value, and metaphysics
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 3:10 am
There are things of general value: gold, diamonds, things which are valuable by consensus. This is the concept that money was created using, the idea that for a thing to have value, the only requisite is that enough people believe it to be true. The fact that money is a functional system lends weight to this postulate.
There are also things of personal value. These things are of considerably less worth to people whom are not party to the information that makes them valuable to those that are. This information may be a memory associated with an object such as a photograph, but it can be more complicated as well. The cruficix, a symbol, is obviously going to be looked on as a simple carving by people unaware of the traditions of the christian church, but devout catholics would afford it much more reverance. More materialistically, one with enough knowledge about a company's stock which is "undervalued" would value that stock more than an ignorant person, and purchase it based on the assumption that the stock is "worth more" than the owner believes and prices it at.
At this point we begin to see the edge of interactions between value, even across the same object. That stock has been given a value by two people who have arrived at seperate conclusions. Though the statement "it's worth something to me" may sound cliche, it also makes a profound assumption, that the individual is capable of assigning value independantly. Sentimental value is easy to dismiss as less important than... than what? "Real" value? Sentimental value can be expressed as a person's tendancy to value a thing more than others based on emotional attatchment.
Obviously, things can have different values to different people. A question that follows logically asks, can an object have different values to a single person? Though instinct may be to consult a definition for the answer, an attempt is being made here to deal with a concept rather than a word. If value is considered to be the relative worth of something on an objective scale, while a person may be indescisive regarding a thing's value, they cannot assign it more than one. Thus, each person may value something in only one amount.
Each person may value something in one amount, independantly of (though by no means not influenced by) others. Each person is capable of assigning value to an object without changing the assessments of others (in a vaccuum). Each person is then capable of adjusting the value of an object based on other values expressed regarding that object.
With these characteristics it becomes difficult to view value as possessed by the thing. As things are incapable of possessing objective value, and have value only through the lens of opinion, value's place is the metaphysical spectrum shifts to the personal sphere, as characteristic to the person making the assumption of value. Value vanishes from the inanimate and withdraws from objective reality, and is revealed as an aspect of personal reality.
Through exploring the concept of value, interactions between personal realities are demonstrated. Influence between people is fascinating. Yet more important is the seperation between the personal and the objective, the perceived and the real. Truth is universal, whereas value, and other things which reside in perception, cannot be.
Seek you the edge of the real.
There are also things of personal value. These things are of considerably less worth to people whom are not party to the information that makes them valuable to those that are. This information may be a memory associated with an object such as a photograph, but it can be more complicated as well. The cruficix, a symbol, is obviously going to be looked on as a simple carving by people unaware of the traditions of the christian church, but devout catholics would afford it much more reverance. More materialistically, one with enough knowledge about a company's stock which is "undervalued" would value that stock more than an ignorant person, and purchase it based on the assumption that the stock is "worth more" than the owner believes and prices it at.
At this point we begin to see the edge of interactions between value, even across the same object. That stock has been given a value by two people who have arrived at seperate conclusions. Though the statement "it's worth something to me" may sound cliche, it also makes a profound assumption, that the individual is capable of assigning value independantly. Sentimental value is easy to dismiss as less important than... than what? "Real" value? Sentimental value can be expressed as a person's tendancy to value a thing more than others based on emotional attatchment.
Obviously, things can have different values to different people. A question that follows logically asks, can an object have different values to a single person? Though instinct may be to consult a definition for the answer, an attempt is being made here to deal with a concept rather than a word. If value is considered to be the relative worth of something on an objective scale, while a person may be indescisive regarding a thing's value, they cannot assign it more than one. Thus, each person may value something in only one amount.
Each person may value something in one amount, independantly of (though by no means not influenced by) others. Each person is capable of assigning value to an object without changing the assessments of others (in a vaccuum). Each person is then capable of adjusting the value of an object based on other values expressed regarding that object.
With these characteristics it becomes difficult to view value as possessed by the thing. As things are incapable of possessing objective value, and have value only through the lens of opinion, value's place is the metaphysical spectrum shifts to the personal sphere, as characteristic to the person making the assumption of value. Value vanishes from the inanimate and withdraws from objective reality, and is revealed as an aspect of personal reality.
Through exploring the concept of value, interactions between personal realities are demonstrated. Influence between people is fascinating. Yet more important is the seperation between the personal and the objective, the perceived and the real. Truth is universal, whereas value, and other things which reside in perception, cannot be.
Seek you the edge of the real.
