AJ:The contention that "information = media" remains your Achilles heal.
Stranger, AJ may be onto something here. I suggest we're better off keeping information in an information universe, separate from -- yet perfectly analogous to -- the physical one. It's intuitive to everyone that information is NOT physical. It is also intuitive to everyone -- as is even reflected in language -- that creators own their information (Cameron's movie, Mises' book, Mathworks' program) regardless of what physical media it has been copied on. The Avatar binary sequence could be saved on a drive, DVD, written on paper, memorized by an idiot savant, recited by a school-girl -- it's still the SAME binary sequence, the same information created/produced, thus owned, by Cameron.
Insisting that "information = physical media" paints one into a corner in which he must defend information as property by physical property rules. This inevitably converges the debate into one of separate contracts (signed or not, agreed by all or not, etc.). If information is property in an information universe, such contracts become obsolete -- a much cleaner, simpler solution, IMO.
Just some thoughts. Keep up the good debate.
Z.
So, it sounds like you are conceding. Maybe you would be happy to restrain your argument to your imaginary "information universe" and keep out of our physical one. That would mean to stop posting this creationist nonsense.
Without IP law, people would still refer to a work as the author's work. We can recognize the origination of an idea without having to grant this person some fictitious "ownership" of a pattern or concept. With your way of thinking Gödel's theorem would be owned by Gödel (or his great-great-grandchildren now I suppose). Anyone who wanted to discuss his idea would have to pay tribute to him.
IP advocates recognize the absurdity of following their doctrine fully. This is why any rules you draft are arbitrary. Owning every little binary pattern would grind the world to a halt. We would be in a constant state of war over our "pattern property". This "debate" reminds me of other statist fearmongering. You guys talk like nobody would bother creating any great works without IP monopoly. For more of our civilized history there were no IP laws, just like there was no fiat money.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
E. R. Olovetto:So, it sounds like you are conceding. Maybe you would be happy to restrain your argument to your imaginary "information universe" and keep out of our physical one. That would mean to stop posting this creationist nonsense.
I have conceded nothing. Stranger is doing a splendid job at defending his arguments. I am merely proposing an additional (potentially simpler, cleaner) argument for information as property. There's nothing creationist about it. Do you know the meaning of the words you're using?
E. R. Olovetto:Without IP law, people would still refer to a work as the author's work. We can recognize the origination of an idea without having to grant this person some fictitious "ownership" of a pattern or concept. With your way of thinking Gödel's theorem would be owned by Gödel (or his great-great-grandchildren now I suppose). Anyone who wanted to discuss his idea would have to pay tribute to him.
If you say so. Now do you mind stopping your strawman-ing (and throwing random mud-balls hoping some of them stick by chance) and contribute something of value to a discussion for a change?
E. R. Olovetto:IP advocates recognize the absurdity of following their doctrine fully. This is why any rules you draft are arbitrary. Owning every little binary pattern would grind the world to a halt. We would be in a constant state of war over our "pattern property". This "debate" reminds me of other statist fearmongering. You guys talk like nobody would bother creating any great works without IP monopoly. For more of our civilized history there were no IP laws, just like there was no fiat money.
Read the bolded parts above. Projecting a little, aren't we? "Owning every little binary pattern cubic meter of space would grind the world to a halt. We would be in a constant state of war over our "pattern property" "physical property". Let's abolish ALL property as a concept, then?
In principle, there is nothing wrong with introducing the notion of an information space, nor of homesteading parts of that information space. However, it is clear that information space doesn't share all the characteristics of real physical space. For that reason, it is not apparent prima facie that the arguments for property rights and homesteading within real physical space automatically carry over to information space.
It seems that to make a successful argument by analogy with real physical property rights, one would have to
Why anarchy fails
AJ: In principle, there is nothing wrong with introducing the notion of an information space, nor of homesteading parts of that information space. However, it is clear that information space doesn't share all the characteristics of real physical space. For that reason, it is not apparent prima facie that the arguments for property rights and homesteading within real physical space automatically carry over to information space. It seems that to make a successful argument by analogy with real physical property rights, one would have to Identify exactly which characteristics of real physical space motivate or justify (consequentially and/or ethically if that's your thing) real space property rights and homesteading. Demonstrate that information space shares these same characteristics.
