There is no such thing as "inherent value"

Next, just because someone claims something exists, that does not mean that if someone else claims it doesn't, all the burden-of-proof falls upon the second person. Suppose someone claimed to have discovered a triangle possessing _four_ internal angles. Where would the BOP really fall? It is "by definition" that a triangle only has three internal angles. And, as I showed in my first argument, it is by the definitions of "inherent" and "value" that they cannot connect with logical consistency, at least when "value" is defined in terms of "desirability". Please note: I started off this Debate talking about the abortion issue _specifically_ because I want to talk about a particular meaning of the phrase "inherent value". It is that specific meaning which does not exist, and all abortion debaters need to understand _why_. The result will preclude that false thing from ever again being part of an anti-abortion argument --or if it gets included anyway, then it will also be immediately ridiculed by those who know better. Other types of inherent value can certainly exist, when "value" has a different meaning than the one I'm refuting in this Debate. For example, a "ground-state" protium-hydrogen nucleus has an inherent value of mass-magnitude which is always a specific fraction of the mass-magnitude of a ground-state deuterium-hydrogen nucleus. But meanings like that are not what I want this Debate to be about, and if I failed to indicate that clearly in my opening statements, I apologize. Now, as Con indicated, the type of "inherent value" referenced in abortion debates is also referenced in many other situations. That's simply because "desirability" can apply to far more things than only life. Nevertheless, my refutation of the actual existence of that type of "inherent value", _however_ it is applied, still holds. Desire cannot exist without something that is doing the desiring, and non-living things never do any desiring. As a specific example, look again at what Con wrote: ". .. an inherent value of gold is it's representation of wealth. " But since when are non-living things interested in "wealth"? There is also the fact that the perceived magnitude of the value of gold is not fixed. The following quote is from a "Charles Schwab" page: ht. .. ./chuck. hubpages. com/hub/What-is-Inflation-How-it-is-calculated-How-it-affects-a-nations-Economy_ "While inflation rarely occurs with a gold standard, there is at least one major instance of inflation under a gold standard and this was the inflation that swept Europe in the sixteenth century following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca Empires in the New World and the subsequent transport of boatloads of the massive gold holdings of these empires to Europe. " Now see this information: ht. .. ./en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Law_of_supply_and_demand The Law of Supply and Demand can affect even the value of gold --as has actually happened. Well, if the definition of "inherent" requires a property to be "permanent", then how does the varying value of gold qualify as an "inherent" property of gold? Even today traders will buy gold when they think it is less valuable than other things, or when they think its value will be more stable than the values of other things. And they sell gold when they think it is more valuable than other things, especially if they think those other things will increase in value. Gold then just becomes a tool for fulfilling various living humans' desires for wealth --and the form that wealth takes matters little. So, Con made a serious mistake when later writing: "This frees us from the messy desirability debate". All Con has actually done is mix one desirable thing with another. And _both_ are only desirable because living things are doing the desiring. It should be noted that humans aren't the only living things to pursue "wealth". The male bowerbird is an animal that constructs a special nest-like thing (a bower) and decorates it and its vicinity with a variety of collected items. The purpose of the collection is to convince a female to mate with him --and items that are blue in color are more desired/valued than other items. It happens that solid blue objects are relatively rare in nature, and thus are more difficult to obtain. So a wealthy bowerbird is one that has gathered up a bunch of blue items, while a poor bowerbird has none. ht. .. .. .ww. pbs. org/wnet/nature/episodes/bower-bird-blues/introduction/2109/ ht. .. ./en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Satin_Bowerbird Today male bowerbirds have a much easier time finding blue stuff than, say, a hundred years ago. That's because humans generate a lot of trash, and some of it consists of pieces of blue plastic. The bowerbirds don't care. To _them_ blue things have value. Well, if it was "inherent value", why did the stupid humans fail to recognize it, and throw that blue stuff away? ?? Because _all_ valuations associated with desirability are actually relative, affected by the Law of Supply and Demand, and _none_ are inherent! Next, there is this that I originally wrote: ". .. a rock has no desires whatsoever. " Con interpreted it as: ". .. non-living things cannot experience desire. " Then Con presented some examples of how non-living things can be on the receiving end of a desire, by a living thing. So? That has nothing to do with what I actually wrote. It remains completely true that a non-living thing _has_ no desires whatsoever. Next, I originally wrote: ". .. value can only exist when living things exist. " After all, only living things do the _assigning_ of value (which should be obvious since non-living things have no desires, and so cannot express desires in terms of valuations of other things). But Con interpreted what I wrote as: ". .. value can only exist in living things. " Well, I don't mind if Con refutes what _he_ wrote, since it has nothing to do with what _I_ was writing about. Finally, because Con misinterpreted the first two statements I quoted, he also misunderstood the conclusion of my argument. That conclusion appears to still stand.