You continue to refer to the question of when someone buys a copy of a book and the contractual relationship when that transfer takes place.

You still haven’t answered how, if no such a contractual relationship exists, one can still claim the property to the ideas. If they are overheard in passing, if one sees a copy of a book that someone else purchased, any of the myriad ways in which no contractual relationship could be said to exist, how can you still claim a right to a reproduction of an idea?

As to ownership, one common test of ownership is that the owner of something has the right to destroy it. Once an idea leaves a person’s direct physical control, once they publish it or speak it to someone else or otherwise release it, they are no longer able to destroy that idea. Once someone relinquishes direct control of an idea they can no longer claim to own it.

You still stick to very narrow applications of the IP theory. I can only ask you again to broaden your horizons, open your eyes and see the unseen (consequences of your theory).

” In each of these two statements you are asserting that there is some intrinsic value to be derived from a creation independent of the creator’s definition of it ”

Firstly, I have never spoken or even hinted at an “intrinsic value”. All value is subjective. Secondly, a thing is whatever it is. What it is does not depend on my definition. In any case of conflict, it is the definition that would need correction. The same goes for an idea or a pattern. What I can get out of an idea/pattern and what value it therefore holds for me is all in my mind (and what it can figure out) and has no relationship whatsoever with the creator’s definition of it. An idea is often capable of far more than the creator intended it to be/do.

” In the first instance, you are attempting to deprive the creator of the freedom to define what is in the service of his life. ”

I am only identifying a primary aspect of reality. If that appears like an attempt to “deprive” the creator, the fault must lie in your eyes.

” In the second, to define exclusivity and whether or not and/or to what degree it is worth claiming and defending. ”

If pigs had wings…… At some stage in life, it is necessary to face reality and stop fighting nature. Wishing won’t make it so.

” When I speak up in defense of his right to define the benefits that motivated his creation, you then assert that the by nature exclusivity cannot be limited or in the service of his life as man qua man. ”

I iinvite you (like I have done explicitly before this on this very thread) to prove me wrong. If you aren’t able to muster the arguments required, at least think long and hard about what I have said rather than trying to cling on to your beliefs to the very end (as you are doing now).

” creator’s prohibition against incorporating his creation in it if a term of your purchase ”

We have gone through this before, but why do you need Copyright Law when Contract Law should be sufficient?

” No. It resides wherever it is concretized. ”

This is utterly meaningless. Abstraction, by its very nature, is something that happens and hence resides ONLY in the mind of a person.

Finally, I don’t think this is going anywhere, primarily because I think you do not want to reconsider your position even when you do not have a single argument against mine. I suggest we end this discussion here rather than waste time and energy stubbornly repeating the same things ad nauseum.

“the use and disposition of a concretization and the use and disposition of that which it concretizes are two entirely distinct actions”

– Indeed. The whole matter boils down to the single point at which the claim of ‘ownership’ is made, and what is claimed. That separateness is what breaks it.

The concepts of abstract and concrete are mutually exclusive, so when claiming one you cannot at the same time be claiming the other.

If you want to claim an abstract based on being its creator, then the claim can have no connection to any concrete instances.

If you want to claim any control over the instances, it must be a separate claim. But then it cannot derive justification from anything to do with the abstract and its creator.

If you want some kind of combination or interaction of the two, you need two separate justifications — being the creator, alone, is insufficient.

It seems related to the idea in an earlier comment: http://blog.mises.org/archives/011323.asp#c643452 . And both seem to be aspects/expressions/derivatives of Kinsella’s core argument: there is an inescapable conflict between IP and real property.

“What bearing does this have for the gaining of an idea that does not deprive the original possessor of either the idea or the freedom to act to apply it in the service of his life? The answer is NOTHING AT ALL!!!!”

“Thus, for man to survive qua man, exclusivity in possessing and instantiating ideas is NOT AN ESSENTIAL condition.”

In each of these two statements you are asserting that there is some intrinsic value to be derived from a creation independent of the creator’s definition of it.

In the first instance, you are attempting to deprive the creator of the freedom to define what is in the service of his life. In the second, to define exclusivity and whether or not and/or to what degree it is worth claiming and defending.

When I speak up in defense of his right to define the benefits that motivated his creation, you then assert that the by nature exclusivity cannot be limited or in the service of his life as man qua man.

