What makes something valuable?

What makes something valuable?

A long line of discussion usually follows, but at the end it becomes clear that what makes something valuable is the same thing that makes the universe visible: a self-aware mind that can perceive it.

When a tree falls in a forest and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? Many people in our 21st century materialistic culture will say, yes, it does. But if these people didn’t exist — indeed if no people at all existed, no conscious entities anywhere in our universe, would the universe exist?

Our universe is limited to our perceptions. Flies have a much different view of reality than we do, and in that sense at least they are creating their own reality. But quantum physics indicates that what we perceive as a chair or a cloud or a block of gold are all in fact particles or maybe vibrating strings winking in and out of existence. If we weren’t here, then in a very real sense our universe would not be here either.

Value is the same thing in a parallel way. If we decide that gold is valuable, then it is. If we decide it is worth $200o per ounce that is what it is worth (at least in dollars) though it is exactly the same thing that was worth $500 per ounce a few years ago. The hyper-inflated currency of Weimar Germany was worthless because the German people perceived that it was backed by nothing.  When Germany replaced the worthless Papiermarks with new Retenmarks, which it was announced were backed by the sacred soil of Germany, suddenly people perceived that the new currency had value. However, no one was able to take the paper bills to a bank and exchange it for a wheelbarrow of German dirt.

It is the perception, the thought that creates value. This website is about thought.