Freedomain Radio

around and around and around and around

dont_mind_me to Z3K0:

why is it they these sorts refuse to face a debate?

dont_mind_me to Z3K0:

it just seems odd that the logical end is to seems to be to cut and run...

Z3K0 to dont_mind_me:

I don't know everything , they have their reasons for evading debate

Z3K0 to dont_mind_me:

but it has nothing to do with aggression

dont_mind_me to Z3K0:

aside from admit defeat...or rather the merit in someone else's argument...

Z3K0 to dont_mind_me:

but its not 'loosing' to me, its being defeated by logic and reason

Z3K0 to dont_mind_me:

intellectual honesty is about bowing to logic and reason

bockman:

you value logic and reason?

Z3K0 to dont_mind_me:

I do

TheNihilist to bockman:

yes, i do

Z3K0 to bockman:

I do , do you?

dont_mind_me to bockman:

certainly

bockman:

and is it your belief that stef values logic and reason also?

Z3K0 to bockman:

yes, or else I wouldn't have debated

dont_mind_me to bockman:

i would hope so

TheNihilist to bockman:

no, in a particular case stef is clearly not valuing logic & reason. he is valuing something else.

dont_mind_me to TheNihilist:

why is that?

TheNihilist to bockman:

because stef is denying the subjective value of truth.

Z3K0 to TheNihilist:

I assumed apriori that stef valued logic and reason, however , towards the end of the debate he wasn't making arguments , just explaining his feelings . the actual subject of the debate stopped being argued for on his end

bockman:

so your opinion has changed from you posted to me, zeko, just a few minutes ago? You now believe that Stef does not value logic and reason?

bockman:

*what you posted to me, rather

Z3K0 to bockman:

before we started the debate I did

Z3K0 to bockman:

apriori

Z3K0 to bockman:

or else I wouldn't have debated

Z3K0 to bockman:

it would be like debating with a TV set

bockman:

may I ask why you are avoiding answering my question?

bockman:

for clarification, the question is: is it your belief that stef values logic and reason also?

Z3K0 to bockman:

I don't know what to think of Stef , I just count my experiences , I'm dissapointed by the last debate

bockman:

so your answer is, you don't know if Stef values logic and reason, is that correct?

Z3K0 to bockman:

right now yes, before this debate , I felt he did value logic and reason

bockman:

are logic and reason the only tools we have at our disposal to determine the truth value of the statement, 'the value of truth is subjective'?

Z3K0 to bockman:

not the truth value , just the truth

LOL. This again???

David. You are like a child. Trying to use a play on words to win your point...

"Truth value" is not the same as "the value of truth."

"Truth value" is just another way of saying whether something is true or not. There are only two possible "truth values." They are "true" and "false." It has absolutely nothing to do with human values.

Yes, logic does determine "truth value." No, logic cannot determine "the value of truth." This statement is not inconsistent because they are two different things.

Z3KO was not aware of the distinction and assumed you were trying to get him to admit that logic determines human value. He made the distinction clear though when he said:

"Z3K0 to bockman: not the truth value , just the truth"

Z3KO has made no error in logic except misunderstanding the term "truth value."

You have proven no inconsistency.

Try again.

Well, I don't have any particular desire to debate the intellectual content of this threat, which seems to have turned all kinds of unpleasant and aggressive, but for those who are reading without engaging, I suppose a clarification of my single sentence that seems to have sent all of this off is probably in order...

I wrote:

Actually, economics requires objective value, i.e. money.

I did not write that money has objective value, or that pieces of paper or bars of gold have objective value -- I merely wrote that the discipline of economics requires some sort of objective value, such as money. No sophisticated economy can run in the absence of a commonly accepted and valued medium of exchange, such as gold or even fiat currency if competition is disallowed. This currency must be accepted as a generalized value by virtually everyone in society -- which is why I wrote "objective value," and apologized for not clarifying the term later on. I simply meant to differentiate currency from more subjective values such as "I like avocado." To understand this, imagine running a lottery where you do not pay people $1 million, but rather give them 1 million avocados. I am sure that anyone who won 1 million avocados would view the prize as a burden rather than a benefit...