Thank you! Someone should have said this 123 posts ago!
Also, I just realized that there is a serious theoretical problem with z1235/Stranger's positions - it is a problem in computability theory called the language equivalence problem. Is it possible, in general, to decide if two languages* are equivalent? If the domain of languages is any language which can be defined on a universal Turing machine (general purpose computer, such as you are using right now), the answer is no - it is an uncomputable (basically, unsolvable) problem. To translate this to ordinary English, this means that it is impossible to decide if two computers produce the same output simply by inspecting them. So, it is always possible to make copies such that it is impossible to decide, by inspection, whether they are equivalent or not, that is, whether they both output the movie Avatar, for example. This is worse than the "just because you can't defend it doesn't mean it's not yours" situation, it means that information is inherently indefensible. If the physical universe were like the information universe, in this regard, there would be no fences or security because such measures simply could not exist.
Clayton -
*These are computer-theoretic languages, not necessarily natural languagees
ClaytonB:Also, I just realized that there is a serious theoretical problem with z1235/Stranger's positions - it is a problem in computability theory called the language equivalence problem. Is it possible, in general, to decide if two languages* are equivalent? If the domain of languages is any language which can be defined on a universal Turing machine (general purpose computer, such as you are using right now), the answer is no - it is an uncomputable (basically, unsolvable) problem. To translate this to ordinary English, this means that it is impossible to decide if two computers produce the same output simply by inspecting them. So, it is always possible to make copies such that it is impossible to decide, by inspection, whether they are equivalent or not, that is, whether they both output the movie Avatar, for example. This is worse than the "just because you can't defend it doesn't mean it's not yours" situation, it means that information is inherently indefensible. If the physical universe were like the information universe, in this regard, there would be no fences or security because such measures simply could not exist.
An objection like this shows that you still haven't understood the difference between information and ideas. Avatar is not a language, it is data, the output of a process. It is this fact that makes it scarce. It is certainly possible to compare Avatar to a counterfeit copy, as the input that goes into the produce is a unique event in the universe, and so is the output of the process.
The process itself, of making the movie Avatar, is not under copyright. You can hire your own actors, use your own recording equipment, and edit your own Avatar at will, so long as you do not use the data of the original Avatar as input. If you use the process independently of the original data, then it is impossible for you to be even close in the information universe.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
I agree 100%. The main purpose of this ('Information as Property') thread was to make progress toward (1) and (2). As expected, the attacks to the analogy and my replies in its defense focused on exactly those issues. If/when I get the time I could probably write a distilled version of them in another post (I wish I had the time for a sabbatical and write a book, instead.). For now, I think most of the answers are already contained in this thread as we touched on the main characteristics of property: appropriation, demarcation, scarcity, and rivalry in both the physical and information space. Honestly, digging deeper into the paradigm by responding in this thread increased my appreciation for it.
rival is the most important characteristic in my understanding.
my understanding is that physical property is clearly rival whilst intangible 'stuff' is clearly not. do you disagree on this narrow issue z?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
nirgrahamUK: rival is the most important characteristic in my understanding. my understanding is that physical property is clearly rival whilst intangible 'stuff' is clearly not. do you disagree on this narrow issue z?
I still don't understand on what basis the "clearly" in "clearly not rival" comes from. We've piled up argument after argument demonstrating how human action and even now science shows that information is rival.
Yours is an argument from pure faith.
i dont understand your lack of understanding. on what side of the non-equivalence do you have the problem with.
is it that you think physical property is not rival?
is it that you think intangibles are rival?
regardless, I was primarily addressing Z since he seemed to me at least to acknowledge rivalhood as a discrepant characteristic and relevant.
I would love to understand your argument but I don't. Do you mind elaborating? Are you saying that one could encode/encrypt an Avatar 10GB binary sequence to the point at which it becomes unrecognizable as Avatar any more? If so, I thought I already responded to that (in one of the two posts here awaiting your reply). If not, I'd love to learn more about this.
