Which Existents Can Be Valued?

[AndrewSternberg]

I argue that more than what exists can be valued. Will you disagree?

I do. There is nothing more. You cannot go beyond what exists. Remember that mental entities (concepts, memories, etc.) are subsumed by the concept 'existent'.

Are you saying that there is something that can be valued that is 'more' than what exists, i.e. doesn't exist?

[Betsy]

One values all of the concretes to which justice refers. Concretes alone can be valued, not abstractions. But concretes does not mean just physical or material objects.

"To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living." [Galt's Speech]

Here are three "supreme and ruling VALUES" which seem rather abstract and not very concrete to me. How does this fit in with what you were saying?

[y_feldblum]

They are abstract (ie, not concrete) in the sense that they are not merely physical objects and they exist continuously over the span of one's life and they can be broken down into more tangible values. But they are not abstract in the sense of the conceptual level of consciousness and unit-perspective: one cannot value concepts, only concretes, such as one's reason, one's purpose, and one's own self-esteem.

Abstract vs. concrete means two things in two different contexts.

[JRoberts]

You cannot go beyond what exists.

Do you value your memories? Those don't exist anymore-they are things that existed. And yet I would assume that you still value them.

[DavidOdden]

Do you value your memories?  Those don't exist anymore-they are things that existed.  And yet I would assume that you still value them.

If you value a memory that does not even exist, then I think you've got an irrational value system.

[y_feldblum]

Memories exist - they are mental states which capture a perspective on a previous state of affairs (not a definition and don't quote me on it).

[Free Capitalist]

Guys, when we value memories, we don't value the mental states but images in our heads which have long since ceased to exist.

Similarly, when I value my process of reasoning, I don't value the individual neurons that all click together to create a syllogistically sound claim, but a process, a transition rather than a concrete state.

I think what may be going wrong here is an equivocation upon the word "existent". Can someone please pull up AR's definition of the word, because I don't have AR's books nearby.

When I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time, I was inspired by, and valued Francisco and his actions; yet Francisco D'Anconia is not an existent, not in any sensible definition of the word that I can recall; I have had never encountered any "real life" concrete parallels to him before - he only "existed" on paper, a figment of my imagination and nothing else. But I valued him as much as, and even more than, I would value real human beings. And no I didn't value my mental state, I valued the image of the hero in my head. The brain and the mind are two different things, don't forget that.