It is not that you can gain one or lose one, it is that you are willing to pay for or give credit.
The payment not that purchase.

How much am I willing to pay for a human life? Well, I did think we were out of the (public) slavery era, but I'll bite. Eh, no more than my bank account (like ~$2000).

Does that tilde mean negative 2000$?

This makes absolutely no sense. You can speculate all you want about the value of something that doesn't exist. But it never stops being speculation. Why even discuss the value of something before you have proven it exists?

If there is a gem that will grant one wish, how much is it worth? It turns into one of those philosophical absurdities. Because you could just wish for a million more of these gems. It becomes so abstract that discussing the value of it becomes completely pointless. A waste of time argument. Same goes for discussing the value of the soul before it has been proven.

Ah, I would call what you describe consciousness. Not soul. Souls, as most of us understand, don't exist. They are just something the superstitious like to believe in, in order to sustain the wishful thought that we survive, in some form, after death.

So, what is the value of human life? Well, I suppose that answer varies.

In my opinion, little else is more valuable, though I place the value at sentience/rationality rather than just "human" (takes care of questions about alien life forms and androids). What makes it valuable is that it has a concept of itself. It has an "I". It has a soul. This is personhood, and personhood is that set of qualities that brings a being into the moral sphere as an acting being. While I think there are other attending attributes to personhood, and I'll tell you now that I don't have a fully fleshed out defense of personhood, I think this is a major component.

there are entire very lucrative fields based on things that are not proven to exist, if there were not we would not have Intellectual Properties lawyers.

The value of anything exists more and before than what you do or don't end up with.
To pay is to value.
To sell is to value.
To judge something as priceless is to value.
To judge something as worthless is to value.

This may be a good example of wishes being valueless unless what you wish for can be valued. May be.?

Well I would argue that intellectual property rights are very abstract. For example if you were to write a book using other peoples reasoning and just rearranging their statements does it now become your intellectual property or is it still theirs with your rehashing?

I am not sure that people simply mean "personhood" when they use the word "soul". Souls are generally referred to as those things which transcend our earthly bodies; that is, they are those things which survive our physical death.

Well I would argue that intellectual property rights are very abstract. For example if you were to write a book using other peoples reasoning and just rearranging their statements does it now become your intellectual property or is it still theirs with your rehashing?

firstly, I don't quite see the correlation. Second, I present a quote from William Kingdon Clifford's Essay, The Ethics of Belief:

I actually agree with him on this and this is exactly why I don't expect someone who has not actually experienced God for themselves to do so. However I do believe that those who have had such an experience would be within their right to tell others of their experience in the hopes that others could possibly experience it too.

So in terms of you having breakfast with an Alien, no, I don't believe you because it is not something I've experienced personally and it does not conform to the uniformity of nature as I know it currently.

Having said that, think about any person who witnessed something that others did not experience and which did not conform to the uniformity of nature as they knew it(think new species, new discoveries, etc.). If such people were not supposed to tell others what they experienced then nothing new would ever be accomplished.

With this statement you may have inadvertently given an establishment for 'soul' which would be 'experience'.

Intellectual property rights are abstract but there is value placed on them, there is value placed on any right that you can pay someone to argue for. There is value placed the right of free speech. Micheael Moore would be a poor fat schlub instead of a wealthy fat schlub without value. Clothes and Tobacco in the U.S. would be a lot cheaper if it were not for the value of the right not to be a slave. Almost everything including a soul has value abstractly, and indirect economic value non-abstractly.

Who owns your soul?

Can a soul be owned?

Can a soul be bought or sold?

Can you give it away?

How much do you think your soul is worth?

Do you think a soul is ultimately worthless?

The price of cigarettes is not abstract. What are you talking about? Have you taken any economics? These things are weighted by their demand. However; the government loves to tax cigarettes so I profess that they would be extremely cheap if the government wasn't so restrictive on their prices. Demand is not abstract.

The price of cigarettes is not abstract it is based on demand. Yet the speculative future earnings of a piece of copywritten material is very abstract. Based entirely on specualted demand one can impact economically on small and large scales. Lets say you write a book and I steal it. The speculated demand on your book on a macro scale is 0. You have no track record, that I know of, of money making with your writing. However on micro scale, you value your book enough to sue me, and in the process pump money into the system.

My mother speculates on the long term value of her soul. She does X now and her soul will be worth more in the long run. The demand for the wellbeing of her soul is less specualative than the future value of your book earning potential. That value affects the local economy in many ways, If she can't pay rent or pay for food, she can eat out of the church pantry and take advantage of the church welfare system, the church's youth will do some yardwork freeing her time to work more, or a mechanic in the congregation will fix her car for free. She believes that her soul will be worth more if she pays tithes and offereings, and donates time and money to the church and the church's charities and reciprocates. As my mother does pays and benefits economically based partly on the percieved worth of her soul, it would suggest that it is tangibly worth more than said hypothetical book were it real.

