS It may be that in some sense BOTH realism and anti-realism are flawed... leaving... Objectivism?

One of the few books which actually states "A is A" in it.

Your opinions are valid. Incorrectness in a non specific sense can be of different degrees, and the consequences of different magnitudes. Some of the worst dictators and tyrants of history were convinced what they were doing was right, they were insane and they were wrong. Recall that the standards by which concepts such as wrong and right good and evil are adjudged are reality and life and not something ineffable social or supernatural. If you are focusing on moral responsibility of the innocently ignorant, I have addressed that directly in my post. What is the distinction for you between evil/pernicious and "wrong"? (in the context of second handers). Is there a difference from making a mistake or an error and maintaining that error when there is no excuse to maintain it (when shown the mistake and why etc.)? I personally have met second handers who were evil. But that is a story for another day.

Yes