This is similar to the biological theory of evolution, which requires the universal preference for living organisms to survive and reproduce, rather than die barren. This does not mean that survival and reproduction are objective and universal values, but rather that the universality of this preference is required for the theory of evolution.

In the absence of a generally accepted medium of exchange, of course, all that is left is self-sufficiency and barter, and this sort of 'economy' is far too primitive to develop the discipline of economics. In the absence of a medium of exchange that is considered valuable by virtually everyone, there is no such thing as generalized prices, there can be no such thing as extended free trade, there can be no real capital accumulation, there is no real optimization of resources, very little division of labor, supply and demand curves mean virtually nothing, and so on.

This is why I said that economics requires an objective value such as money (a medium of exchange that is universally valued) - for without money, there is no real incentive or need for the discipline of economics to exist.

However, it seems that some people jumped to the conclusion that I was saying that money has objective value, which is not true -- the statement was clearly conditional. If I say that you need to eat food to stay alive, I am not saying that food has intrinsic value, I am just saying that it is required for life. If I say that economics requires an objective value such as currency, I am not saying that currency has objective value -- I am merely saying that a belief in its general value is required for the science of economics.

A simple question or two would doubtless have cleared up the issue, but unfortunately people started getting very aggressive and accusing me of all sorts of corruption and psychological motives and dishonesty and evasion and manipulation - and hypocrisy or self-contradiction, as when  Z3K0 wrote:

Boom!

The sound of your own argument blowing up in your face.

See the following podcasts:

http://www.freedomainradioshows.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_193_Marx_and_Labor_Theory_of_Value.mp3

http://www.freedomainradioshows.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_195_Economics_and_Subjective_Value.mp3

Now, I have had a phone conversation with this fellow which was perfectly civil and positive, wherein I helped him with some of his childhood issues to do with his abusive military father (who I am sure is the real root of the phrases "boom" and "blowing up".) It would seem to me that the stress of this thread has triggered certain psychological attack mechanisms om Z3K0 which were unfortunately inflicted upon him when he was a child. I do feel an enormous amount of sympathy for the aftereffects of such trauma - and strongly suggest that this sort of interaction is not going to bring anyone any kind of real happiness in the long run, no matter how satisfying it may be in a vindictive way in the short run. The degree of suffering that most of us have experienced in our histories is something that I think should give us the goal of sympathy and curiosity, rather than belligerence and condemnation. The anger and fear behind such posts is something that cannot really be handled over the Internet, particularly in a bland medium such as a philosophy forum.

And so I do respectfully ask Z3K0 and Leo to take a break from these forums for a month or two, because I do not want to create an environment where people re-create the abuses that they have suffered in the past - either for themselves or for others. It is not because I don't care about you both, but rather because I do.

If you are interested in coming back to the forum, please shoot me an e-mail in a month or two, and I will be more than happy to respond...

Thanks!

Test. I wana make sure you didn't lock me out before I spend a large chunk of time replying. Dont worry, I will play nice.

Stef,

I think its time for me to explain myself. But first let me deal with some of the philosophical issues in your post.

"If I say that economics requires an objective value such as currency, I am not saying that currency has objective value -- I am merely saying that a belief in its general value is required for the science of economics."

The way you use "objective" in your discussion of economics seems unusual to me, based on how I have come to understand the term. You seem to interchange "universal" and "objective." You are probably right about this:

"No sophisticated economy can run in the absence of a commonly accepted and valued medium of exchange"

Only I would not call money an "objective value" but rather a "universal value." According to my understanding, money would have to be considered a "universally accepted value" for an economic system to function. But, you see, "universallity" only describes how widespread the value is. Whether people believe their valueing of money is objective or subjective doesnt matter. As long as people value money and thus strive to make it, it doesnt matter whether the value of money is subjective, like Ice cream, or objective, like truth, for the economy to function. Now that I think about it, it is probably bad for the economy if people started valueing money objectively because if money lost its exchange value, and people still continued to strive to make it because they valued it objectively, they would be wasting their time.

