bestgear wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 7:21 pm
QTCut5 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 4:46 pm
Short answer: If all subjective variables are eliminated, the value of anything, even life itself, is zero.
Q - hopefully it is objective variables like water, love, and oxygen that allow us to value life but I agree with statement about the elimination of all subjective variables.
Yes, Tom, I mostly agree.
Although, I would also argue that life can still have value even in the absence of those objective variables...sometimes even greater value (consider how much a drowning man values life when being deprived of oxygen).
To be clear, the word "objective" can be used either as a noun (synonymous with goal or outcome), or an adverb (meaning observable without bias, emotion or opinion)
Objective variables such as food, water and oxygen are what allow us to
sustain life (the objective function of those variables) - which some people value and others do not - but those things do not give life objective value. In fact, there is no such thing as "objective value" because the very concept of value is inherently subjective, it can't be observed, measured or gauged without some element of bias or opinion. The closest thing we have to "objective value" would be shared norms or collective/consensus agreements of value.
In terms of the value of a particular knife, I suppose when someone asks "What's the value?", the best answer they can reasonably hope to get is a commonly agreed upon value by a majority of knowledgeable, experienced or qualified knife appraisers. And even if such a value could be determined, I suspect there would likely still be some degree of discrepancy even among the experts.