I just thought about another answer to your defensibility attack from before. A prospector discovering and homesteading a gold mine on Mars could simply keep it a secret (hide the map in his safe) or publish the discovery and the instructions on how to get there on the cover page of the New York Times. Would the latter weaken in any way his claim to ownership of the mine? I would say, no. I could be wrong, but a claim to property is NOT weakened/strenghtened by the owner's ability to defend it. If it was, wouldn't that be tantamount to "might makes right"?
As I've repeated a few times before on this fora, I am not married to ANY idea, concept, and paradigm. I love building/discovering/collecting them for their own sake and I welcome bricks being thrown at them. If I can defend the structure by catching the incoming bricks, then I can use them to make the structure stronger. If I'm unable to defend it then the structure just wasn't meant to be and it's better torn down sooner than later. As free market proponents we all agree on the optimality of creative destruction and inefficiency of subsidies (of the mental sort, in this case). Nothing should be left standing longer than the market would allow it. The market of ideas, in this case.
z1235: just thought about another answer to your defensibility attack from before. A prospector discovering and homesteading a gold mine on Mars could simply keep it a secret (hide the map in his safe) or publish the discovery and the instructions on how to get there on the cover page of the New York Times. Would the latter weaken in any way his claim to ownership of the mine? I would say, no. I could be wrong, but a claim to property is NOT weakened/strenghtened by the owner's ability to defend it. If it was, wouldn't that be tantamount to "might makes right"?
That's not going to work. Fallacy 10 says that intellectual property is valid as long as it remains a secret or protected by convoluted security mechanisms. However, no system of justice can be invoked to protect that property, because that would be wrong somehow!
nirgrahamUK: i dont understand your lack of understanding. on what side of the non-equivalence do you have the problem with. is it that you think physical property is not rival? is it that you think intangibles are rival?
So you have no idea then. Okay, thanks for your insight.
A 10GB binary sequence in a 10GB-dimensional information universe is as rival as a cubic meter of space is rival in a 3-dimensional physical universe. They're both rival in their respective universes. The creator of the valuable (to the market) 10GB sequence is the owner of the information area in which it resides. The prospector, finder, first appropriator of a cubic meter of space is the owner of the physical area in which it resides. No two agents could own the same binary 10GB sequence because the likelihood of both of them arriving at the same (or similar) sequence independently is as small as the likelihood of me literally walking into you, as allowed by quantum mechanics laws.
Cameron owns his information property (in the information universe) and he rightfully gets all the rent the market is paying him for "visiting" there and enjoying it. By copying Avatar and selling it to the public (in the physical universe) you are trespassing/aggressing against his property in the information universe and receiving rent from property that's not yours. So this rivalry in the information space has actual repercussions in the physical space, as the capital (in rent) you steal from Cameron is quite tangible indeed.
Just a thought on scarcity: One could say that space and matter are far from scarce (10^80 cubic meters + 5x10^80 atoms available in our universe). And yet we, as humans, have found it useful to consider space and matter as property.
Stranger: nirgrahamUK: i dont understand your lack of understanding. on what side of the non-equivalence do you have the problem with. is it that you think physical property is not rival? is it that you think intangibles are rival? So you have no idea then. Okay, thanks for your insight.
yes. i have no idea what you dont understand about physical objects being rival and intangibles not being rival. too bad you can't explain what you disagree with.
z1235:A 10GB binary sequence in a 10GB-dimensional information universe is as rival as a cubic meter of space is rival in a 3-dimensional physical universe. They're both rival in their respective universes.
if it were rival then there would be a possible conflict in use. but there is no possible conflict in use. hence non-rival.if you and i both travel to the bizarro world of 10GB-dimensional information universe. we could both use all the information for our own independent ends without frustrating each other by so doing.
nirgrahamUK:if it were rival then there would be a possible conflict in use. but there is no possible conflict in use. hence non-rival.if you and i both travel to the bizarro world of 10GB-dimensional information universe. we could both use all the information for our own independent ends without frustrating each other by so doing.