Do you see the distinction I am trying to point out between "universal" and "objective"? I am not trying to argue with you or tell you you're wrong, but rather I just want to clarify terms. Its no secret that sometimes people have different understandings of the same words, so I am just trying to figure out where we deviate.

You also wrote:

"This is similar to the biological theory of evolution, which requires the universal preference for living organisms to survive and reproduce, rather than die barren. This does not mean that survival and reproduction are objective and universal values, but rather that the universality of this preference is required for the theory of evolution."

This is worded a little funny. I am not sure if you are misunderstanding evolution or you just expressed the right ideas strangely, but consider these criticisms:

The theory of evolution does not require that organisms universally prefer survival/reproduction. Rather, evolution says that in order for an organism to be "individually successful" in evolutionary terms, it must prefer to survive/reproduce. Also, evolution would NOT say that a whole species of organism would have to universally prefer to survive/reproduce in order to be "successful" but rather, probably that at least some portion of the species must prefer to survive/reproduce. Consider these hypothetical scenarios:

A human is born with a hormonal disorder which leaves him devoid of a sex drive and the inability to reproduce. That human goes on to discover and invent technology which benefits the human race greatly, potentially even saving humanity from extinction. Its theoretically possible right? Even more so, I am sure there have been people throughout human history who have for one reason or another been unable to reproduce and yet still contributed significantly to the human race and human "success."

Now, the human in the above scenario cannot reproduce, and so in evolutionary terms, he is not "individually successful" because his genes do not get passed on. Yet his contribution to the human species is significant, and possibly, without him, the human species would have ceased to exist or would have been less "successful." What this goes to show is that it is incorrect to say that a preference for reproduction is a *universal* requirement for a successful species, since we see that an organism can lack this preferance and still contribute significantly to the evolutionary proccess.

Another scenario is that an organism is born without the preferance to survive, and so shortly dies off. This organism's carcass now becomes nourishment for its family in a harsh environment with little nourishment. Without this organism dying, the rest of the family would be unable to survive. So, this organism is not "individually successful" because its genes are not passed on, but through its lack of a will to survive it actually contributes significantly to the survival of its species. This example goes to show that a preferance for survival need not be *universal* for the success of a species.

Though, ofcourse, the preferance to survive and reproduce probably MUST exist in at least some of the individuals of a species for that species to be successful, exactly how prominent and how widespread this preferance has to be is not clear. Thus talk of "universality" seems unreasonable to me.

Ok, thats all for the philosophical stuff, now to get to me personally.

I have admittedly been aggressive and sometimes, outright rude in some of my posts. There are two reasons why this happens. First of all, if you remember how I first introduced myself to the FDR community:

http://freedomainradio.com/board/forums/t/15878.aspx

I made a post about my concerns, criticisms and questions about UPB. I have been arguing on internet forums for almost my whole adult life, and if you check my track record, I am generally extremely respectful and patient as long as my opponents in arguments are making what I consider a reasonable effort to address my concerns. I displayed this in my original thread. I was very humble, curious, sometimes playfully aggressive, but never rude or disrespectfull. Unfortunatly, I found that many of the responses in that thread were unsatisfactory. And, not because I disagreed with them.

I will sometimes respectfully argue a point with someone who consistently disagrees with it indefinatly. I have gone on for weeks arguing the same point, trying to find new ways to make it and new arguments to support it and trying to counter responses made by my opponent. But for this to take place, I need my opponent to make an effort to address my arguments, my points, my criticisms. As long as my opponent addresses all or most of my points, even if I disagree with the way they address them, I could be willing to respectfully argue for a long long time. On Ilovephilosophy.com, where I did most of my forum debating, most of the arguers adhered to a method of argumentation in which they copy and pasted every line of an opponents argument and addressed each line in order. This guarenteed that they did not accidently or intentionally miss or ignore any single point, and it allowed for the arguers to much better resolve miscomunications or disagreements on defenitions because it was much more clear exactly which part of an argument was being misunderstood.

