Value

When asked to come up with my own thoughts towards value, I first broke down the meaning in it’s simplest form. I figure that value was a way of measuring worth, something that is needed or wanted is considered valuable, the more or less it is needed the more or less valuable it becomes. Everything has value in some way or another, even water has become valuable. With budding experience in the stock market I’ve felt and experienced the consequences and rewards of the basic theories that can create value. The rules of supply and Demand, “Buy low sell high”, and basic human intuition, are all methods in which things can become more or less valuable. The rules can be simple but extremely challenging to control. I tried to apply this theory to the value of knowledge. In present day society research and development is constantly changing. The definition for research and development (R and D) is

“creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of (hu)man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications ”

After thinking about the ever changing world of technology, I couldn’t help but think that invention and entrepreneurship have become devalued. With each major company constantly coming out with a new model, each new invention will become even in some cases within a month become devalued by the competition or by it’s own company. So what is the answer to keep the value in the art of invention? At this point there is no computer or technology, although faster and more accurate, is better then the human mind. Which brings me to believe that value is placed in the inventor and not the invention. Large companies can allow products to come and go, but should invest their resources into developing the best minds they can find.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387

This article was recommended to me by a friend during a discussion about the paradox in copyright law. That each side is completely arguable with a conclusion that is mostly based on the excellence displayed by the skill of the debaters themselves. In The ecstasy of Influence: A plagiarism , Jonathon Lethem writes a convincing argument about originality and authenticity. In many periods of history and especially in our post modern society, he gives examples of the appropriation and theft of culture. He opens with a quote from John Donne,

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. . . .

This quotation outlines his premise for the article. This is how I also feel about the history of man, that it follows patterns and repeats itself in a different translation over and over again. Our habit to continually follow patterns is a natural one, and that the flow of ideas is prevalent and a natural part of our humanity.