But there are no such intrinsic values. And when Rand says that rights recognize a condition of existence essential for the survival of man qua man, the condition she is referring to is the freedom of each person to take his own best shot at recognizing specifically what constitutes the “essential”, to pursue it accordingly, and to enjoy the benefits of correctly achieving what is actually essential or suffer the consequences if he is wrong.

Furthermore, your freedom and right to rearrange what you own is not diminished by the creator’s prohibition against incorporating his creation in it if a term of your purchase of access to the creation was that it could not be utilized separately from the concretization you purchased.

————————–

“An ‘abstraction’ cannot be owned because it resides in the mind of the author and is just not available to anyone else. “

No. It resides wherever it is concretized.

When a purchaser of a concretization derives from it the abstraction it concretizes and thereby concretizes it in his own mind, it is not a “new” abstraction just as the abstraction concretized in the many copies of the book are all the same abstraction. The creator of the abstraction may demand a price for every book that concretizes his abstraction, i.e. for every concretization of it.

“Prof. F: If you and I have the same concept, does that mean that the same entity is in both of our minds?”

“AR: If we are both careful and rational thinkers, yes.” [Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology, paperback p.153]

You wrote:
“In the context of knowledge, knowing of the existence of something requires a manifestation of it that is either directly or indirectly perceivable with our senses. I have little doubt that there are existents for which we have no perceivable evidence. But in the context of useful knowledge, until they are evidenced, for all practical purposes, they do not exist, meaning they have no relevance to the rest of what is knowable.”

It is clear that you did not understand my arguments.
In order to “know” the state of existence of an object, we have to observe it.
Observation is a process. (eg photons bouncing off the object and colliding with our eyes)
This process alters the state of the object.
This process also alters the state of our sense organs.
All our brains perceive is an ‘altered’ state of the subject of our observation.
We cannot ever know what the state of the object was prior to our observation of it.
We cannot ever know what the state of the object is after our observation of it.
Thus, objective reality can never be precisely known.
All we can ever know is an approximation to objective reality.

You wrote:
“In other words, you are using the word “exists” in two different contexts simultaneously as if they had the same meaning.”

No I did not. I was trying to describe the two different contexts and why your use of “exist” was inadequate. But it seems I did not explain my position clearly enough.

You wrote:
“Reality as perceivable by our senses is the only reality there is.”

Incorrect.
There is the reality we perceive and the reality that actually exists. And, as I have tried to explain, they are not the same thing. We can never ever accurately perceive what is actually there.

We can know that a tangible entity exists, but we can never know its precise arrangement.

MichaelM also wrote:
“That said, what is the relevance of these questions to IP?”

Firstly.
My arguments demonstrate that it is meaningless to state that “only patterns with physical manifestations exist”. To use “exist” in this context is useless. Hence, one should define patterns as possibilities and treat every permitted pattern as already existing.

Secondly.
The statement, “the only patterns that exist are those with physical manifestations”, when taken to its logical conclusions leads one to believe that only that which is in the mind exists. This is contradictory to the starting premises of Objectivism.

Thirdly.
One should not propose to assign ownership to intangible entities without first ascertaining the precise properties of intangible entites and how they relate to human action.

Fourthly.
The presence of tangible entites can be ascertained but the arrangement of them can never be ascertained. Therefore it is meaningful to assign ownership to tangible entities and completly meaningless to assign ownership to intangible entities.

Fifthly.
I did not set out to explore this aspect of the topic as thoroughly as I did. The inaccuracy of the statements you were making compelled me to lay out my position. My purpose when I began was merely to get you to acknowledge that an intangible entity cannot be altered.

” Yes, what is owned is the abstraction ”

This is where you are going wrong again and again. An “abstraction” cannot be owned because it resides in the mind of the author and is just not available to anyone else. There is no need to exclude anyone else from it. Hence, the concept of “ownership” is meaningless; Only “possession” is relevant and it is utterly ridiculous to apply notions such as being “rightful” or not. There is no such thing as “wrong” possession of an idea. Wrong, if any, can only lie in the actions prior to and after grasping the idea.