Bassically, I quit writing on that thread after a while because I got tired of people ignoring my arguments and points. Someone would make an argument, I would offer a response to that argument, and then the opponent would just repeat the same argument in another way without addressing my response at all, essentially ignoring my criticism of their argument. This is no way to conduct a debate.

I came back when I saw how people were attacking Vichy and her arguments in the "I may be a moral nihilst" thread, often in the same exact manner, ignoring her criticisms and just plowing along with the same old arguments.

At this point, I decided to try a technique that has occasionally worked for me in the past. Being aggressive and disrespectful. When you put someone's pride on the line in a debate, I sometimes find that they are much more inclined to address your points. If I say: "Stef you are dumb. Heres why" I find that some people would vehemently address the point in order to, I guess, defend their honor. Stef might suddenly want to say: "No, that point is wrong, so ha! im not dumb!" What this acomplishes is that now, Stef is actually addressing a specific point I made. And so I use language such as "this is rediculous" or "utter nonsense" in order to billittle your positions and put your pride on the line, hopeing that this will actually get some of the people on the threads to respond to specific points.

I am not actually aggressive, or angry, and in real life I am probably the most respectful person you will ever meet. I am often told I am too respectful and too considerate of other people. I am sitting here calmly typing. I am just hopeing that my aggressiveness will get you guys out of this shell so we can actually discuss productively. I would certainly rather not hurt anybody's feelings or make anyone upset if I can avoid it. But trying to get you guys to address my points is also important to me. So I am sorry for any offense I may have caused, but I still would like all of my points to be addressed.

There is also a second, minor incentive for the aggressiveness. I have an ego. A debate is inevitably a competition. I would be lying if I told you it wouldnt make me feel good about myself if you guys admited that I was right and you were wrong. Being aggressive sort of ups the ante a little. Its like trash talk in a basketball game. But, mind you, this incentive would not be sufficient to make me be disrespectful alone. I would rather be respectful and kind than mean for the sake of the competition. That said, since I am being mean already in order to get you guys to respond to me, I am admitedly enjoying the process.

Also keep in mind that my competitive side does not in any way take away from my intellectual integrity. I do not want to win for the sake of winning. I want to win to know that I am better at logic than you, that I am better at debate than you, that I understand the world better than you. It would do me no good to cheat. If I cant use logic to defeat you, I have no interest in winning.

Also, Stef, you wrote:

"And so I do respectfully ask Z3K0 and Leo to take a break from these forums for a month or two, because I do not want to create an environment where people re-create the abuses that they have suffered in the past"

I find it highly insulting for you to insinuate that the way Ive acted on these forums is indicative of "abuses." If you truly beleive that aggressiveness can only be caused by "abuses" than you have a very naive conception of human psychology.

Well, I don't have any particular desire to debate the intellectual content of this threat, which seems to have turned all kinds of unpleasant and aggressive, but for those who are reading without engaging, I suppose a clarification of my single sentence that seems to have sent all of this off is probably in order…

I think you meant thread rather than threat. Right?

I don't see aggression in this thread, just mainly assertiveness. All we really wanted was for you to define what you mean by objective value. The fact that you said economics requires 'objective value' and then referenced money would naturally lead us to think that you meant money has objective value. The fact that several us thought this is what you meant means that you stated this poorly if it isn't what you meant. And then you argued that the value of money wasn't subjective...

I wrote:

Actually, economics requires objective value, i.e. money.

