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Originally posted by Dark Ghost
reply to post by jiggerj
Energy is a very good candidate, well done.
However, I will attempt to defend my assertion in the OP by saying that even energy has no intrinsic value. You see, even though everything is made up of energy, it still requires an object to draw out its potential. I guess what I am saying is there is always a [subject,object] relationship when it comes to value; the subject has no meaning without the object, and vice versa.
edit on 6/5/2013 by Dark Ghost because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by ottobot
There is no such thing as intrinsic value outside of the human mind.
Originally posted by Blue Shift
True, but does anything really exist "outside the human mind" to begin with? If we have no evidence of something, or something is beyond our perception and comprehension, does it exist?
You can say, "imagine a universe with no people in it." But there is no such thing. In order to even imagine such a thing, you also have to imagine somebody with a pair of eyeballs looking at that hypothetical situation. A proxy consciousness or point of view. And you have to be alive to do that.
Yes, that's just limited to the human existence though. There are many things about the universe that humans do not know about and cannot comprehend. Thus, they have "no value", but only because no human has ever thought about them. Intrinsic value cannot exist because value does not exist intrinsically.
So the way I see it, since the universe itself can't be proven to exist without somebody experiencing it, objects in the universe will always have some kind of value.
My answer would be NO. Nothing in life maintains intrinsic value; every type of worth we associate with any object, person, entity or concept relies on its relation to the living beings that surround, or the context in which they exist.
Originally posted by jiggerj
I don't know about the necessity of a subject-object relationship. The potential of energy is always there. It doesn't matter if it's used or not. Does a dollar lose it's value ***because*** no one spends it?
Originally posted by ottobot
Yes. Just because we cannot perceive something does not mean it does not exist. A black hole, for instance, was at one time imperceptible to humans. Yet, once humans realized that black holes existed, they became a part of our reality. If we look at a black hole that was formed millions of years ago, we realize that it existed long before us, and long before our perception was capable of understanding it. We see it NOW, in our reality, but it existed without us just the same.