The only thing that is available to others is the concretisation. By studying it, the owner of a concretisation can work his way to the very same abstraction that exists in the author’s mind. All he needs to do is to apply his powers of reasoning to the concretisation that is now his property. At this stage, the newly formed abstraction becomes his and remains his alone until he dies or forgets it. The owner cannot claim any right to this new abstraction or to the further concretisations that owner of the original concretisation may make of the newly formed abstraction.

All this apart, my fundamental question to you remains and I will not answer any replies you post to this particular reply of mine till you address the original question.

I am still waiting for a substantive reply to the serious question I have been posing to you many times on this thread. Until you do, statements of yours like this one below

” “Ownership” is the retention of the right to alter the particular form of the product of one’s own reason and effort as well as any product of the reason and effort of others acquired in a voluntary exchange. ”

have no meaning because the confusion regarding “ownership” of ideas and patterns persists in your “arguments”. Until you address the fundamental point that exclusivity is neither necessary nor possible for ideas, statements on “ownership” of ideas would be tantamount to dodging a tough question or begging the question. So, please address it.

“I can summarise your position as follows:
A pattern only exists if a tangible manifestation of it exists. … How do we know if a tangible manifestation of a pattern exists?”

In the context of knowledge, knowing of the existence of something requires a manifestation of it that is either directly or indirectly perceivable with our senses. I have little doubt that there are existents for which we have no perceivable evidence. But in the context of useful knowledge, until they are evidenced, for all practical purposes, they do not exist, meaning they have no relevance to the rest of what is knowable. In other words, you are using the word “exists” in two different contexts simultaneously as if they had the same meaning.

“And you know that you cannot truly ever know what the reality of these patterns are.”

Reality as perceivable by our senses is the only reality there is. By what other means could you posit a different realty. All other possibilities can only be posited by suggesting a differing set of abstractions that necessarily rely on the same perceptual capacity.

That said, what is the relevance of these questions to IP?

Regardless of whether you follow my logic on the status of the existence of patterns, you must concede than an individual pattern cannot be altered. It’s tangible manifestations can be multiplied. The pattern can be built upon to discover new patterns. But the pattern itself cannot possibly be altered.

“Ownership” is the retention of the right to alter the particular form of the product of one’s own reason and effort as well as any product of the reason and effort of others acquired in a voluntary exchange.

If your “reason and effort” resulted in the manifestation of an intangible entity, then “ownership” of that entity is the rentention of the right to alter it.
But an intangible entity cannot be altered.
If someone arranges their tangible property into your intangible arrangement, they are not altering your intangible entity.
Ownership of an intangible entity is meaningless because there is no need to protect its integrity.

If you want to prevent others from arranging their property into a pattern that you discovered, “ownership” of this pattern cannot do this. “Ownership” is the wrong word to describe the limitations you wish to impose on people.

What are you really advocating?
That we give the “discoverer” a special privilege, the privilege of excluding others from arranging their property into the intangible arrangement discovered.

Rather than advocating “intellectual property”, you are advocating “intellectual privilege”.

Hence, IP laws are simply a form of subsidy or welfare for discoverers of intangible entities. IP laws are therefore nothing more than a tax, a wealth distribution scheme.
Those who defy these laws are not “stealing”. They are simply not recognising the legitimacy of this tax.

You either have not been reading the thread all along or missed the sense of my comments.

Yes, what is owned is the abstraction — the integrated set of mental integrations. As you correctly point out, that integration can exist in multiple instances that can concretize it in various ways: someone else’s mental integration, numerous images of fonts and languages, actors acting, voices speaking live or on recordings or broadcasts thereof.

Before a book is sold, it is usual that the author owns the IP and the publisher owns the material concretizations of it. Since the author only sold to the publisher limited rights to concretize it, the printing of those concretizations that the publisher owns does not increase his ownership of rights to the story one iota. The publisher does not own the right to make any more concretizations than his terms with the author allow.

Consequently, he cannot sell such rights to his customers, nor do they acquire them in any other way when they buy and read that copy. While it is usual that the publisher disclaims any ownership of the material instance, he doesn’t have to. He could instead loan or lease his concretizations like libraries do with the concretizations they own.

But the use and disposition of a concretization and the use and disposition of that which it concretizes are two entirely distinct actions, and the rights to each may be separably and differently defined and transferred to others under separate and different terms by their owner(s).