I did not write that money has objective value, or that pieces of paper or bars of gold have objective value -- I merely wrote that the discipline of economics requires some sort of objective value, such as money. No sophisticated economy can run in the absence of a commonly accepted and valued medium of exchange, such as gold or even fiat currency if competition is disallowed. This currency must be accepted as a generalized value by virtually everyone in society -- which is why I wrote "objective value," and apologized for not clarifying the term later on. I simply meant to differentiate currency from more subjective values such as "I like avocado." To understand this, imagine running a lottery where you do not pay people $1 million, but rather give them 1 million avocados. I am sure that anyone who won 1 million avocados would view the prize as a burden rather than a benefit…

I think most of us understand the role of money in the economy. Objective value still doesn't seem to be defined well here. Objective measurement of money has nothing to do with value and I fail to see how it would. Can you be more clear on that? Is it not true , in the free market , a commodity becomes money through competition with other commodities? Are not these commodities subjectively valued by individual actors in the economy? Currency is subjectively valued but may be objectively measured by merely cutting gold or printing numbers on paper. This has nothing to do with actual value. I can print out several pieces of paper and measure them with 1,10,20, etc. Just like Monopoly game money but it says nothing of value. Objective measurement is conveniant for economic calculation. Btw, it is feasible that one could value 1 million avacados depending on that person's purposes for those avacados.

This is similar to the biological theory of evolution, which requires the universal preference for living organisms to survive and reproduce, rather than die barren. This does not mean that survival and reproduction are objective and universal values, but rather that the universality of this preference is required for the theory of evolution.

Well I agree, universal preferences ( and in this case, biological imperatives) =/= objective value. I've asked you earlier on in the thread to define objective value or whether we were on the same page when it comes to value. This was curiousity on my part so accusing me , like you did earlier , of not being curious of your position, doesn't stand up to the history of this thread.

In the absence of a generally accepted medium of exchange, of course, all that is left is self-sufficiency and barter, and this sort of 'economy' is far too primitive to develop the discipline of economics. In the absence of a medium of exchange that is considered valuable by virtually everyone, there is no such thing as generalized prices, there can be no such thing as extended free trade, there can be no real capital accumulation, there is no real optimization of resources, very little division of labor, supply and demand curves mean virtually nothing, and so on.

Agreed. A modern economy could not function without money. However, basic principles of economics still applies to the most primitive of economies. Think of the the classic Crusoe example and how you can abstract that as something useful for figuring out something like marginal utility. However, a universal preference for money =/= objective value. As you explained earlier, universal preferences basically means the majority of individuals (subjectively) value the same commodity for indirect exchange.

This is why I said that economics requires an objective value such as money (a medium of exchange that is universally valued) - for without money, there is no real incentive or need for the discipline of economics to exist.

I think objective value is a poor term to use here. Universal preferences ( value) =/= objective value. If we were to examine something like objective truth , that means its true independently of individual subjectivity. Something objectively true cannot be true simply because I want it to be, it doesn't matter what I think. I can only accept the truth and choose to be rational but that truth doesn't have to be particularly valuable to me. I accept objective truths in physics, they aren’t all particularly valueable to me as far as my individual happiness goes.

However, it seems that some people jumped to the conclusion that I was saying that money has objective value, which is not true -- the statement was clearly conditional. If I say that you need to eat food to stay alive, I am not saying that food has intrinsic value, I am just saying that it is required for life. If I say that economics requires an objective value such as currency, I am not saying that currency has objective value -- I am merely saying that a belief in its general value is required for the science of economics.

It seems you're mixing up objective value with univerally preferable. It makes more sense to say that modern economies require a univerally preferred medium of indirect exchange, etc. Universally preferred only means an aggregate of individual subjective preferences that happen to be similar or the same. I don't see how objective value is even related to this. A communist is perfectly fine with getting rid of money and believes the economy would function even better.

A simple question or two would doubtless have cleared up the issue, but unfortunately people started getting very aggressive and accusing me of all sorts of corruption and psychological motives and dishonesty and evasion and manipulation - and hypocrisy or self-contradiction, as when Z3K0 wrote:

Boom!

The sound of your own argument blowing up in your face.