Not quite. Read again the part of my post that you left out. There obviously IS a conflict when you claim to own Cameron's property in the information space, and Cameron WOULD be frustrated by your trespass/aggression:
z1235:Cameron owns his information property (in the information universe) and he rightfully gets all the rent the market is paying him for "visiting" there and enjoying it. By copying Avatar and selling it to the public (in the physical universe) you are trespassing/aggressing against his property in the information universe and receiving rent from property that's not yours. So this rivalry in the information space has actual repercussions in the physical space, as the capital (in rent) you steal from Cameron is quite tangible indeed.
z1235: Not quite. Read again the part of my post that you left out. There obviously IS a conflict when you claim to own Cameron's property in the information space, and Cameron WOULD be frustrated by your trespass/aggression:
this is not a technical conflict in use. its mere disapproval in anothers use. yet the other persons use has no effect on the claimants use. it is not at all like conflict in the use of a chair because we both can't be the primary sitter concurrently.
we will always be able to both use whatever information in the information space. not rival.
nirgrahamUK:this is not a technical conflict in use.
There could hardly be anything technical in the information space. Of course, if you define rivalry strictly in physical terms then there wouldn't be any of it in a non-physical universe, but that's circular, at best, and hardly an attack to the analogy.
Let's go back to the gold prospector who found a gold mine on Mars and published its coordinates in the New York Times. Do you consider the mine rival? If not, would you fly to the mine and start digging after you saw the location in the NYT? After all both you and the owner could dig from different holes without conflict and interference. You think the owner wouldn't/shouldn't mind?
im defining rivalry in terms of conflict in use. think about power. a chair is rival, there are ways two people might want to use it that would conflict so that if one acted the other person would not have the power to do his act(without interfering in the first persons act) and with the conflict happening 'over the chair itself' and not in some other thing. no such claim can be made about information. gold mines are rival. information about gold mines is not rival. both our knowings do not conflict. my knowing doesnt remove from you the power to know. im suprised that the concept of rival is in such dispute. Does anyone have citations from literature that define 'rival'?
nirgrahamUK:gold mines are rival.
But...
z1235:...both you and the owner could dig from different holes without conflict and interference.
thats like saying a chair is not rival because you can break off one leg and use it to fuel a fire and i can break off another leg and whittle the end into a spear to hunt animals with. i.e. you haven't discovered that physical objects are non-rival you have adroitly illustrated your incomprehension regarding the concept of rivalry.
z1235: ClaytonB:Also, I just realized that there is a serious theoretical problem with z1235/Stranger's positions - it is a problem in computability theory called the language equivalence problem. Is it possible, in general, to decide if two languages* are equivalent? If the domain of languages is any language which can be defined on a universal Turing machine (general purpose computer, such as you are using right now), the answer is no - it is an uncomputable (basically, unsolvable) problem. To translate this to ordinary English, this means that it is impossible to decide if two computers produce the same output simply by inspecting them. So, it is always possible to make copies such that it is impossible to decide, by inspection, whether they are equivalent or not, that is, whether they both output the movie Avatar, for example. This is worse than the "just because you can't defend it doesn't mean it's not yours" situation, it means that information is inherently indefensible. If the physical universe were like the information universe, in this regard, there would be no fences or security because such measures simply could not exist. I would love to understand your argument but I don't. Do you mind elaborating? Are you saying that one could encode/encrypt an Avatar 10GB binary sequence to the point at which it becomes unrecognizable as Avatar any more? If so, I thought I already responded to that (in one of the two posts here awaiting your reply). If not, I'd love to learn more about this. I just thought about another answer to your defensibility attack from before. A prospector discovering and homesteading a gold mine on Mars could simply keep it a secret (hide the map in his safe) or publish the discovery and the instructions on how to get there on the cover page of the New York Times. Would the latter weaken in any way his claim to ownership of the mine? I would say, no. I could be wrong, but a claim to property is NOT weakened/strenghtened by the owner's ability to defend it. If it was, wouldn't that be tantamount to "might makes right"? As I've repeated a few times before on this fora, I am not married to ANY idea, concept, and paradigm. I love building/discovering/collecting them for their own sake and I welcome bricks being thrown at them. If I can defend the structure by catching the incoming bricks, then I can use them to make the structure stronger. If I'm unable to defend it then the structure just wasn't meant to be and it's better torn down sooner than later. As free market proponents we all agree on the optimality of creative destruction and inefficiency of subsidies (of the mental sort, in this case). Nothing should be left standing longer than the market would allow it. The market of ideas, in this case. Z.