When claiming ‘ownership’ they must deliberately disclaim any connection to the work’s material instance. They claim the pure abstract alone. And they must since extension of the ownership depends on claiming something that is copyable.

But then, when talking about other people’s copies, they suddenly want to claim ownership and control over the instances of the abstract. They say you cannot have that copy.

First they disclaim ownership of material instance, then they want to claim it. It is a clear contradiction, hence invalid.

I can summarise your position as follows:
A pattern only exists if a tangible manifestation of it exists.

This is a very common error and the flaw is revealed when one asks the question:
How do we know if a tangible manifestation of a pattern exists?

In order to know something, we need to observe it. But observation is a process and this process alters the very thing we are observing.
It is meaningless to say that only patterns that have tangible manifestations exist because we have no way of knowing which patterns are currently manifested.

The only patterns you ‘know’ exist are the patterns that are manifested in your own brain. You cannot ‘know’ whether these patterns are the same as that which you observed. You cannot ‘know’ whether another human has the exact same pattern manifested in their brain. But you do know there must exist an objective reality outside of your own consciousness. And you know that the tangible materials that make up this reality are arranged in patterns. And you know that you cannot truly ever know what the reality of these patterns are.

The only meaningful way to treat this problem is to consider all patterns as possibilities. We can say that all patterns which are permitted by the laws of the Universe are possible. And since possibilities exist, all patterns exist. This is irrespective of whether there are observed tangible manifestations of them.

” That is precisely the point…..he is the rightful possessor of that as property. ”

Who is denying this? Not me.

” It is the capacity of physical force to gain, withhold, or destroy what is produced by his reason and effort that demands the non-initiation of force principle. ”

What bearing does this have for the gaining of an idea that does not deprive the original possessor of either the idea or the freedom to act to apply it in the service of his life? The answer is NOTHING AT ALL!!!!

” The choice to exchange a limited use of a product of one’s reason and effort on one’s own terms is a freedom and right to act on one’s own values. ”

Whim-worshipping explained. That’s all this reply of yours is. In spite of the point that ideas, by their very nature, are not amenable to exclusivity once they are concretised and the concretisation is sold, you insist that it is alright to try to exclude. Be my guest, but you are up against nature.

Secondly, you are still guilty of distorting the Objectivist concept of “rights”. While Rand had put it in different ways, the one that is most relevant in this specific context is that rights are a recognition of a condition of existence essential for the survival of man qua man.

For man to survive qua man, he needs to be FREE to apply his ideas to act to rearrange material objects to serve his life. The key point (which you are still evading) is that my possession and subsequent instantiation of your idea does not have any bearing whatsoever on your FREEDOM to act to instantiate it yourself. Thus, for man to survive qua man, exclusivity in possessing and instantiating ideas is NOT AN ESSENTIAL condition. Hence, it is NOT a “right’. To call it a “right” necessarily requires you to EVADE REALITY, i.e., the non-necessity of exclusivity.

” When the product is a unique mental integration, its use can be limited….. ”

It cannot be limited. It is not in the nature of ideas to be restricted thus. They flow and multiply as they do. That you wish them to be restricted does not make it possible. Once again, whim-worshipping.

MichaelM…. Let me put it this way. Unless you refute my statements on the impossibility and non-necessity of exclusivity, this argument is going nowhere. Digging deeper into your premises is not going to help because those premises have already been incorporated into my arguments. By now, it must be obvious that I am not ignorant of those premises. So, either you make a proper rebuttal or acknowledge that I am right. Anything else is a waste of your and my time.

“Yet you are treating intangible entities as though they only exist in the human mind, that they are not an aspect of objective reality”

No. They are an aspect of the human mind that holds the mental integration. [As an irrelevant aside, I am not ready to say that sans humans intangible entities do not exist, as it would depend on the applicability of that to the form in which animals hold the perceptions that stimulate the functions of their bodies.]

Rand is dead, but the intangible entity that is Atlas Shrugged still exists in the minds of her readers and the concretizations they read.
———————–

“Therefore:
- All intangible entities are simply patterns or forms that tangible entities can be arranged in.
- The definition of an intangible entity is a possible arrangement of tangible materials.
- These possible arrangements exist independent of the existence of a tangible manifestation of them.
- These possible arrangements exist independent of the existence of a person to “think” of them.
- Therefore, intangible entities cannot be altered, created or destroyed.”

