"Jonathan Ball" <jonball@whitehouse.not> wrote in message
news:xReUa.21423$Mc.1645165@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...

> >>That might be true. The problem is we dont know that.
> >>We don't even know that about our selves. Most people
> >>still seem to value live over death but not all; are
> >>you the one who decides which is more valued or the
> >>actual person whose life it is?

> >     You are using the phrase "more valued" to mean how much someone
values
> > something. I'm not talking about "value" in the sense of considering to
be
> > of value. I'm talking about actually being of value.

> You're talking nonsense, then.  There is no such thing
> as intrinsic value, independent of people's valuations.

    So water is of no value to me unless I consider it valuable regardless
of how thirsty I actually am?

    You misunderstand what intrinsic value is. The notion of intrinsic value
would be that water has a certain amount of value in and of itself,
regardless of any consideration of to who or what. This is certainly
nonsense. The value of water is dependent upon the person. If I have no use
at all for a car, a car is of no value to me. If you can't get to work
without a car, the car is of value to you.

    However, you are confusing intrinsic value with subjective value. I deny
both. If you can't get to work without a car, then a car is of value to
you -- objective value. This applies even if you don't want a car or don't
think a car is of value to you.

    There is value independent of people's valuations just like there is
light independent of people measuring how much light there is. Water is of
value to a dry plant regardless of whether anyone knows the water exists,
knows the plant is dry, or otherwise.

> > It doesn't matter what
> > most people happen to value, I'm talking about what actually is of
value,
> > that is, what is actually capable of benefitting a person.

> That ALWAYS depends on how the person values the thing.

    No, not at all.

>   A new set of Callaway golf clubs would be of great
> value to me, but of no real value to my next door
> neighbor, who is 70+ years old and has always detested
> the game of golf.

    Right. It would actually be of value to you, because it could actually
benefit you. It would actually be of no value to your neighbor because he
really does have no use for it. This is totally independent of your and your
neighbor's actual valuations of the golf clubs.

    If your neighbor had never played golf before and thought he might like,
he might think the golf clubs were of immense value to him. But if he plays
golf and discovers he hates it, he might discover that his valuation was
wrong and the golf clubs really were of no value to him all along (except
the value that they allowed him to discover he didn't like golf).

> There is no such thing as "what actually is of value",
> versus what value a person places on something.  ONLY
> personal valuation has any meaning.

    I totally disagree. Personal valuations are like any other measurement,
they're subject to error. But there is a real thing to be measured -- how
much a thing could actually benefit a person.

> This is where "labor theory of value" troglodytes
> always go wrong.

    Then show us where we're wrong. (Note that I'm saying all value is
created by labor where labor means all human effort and value is not
exchange value.)

> You MUST have the
> valuation of he who would buy the thing.  If he values
> it at zero, the thing has zero value.

    You can certainly define "value" to mean "however much someone happens
to value something". But I've been totally clear that this is not what I
mean by value. I mean how much something can actually benefit someone.

    If I think I hate vanilla ice cream, I may think vanilla ice cream is of
no value to me. But I could be wrong. It could actually be of tremendous
value to me. If I taste it and decide I like it, I will reasses the value.
Would you have to argue that the value of the vanilla ice cream actually
changed?

> >     Why does it even matter. Suppose hypothetically I agreed that it was
> > literally impossible for anyone to even hazzard a guess at how valuable
> > something was even to themself. What effect would that have on the
question
> > of where value comes from?

> None.  It doesn't matter in the least if the evaluator
> has some awareness of why he values something.  All
> that matters is that he does, and is the one who gets
> to determine how much he's willing to pay for
> something, based on his subjective valuation.

    You are talking about exchange value and subjective valuation. I have
made it totally clear that this is not what I mean by value. I mean *REAL*
value, the actual ability to improve someone's life.

> >     Performing the valuation does not produce the value. Performing the
> > valuation computes the amount of the value.

> To that person; to no one else.

    Of course. The value of an object can be different to difference people
because of actual real differences between those people.

> > Something can be
> > of value to me even if I don't know it exists,

> That would be a mere hypothetical value.  It has no
> weight in the marketplace.

    I'm not talking about a marketplace, am I? I'm talking about actual
*value*, that is, the ability to benefit.

> >>But I would argue that it's the existance of the value prior to you
> >>digging that cause you to do the digging. Therefore it's not
> >>the digging that produced the value.

> >>>    I plant a nice garden that improves my neighbor's view. I have the
right
> >>>to try to contract for that value by telling my neighbor I won't plant
> >>>unless he pays. But if he doesn't and I still benefit enough that I go
> >>>through with it, the value of his improved view was created by my
labor.

> Only if he likes the view.

    You mean if the objective nature of the physical components of his brain
and his mind are such that the view benefits him. Currently, there is no way
to determine this other than to ask him. But in principle, it could be
measured objectively.

> > Thus there is no 'value from god' or 'value from nature'.

> Don't be a moron.  If I wander through a forest and
> find a stand of berries, and I happen to like berries,
> then there is value there.  My walk was not labor; it
> was leisure.

    How can you wander through a forest without expending labor? And how can
the berries have value to you (under your definition of value) if you don't
know they exist?

    In fact, you are in the most massive contradiction possible. You are
saying that nothing has any value to me until I evaluate it and decide
whether I think it's of value to me. Then you say value is created by
something other than human labor. But valuation is a process of human labor.
And you argue that there's no value without valuation. So if you're
consistent, you'd have to agree with me that human labor is the only source
of value.

    You're lucky you're inconsistent.

    DS