Basically, I think you and I do not understand property in the same way. There's the old phrase "possession is 9/10ths of the law" and I think it may be an understatement... it's probably closer to 9.99999/10ths of the law. Publishing the location of a gold mine you just discovered would be exceedingly unwise - you would almost certainly be strong-armed off the property for just enough time for someone to pick up the nuggets and mine the surface deposits and then leave. Good luck prosecuting your valid claim when you can't even find who took your minerals, much less prove how much was taken. In other words, securing your property is an integral part of owning it. To push your analogy further, let's say you withdraw all your retirement accounts and stack them in cash in the middle of Times Square with appropriate fanfare, taking photos, and publishing an article. You later go home (leaving your money there in the square), knowing full well that since it's your money, no one can (will) take it without facing prosecution - after all, there's lots of cameras in Times Square! When you return the next morning, your money will be gone. No one will feel sorry for you and the police will not exert much, if any, effort in solving your case. Why? Because you have a responsibility, like everyone else, to take reasonable measures to secure your own property. So the ability to secure a physical object (fend off aggressors) is an integral component of property.
My argument, in a nutshell: Since information cannot be secured, and the ability to secure something is a necessary condition to its being property, information cannot be property.
The language equivalence problem has to do with any transformation to the original that, when run on a computer, will output the original. This could be compression or encryption or whatever. The point is that it's impossible to prove that these transformations of Avatar are equivalent to the original. This means it's impossible, even with courts that believe in IP, to really secure IP since it can always be transformed in such a way that it is impossible to prove its equivalence to the original bits that were under IP protection.
ClaytonB:Basically, I think you and I do not understand property in the same way.
ClaytonB:My argument, in a nutshell: Since information cannot be secured, and the ability to secure something is a necessary condition to its being property, information cannot be property.
I understand, but I disagree.
ClaytonB:The point is that it's impossible to prove that these transformations of Avatar are equivalent to the original. This means it's impossible, even with courts that believe in IP, to really secure IP since it can always be transformed in such a way that it is impossible to prove its equivalence to the original bits that were under IP protection.
I already responded to your encryption argument before. You are welcome to secretly encrypt, encode, transform the original sequence all you want at the privacy of your home. If you want to profit from it by selling it to the public, you would have to provide both the encrypted sequence and the decoding mechanism so the public could see the content. Then your scheme stops being secret any more and I can show the courts what you have done exactly.
I'm not familiar with a theorem claiming what you say above, so I can't respond with authority, but my intuition is that you may have misunderstood it. Even assuming its correctness, I think it is only relevant to proponents of a property concept as you describe above. In your world, the strength of a property claim is proportional to the difficulty of perpetrating and covering-up a crime (aggression, trespass) against it. In mine, it isn't. We can agree to disagree.
nirgrahamUK: thats like saying a chair is not rival because you can break off one leg and use it to fuel a fire and i can break off another leg and whittle the end into a spear to hunt animals with. i.e. you haven't discovered that physical objects are non-rival you have adroitly illustrated your incomprehension regarding the concept of rivalry.
Strawman. Cameron owns a valuable property in information space, for which the public is willing to pay to "visit". The gold prospector owns valuable property on Mars, contents of which the public is willing to buy. Cameron could sell 1billion "visits" @ $10 each before the global market gets satiated. The gold prospector could extract and sell 1million oz of gold @ $1,000 each before there's nothing left in the mine. You, by stealing Avatar's master and releasing the DVD at the same time with Cameron, will take approximately 50% of the market for it, i.e. actually steal $5billion from Cameron. A company aggressing and trespassing on gold prospector's property on Mars and digging alongside him from the same mine would steal 50% of the deposits from the owner, i.e. steal $500million from him.