When I think of the word soul this is what comes some what close to what I have in mind.
The word psychology literally means, "study of the soul".[1] It derives from Ancient Greek: "ψυχή" (psychē, meaning "breath", "spirit", or "soul"); and "-λογία" (-logia, translated as "study of").[1] The Latin word psychologia has likely origins in mid-16th century Germany. The earliest known referernce to the English word psychology was by Steven Blankaart in 1693 in The Physical Dictionary which refers to "Anatomy, which treats of the Body, and Psychology, which treats of the Soul

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyche_(psychology

What?

Yeah and that investment can be totally wasted. It would be like investing all your money into a company that was going to invent this miracle machine yet they never deliver on their promises so all your investments were wasted. This company has not shown any track record that they have ever produced anything in the past or that they are even working on anything yet you want to invest in them anyways?

Hi sometime sun. I replied to your thread and you nor anyone else replied to my post, I was just curious why you and all others skiped past it without any deep thought about it?
If you did consider it what was your reason for not responding to it? Thanks to all of you for your comments. Reasoning Self Logic:)

Believing in an illusion doesn't make the illusion real.

People can cry watching a Muppet impersonating a death scene in a movie. Is the muppet real? No. It is an illusion within immersion of the fake reality.

Just because people want to believe there is a soul it doesn't make it a fundamental truth. They can believe it all they want, make choices accordingly but it does not create it as a reality.

Hi Sun,

I think we would need to define "soul" firstly- to give it an identity, before we try to ascertain its' values.

Shine on, Sun.

Mark...

Can something that only exists by definition its self have value.
Or is the value only attributed by the definition?
Which is more valuable the described existence or existing description?
Auction lot, is it a antique or a chair?

Yeah I am aware that it was not the intention of the post. I think the question itself is not a balanced question. It presupposes that there is a soul but how can you ask questions about something for which you can not know?
So why should we assume that the soul exists and then ponder it's attributes?

I honestly don't think you can actually prove that you have love for your children though but I guess I shouldn't nitpick or I'll cause the thread to derail.

Maybe I place value on ownership.

Where as the soul has absolutely no trace evidence and can't be determined.

The soul is a personal element much like my "liking what I like". It cannot be shown to someone, but only be.

The fact that I am here is my evidence. Without negating me, you cannot negate my soul.

I cannot show you the evidence that I like what I like....it may be the case either but would you deny my likes?

I like this perspective, but how would you ever determine it? How would you know if you were the self owner, or that some other being was the owner of it? How could you ever be certain? And if it were the case that some other "thing" owned your soul by what criteria would it be bound? Is there some sort of contract? Do you not have a choice in the matter? If you don't have a choice of who owns it, wouldn't you be considered a slave to that entity then?

I had breakfast with aliens this morning. Would you object to that claim? The evidence I have is that I say that it happened. Is that not enough evidence?
So do you believe that I had breakfast with aliens this morning?

Exactly! Great points! How do you really determine the value of a soul, let alone the fact that a soul could be owned, bought, sold, etc.? In my mind, it seems as though it is logical to establish that, if granted that the soul exists (and based on the contingencies of its conception), and that it could be bought, sold, etc. (basically in terms of hypothetical), then perhaps concepts of ownership could apply. I think that rarely value is objective, but most of the time subjective. Subjective theories of ownership may give some type of answer here. For example, would there be some sort of implicit ownership of my soul? Funny enough and in an amusing way, one could argue (not that I believe this, but heck the devil's advocate is an advocate none the less) that because an extended period of time has elapsed without proof of ownership, does that mean that I have full ownership of my soul? Happens with real-estate all the time, why not incorporeal real-estate! LOL!

Is not the first existence that of the inquiry before that of any lastly existing resolution?
Love is firstly of an enquiry.

---------- Post added 06-05-2010 at 02:59 AM ----------


Maybe you place ownership on value?

---------- Post added 06-05-2010 at 03:01 AM ----------


Is determination then valueless?

---------- Post added 06-05-2010 at 03:06 AM ----------


I would say Preference instead of 'like'.
And preference has much value because it is a measure of something.
A preference is measurable is measuring, what is measurable and measures certainly has claim and is claimed and this is purchase and purchase has value.

---------- Post added 06-05-2010 at 03:13 AM ----------


This "thing" or we could say God.
God cannot know what does not know.
God cannot own what cannot be owned.
What cannot be owned cannot own God.
What cannot be owned or cannot own cannot be known and cannot know.
What cannot be known or cannot know cannot be owned and cannot own.

---------- Post added 06-05-2010 at 03:14 AM ----------


Depends on what you and I value 'alien' as.

---------- Post added 06-05-2010 at 03:18 AM ----------


What about morality immorality, debt and credit?
Does not morality or immorality have value?
Is this not a way and method of measurement?
What ever can be measured can be valued?