See the following podcasts:

http://www.freedomainradioshows.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_193_Marx_and_Labor_Theory_of_Value.mp3

http://www.freedomainradioshows.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_195_Economics_and_Subjective_Value.mp3

Now, I have had a phone conversation with this fellow which was perfectly civil and positive, wherein I helped him with some of his childhood issues to do with his abusive military father (who I am sure is the real root of the phrases "boom" and "blowing up".) It would seem to me that the stress of this thread has triggered certain psychological attack mechanisms om Z3K0 which were unfortunately inflicted upon him when he was a child. I do feel an enormous amount of sympathy for the aftereffects of such trauma - and strongly suggest that this sort of interaction is not going to bring anyone any kind of real happiness in the long run, no matter how satisfying it may be in a vindictive way in the short run. The degree of suffering that most of us have experienced in our histories is something that I think should give us the goal of sympathy and curiosity, rather than belligerence and condemnation. The anger and fear behind such posts is something that cannot really be handled over the Internet, particularly in a bland medium such as a philosophy forum.

I asked earlier in the thread if we are on the same page defining value. Read it. I feel to raise questions about my psychological health is getting away from the subject and kind of insulting. This sounds to me like you think I may not be psychologically healthy enough to debate the subject. And if this is true, then it doesn't make sense for anyone to be frustrated with my arguments since I can't help my psychological shortcommings. I don't believe this to be the case and I believe I am capable of debating the subject at hand, objective value , not Z3k0's psychology.

If you wish to discuss my psychological health as the subject then by all means lets open up a thread in the psychology subforum and talk about it. I have no problems doing that and I'll be more than happy to share with people what has changed in my personal life and what I think about it all. I find the conversation on the phone with you was very helpful and I will always be grateful for helping me see things more clearly.

However, I believe I am capable of logical reasoning to address the subject of this thread.

And so I do respectfully ask Z3K0 and Leo to take a break from these forums for a month or two, because I do not want to create an environment where people re-create the abuses that they have suffered in the past - either for themselves or for others. It is not because I don't care about you both, but rather because I do.

If you are interested in coming back to the forum, please shoot me an e-mail in a month or two, and I will be more than happy to respond...

Thanks!

I appreciate your politeness here but I can read through the lines. Its basically telling us that you don't want us around FDR anymore. Should I continue to donate if the owner of FDR would prefer that I wasn't on his site (at least at this time?)

Yes, please stop posting. Whether you donate is of course entirely up to you.

This really isn't fair. Rather than address Z3KO's question as to whether or not his mental state is a reason that his position is not valid, you just pass it off and ask him to leave.

Let me ask you something Stef. Please understand I'm not attacking Greg in any way here, but if Greg disagreed with you on a certain term, would you block him out and ignore his arguments because of his mental hangups?

Disagreement isn't the issue, people disagree with me all the time and are very welcome here. Heck, I was talking with a long-time Christian in the chat window just this evening.

It's the dinner party test. Would I accept such hostility at a dinner party I was throwing? Of course not.

The Internet is a big place, I am sure they will find another forum where this style of interaction is welcomed.

PS I am turning off my notifications for this thread, it is time for me to move on...

Again, you are skirting this issue. This boils down to your erroneous definition of the objective value of truth. Z3KO and Leo and put their views on the matter plainly in writing, and rather than dispute their positions you act as if they are just bullying you. You obviously have an issue admiting that your original statement and the vast majority of what followed in this thread was incorrect, or at the very least, inconsistant.

Just as an example, taken into consideration what you have brought forth, we should believe that the economy REQUIRES objective value but will never obtain it. Impossible.

I think ultimately you are confusing UNIVERSAL value with OBJECTIVE value. Please let me know if I'm mistaken.

Well, I'd be very happy to have Stalin, Hitler, , Cromwell, Caligula, etc at my dinner party as long as they left their weapons outside - I'd even talk to Bush & Thatcher, Brown & Obama.

I remember hearing somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind that someone is reputed to have said that he who is not with me is against me. Can anyone  remember who said that ?

Gerry:

Well, I'd be very happy to have Stalin, Hitler, , Cromwell, Caligula, etc at my dinner party as long as they left their weapons outside - I'd even talk to Bush & Thatcher, Brown & Obama.

Although I would not want their company that often !