Semantics is not knowledge, and a different understanding of a concept is not ignorance. Whatever your comprehension is of rivalry, please explain how it differs in the above two scenarios.
its not a strawman, its a perfect analogy for the fallacy you tried. i don't believe you understand rivalry. your 'market value' story is a complete non-sequitor
nirgrahamUK: its not a strawman, its a perfect analogy for the fallacy you tried. i don't believe you understand rivalry. your 'market value' story is a complete non-sequitor
Looks like an impasse. Ok thx for your replies.
if a piece of gold could be non-rival. then you could be melting it, whilst i could be using it to squash bugs. there is obviously a conflict in the thing-in-itself given the real physical rival nature of such a good.
now information, is actually non-rival. you can know where a goldmine is and i can know where a gold mine is. if we perform actions that conflict. they will conflict in rivalrous physical objects. for example the mine (which is rival). they will not conflict in the non-rival 'thing' in the 'information' of the 'information'.
nirgrahamUK:given the real physical rival nature of such a good
Nir, we're going in circles. I understand your refusal to accept a non-physical information space, much less any property residing in it.
ok, lets make it more of a game.
1) can you give an example to explain/illustrate why a hat is rival?
2) can you give an example to explain/illustrate why (not the media) but the information of how to perform a musical piece is rival? (information of what the notes, melody, rhythm are etc.)
nirgrahamUK: ok, lets make it more of a game. 1) can you give an example to explain/illustrate why a hat is rival? 2) can you give an example to explain/illustrate why (not the media) but the information of how to perform a musical piece is rival? (information of what the notes, melody, rhythm are etc.)
1) We can't both be owners of a hat at the same TIME. If I'm wearing it, you aren't.
2) We can't both be owners of the same musical composition (movie, book, software). If I created it, you didn't, and in information space, the creator/producer is the original owner of the information.
a. Two separate instances of utilization/enjoyment/consumption of SAME physical property MUST be separated in TIME. (classical rivalry)
b. Two separate instances of utilization/enjoyment/consumption of SAME information property MUST be separated in SPACE.
I concede that classical rivalry's definition is associated with (a). But going beyond that, why would (a) present a stronger case for property than (b)? If property is ultimately about control over the distribution of utilization/enjoyment/consumption of assets (both physical and information) in our 4 dimensional universe (3 physical + 1 temporal), why should exclusivity along the temporal dimension (rivalry in classical sense) have precedence over exclusivity along the spatial dimensions? In other words, why MUST classical rivalry be a necessary ingredient of property?
z1235: ClaytonB:Basically, I think you and I do not understand property in the same way. ClaytonB:My argument, in a nutshell: Since information cannot be secured, and the ability to secure something is a necessary condition to its being property, information cannot be property. I understand, but I disagree. ClaytonB:The point is that it's impossible to prove that these transformations of Avatar are equivalent to the original. This means it's impossible, even with courts that believe in IP, to really secure IP since it can always be transformed in such a way that it is impossible to prove its equivalence to the original bits that were under IP protection. I already responded to your encryption argument before. You are welcome to secretly encrypt, encode, transform the original sequence all you want at the privacy of your home. If you want to profit from it by selling it to the public, you would have to provide both the encrypted sequence and the decoding mechanism so the public could see the content. Then your scheme stops being secret any more and I can show the courts what you have done exactly. I'm not familiar with a theorem claiming what you say above, so I can't respond with authority, but my intuition is that you may have misunderstood it. Even assuming its correctness, I think it is only relevant to proponents of a property concept as you describe above. In your world, the strength of a property claim is proportional to the difficulty of perpetrating and covering-up a crime (aggression, trespass) against it. In mine, it isn't. We can agree to disagree. Z.
