LuckyR wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 5:34 am
Uummm... not quite what I was saying. I'm not arguing that a dollar doesn't have value. It obviously does, but that value is completely dependant on the belief that humans give it.
Right, and you couched this as meaning it does not have objective value. Now you seem to be, possibly, concedning that it does have objective value now, but this could change. Yes, it could change. It might lose this objective, real, value, in some future situation. But human beliefs and uses and behavior are objective parts of reality. You haven't addressed the issue I raised about value either. I am not sure objective value is coherent. But if it is coherent, then I don't see why money is ruled out. And I justified this above.
Not because it has inherent value. If a dollar had inherent value, it would have that value in the absence of humans "giving" it value. An apple is inherently a fruit even in the absence of a human to label it or categorize it.
Sure an apple is inherently a fruit in the absence...etc. But does it have objective value? How is this determined? The value that doesn't exist in minds.
Perhaps apple trees will evolve and fruits will not be the carriers of DNA for them. But they will have fruit anyway - cause animals come and poop near the trees and they get nutrients that way, or for some other reason - not that it's teleological, just that natural selection doesn't eliminate trees with fruit. So, there we have apples that no longer have seeds. So, they are sort of fruit sort of not. They no longer communicate via DNA the same things.
It seems you are saying that fruit has objective value and will without us. But it's objective value - whatever that is - may change.
Money becomes paper. Fruit becomes something not directly involved in passing on DNA.
Situations change.
How does that lead to the conclusion that one has objective value now and the other does not.
A fruit is a fruit in relation to soil, climate, water. It depends on these things to have it's life cycle and 'purpose'. Money is dependent on minds to do the objectively verifiable things it does now.
Both fruit and money change function, lose function, change roles in processes, dependent on other real things, whether minds or nutrients or sunlight or.......
Without certain other existant things, they no longer function as they have up until that time.
I suppose we could also look at display behaviors in animals. If the females, for example, stop having interest in certain dance moves and butt feathers, well those dance moves and butt feathers will no longer mean/be what they were. Could happen via natural selection, say.