ark@rabbit.UUCP (11/18/83)
I want to start discussion on a question that seems to be becoming ever more important these days: Is information property? Any answer has rather deep implications. For instance, every time I use a credit card to buy something, information is created. Who owns that information? What kind of control should they have over it? I am particularly interested in hearing arguments that start from first principles and work toward consequences, rather than assuming that certain consequences are desirable and then trying to come up with principles that justify them. I would like to extend a special invitation to Tom Craver to comment on this issue: it seems to be the sort of thing on which Objectivists would have a strong position, but I can't think of anything I've seen about it from them.
awex@wxlvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat) (11/19/83)
As one of my heros once said: "Propery is theft." Information is really the only valuable commodity. All other things are information disguised. All of 'business' is the transfer of information. Property, therefore, can be expressed as just another kind of information. I think that the question is mis-stated. If you don't agree, try this thought experiment: in a computer (human or mechanical), how much of what goes on is computation, and how much is communication? I think the answer will surprise you. --Alan Wexelblat (the vanishing philosopher) decvax!ittvax!wxlvax!awex
ian@utcsstat.UUCP (Ian F. Darwin) (11/21/83)
Actually some comments on Wexelblat's comments; Property is theft Is it? And what is theft? Theft is the removal of property without its owner's permission. Nice try, but you can't define theft except in terms of property, not vice versa. (Rand calls this an example of the "stolen concept", which I find a useful designation). All property is information Well, that's stretching things a bit. Any material goods taken out of the ground & made into something have information content, but it ain't necessarily so that the information is a primary part of its form. What is primary in a hammer, for example; the information that went into digging the iron ore, smelting it, etc., or the fact that it's real good for driving nails and not bad for smashing skulls? Your hero (Proudhon) might well say the labor to dig the ore &c. Is labor the same as information? I think not. -- Ian F. Darwin, Toronto uucp: utcsstat!ian
norm@ariel.UUCP (11/21/83)
Wexelblat says: 'As one of my heroes once said, "Propery (sic) is theft".' This is a beautiful example of the fallacy of the stolen concept. In this case, the stolen concept is "property". The concept of theft depends upon the antecedent concept of "property" for any meaning. The fallacy of the stolen concept consists of attempting to invalidate or deny one concept by means of using another concept whose genetic root is the concept one is trying to invalidate or deny. Of course, Russian princes weren't the only ones to make this mistake... --Norm Andrews, ariel!norm
norm@ariel.UUCP (11/21/83)
Oops. Maybe Wexelblat quoted Proudhon, not Prince Kropotkin. --Ariel!norm