I don't know why there is basically no discussion on the net of the equivalence problem - I have class handout that I grabbed off the web a long time ago (which is no longer available on the net), by a "Maggie Johnson", here's a quote:
"Another famous undecidable problem is the equivalence problem. Imagine that you had a number of programs which had run successfully for several years. You want to replace these programs with new programs that are supposed to run faster, but you want to make sure they work. Is it possible to write an algorithm that will determine if two programs are equivalent (they always produce the same output for the same input)? Unfortunately, it can be shown that a solution to the equivalence problem would imply a solution to the halting problem, so the equivalence problem must also undecidable."
z1235: a. Two separate instances of utilization/enjoyment/consumption of SAME physical property MUST be separated in TIME. (classical rivalry) b. Two separate instances of utilization/enjoyment/consumption of SAME information property MUST be separated in SPACE.
I'm not sure I see your analogy. Two people may want to use a piece of physical property or IP - a can opener, an apple, or a piece of music - at the same time. Two people generally don't want to use a can opener, an apple, or a piece of music in the same physical* space (if that were even possible).
*I assume you don't mean "information space" when you write "SPACE" above, because below that you refer to "our 4 dimensional universe (3 physical + 1 temporal)".
Just a quick suggestion:
Instead of using the somewhat clumsy analogy of "information space" to justify information as property, could you just consider information as justly excludable, and base your argument from there?
Jackson LaRose: Just a quick suggestion: Instead of using the somewhat clumsy analogy of "information space" to justify information as property, could you just consider information as justly excludable, and base your argument from there?
What does this even mean, "justly excludable"? If it means what I take that to mean, I don't see how it in any way supports the existence of "information space", in any sense relevant to physical things. It looks like begging the question to me.
E. R. Olovetto:What does this even mean, "justly excludable"?
"In economics, a good or service is said to be excludable when it is possible to prevent people who have not paid for it from having access to it, and non-excludable when it is not possible to do so." - Wikipedia.
The "justly" had to do suggesting he come up with a proof to satisfy all the ethics dweebs.
E. R. Olovetto:I don't see how it in any way supports the existence of "information space"
That's good, because I suggested it as an alternative. Hence:
E. R. Olovetto:Instead of using the somewhat clumsy analogy of "information space" to justify information as property
AJ: z1235: a. Two separate instances of utilization/enjoyment/consumption of SAME physical property MUST be separated in TIME. (classical rivalry) b. Two separate instances of utilization/enjoyment/consumption of SAME information property MUST be separated in SPACE. I'm not sure I see your analogy. Two people may want to use a piece of physical property or IP - a can opener, an apple, or a piece of music - at the same time. Two people generally don't want to use a can opener, an apple, or a piece of music in the same physical* space (if that were even possible). *I assume you don't mean "information space" when you write "SPACE" above, because below that you refer to "our 4 dimensional universe (3 physical + 1 temporal)".
Sorry for the delayed response. Been busy off-line these days.
You assumed correctly.
Agent A and agent B CAN NOT use the same piece of land (same physical SPACE) at the same TIME. A and B CAN use the same piece of land (SPACE) at different times (when A sells the land to B).
In our 4-dimensional (3 spatial + 1 temporal dimensions) physical universe, acts of property usage (utilization/enjoyment/consumption) occur at different 4-dimensional coordinates, both for physical AND information property. Classical rivalry (physical property rules, rights, laws) merely addresses the distribution of these acts along the time dimension. General (information AND physical) property rules address their distribution along all 4 dimensions.
A and B can watch copies of the same movie Avatar at the same TIME but at different physical SPACES (locations). Admittedly, this makes the movie Avatar not rival in classical sense, but the question remains why (and how) must classical rivalry be a necessary ingredient in the definition of property.
It seems that classical rivalry is merely the MEANS to the desired END of a non-conflicting, one-to-one mapping between all pieces of physical property and their rightful owners at a certain point in time. The non-conflicting mappping is the desired feature of property. Such mapping clearly exists between a piece of information property (in the information universe) and its rightful owner (i.e. creator).
I'm happy to wind down this thread at this point, as I also anticipate less time available for online forums in my near future. I thank all contributors for shaking the concept up from different angles. At least for me, dialogue (debate) is the most efficient way of building an idea, concept. Hopefully, I'll find the time in the future to beef it up some more.