An arrangement is a relationship and cannot metaphysically exist independent from the related entities that possess it. It can however exist independently in an epistemological context, i.e. as an abstraction that can be concretized in numerous varying arrangements of varying physical entities without altering its identity.

When I create a unique mental integration in my mind, it is concretized as a particular arrangement of the components of my brain. I can enable you to concretize it in a particular arrangement of the components of your brain by concretizing the arrangement in vocal sounds or written word that you can hear or read.

Source of non-initiation of force…

I asked: “What is it about man’s nature that necessitates the concepts of right and wrong that would require a man to abstain from the force all other living entities employ even if he were the most powerful of his species? “

You replied: “I could answer this by saying that it is fundamentally the fact that man is capable of forming concepts of time, is capable of projecting in time and is therefore capable of acting and does act for the long-range and not just for the range of the the moment and get into more discussion on related issues. However, that is not the point in the discussion we have had till now.“

That is precisely the point — that man’s specific means of survival is forming concepts of existence and acting on them, aka reason and effort. By that means he produces that with which he can survive and thrive as what he is, and in any socio-economic context, he is the rightful possessor of that as property. It is the capacity of physical force to gain, withhold, or destroy what is produced by his reason and effort that demands the non-initiation of force principle. The principle protects his right to exercise his specific means of survival that is inherent in his nature.

—————–

What word? …

“Possession” is the right word because you can have it but once it is released in some physical form such as a device or a book, you are no more capable of excluding others from it.”

“Possession” is a morally neutral concept. It can be rightful or wrongful. It cannot be the right word for what I am explaining without the qualifier “rightful”. But since “rightful possession” is a synonym for “ownership” then “ownership” is a more precise and efficient term.

————————

right to exclude …

“… where the need to exclude is an essential condition for man to act on his values in the service of his life, exclusion of others becomes a right. This is true in the case of material objects because their scarcity demands exclusivity. It is not true in the case of ideas and patterns because of the lack of a need for exclusivity for man’s freedom of action to exist.”

The choice to exchange a limited use of a product of one’s reason and effort on one’s own terms is a freedom and right to act on one’s own values. When the product is a unique mental integration, its use can be limited to how and how much it may be concretized as well as how or by whom authorized concretizations of it may be used.

@MichalM said:
> Using and acting upon are not the source of the
> right to treat something as property, they are the
> benefit thereof.
First of all, even with this explanation, it is not clear to me which way the implication should go (property allows to act, or acting requires property). I will therefore refute both.

“Acting upon something” is a meaningless description. What does the “upon” mean? Is it understanding? Ownership does not require that. You can buy a patent from a inventor even if you don’t understand it. Is it that it broadens your options to act? Not necessarily, if there is an overlap, either on the same layer or on a different one, you are prevented from acting despite ownership (this has nothing to do with IP). Is it motivation or inspiration? You don’t need to own something in order for that. Soviet Union inspired Ayn Rand to write her books, yet it cannot be concluded that either she owned SU or that SU owned her works. Is it the ability to satisfy your needs? Again, this is possible even by things you do not own (I am quite sure Ayn Rand’s actions satisfied her needs in the previous example). The least vague re-definition of the above that I can come up with is that there is a causal relationship between the “something” and the act (coincidentally, that is also what Ayn Rand says in Galt Speech). However, as I tried to explain before, that “proves too much” and leads to absurd conclusions.

So, it is not me that is concrete-bound but you. You (or the authors of the books you read) extrapolated the principles of ownership of immaterial goods from existing IP laws and then created a theory that explains it. But the consequences of the theory, as presented, reach much father than you realise. You still only apply the theory to very specific cases of immaterial goods (words, pictures and sounds as in copyright, and functionality/composition as in patents) and fail to see that it also has an effect in completely different areas, such as reputation, honour, motivation, inspiration, false assumptions (should acting based on a false assumption lead to ownership?), partial knowledge (is it possible to own something you don’t know everything about?), mathematics, competition (which, since it can prevent you from acting, might be concluded to infringe your property), customers (not wanting to buy your goods can also prevent you from acting).

Absent a meaningful and useful definition, we are left with the following options:
- immaterial goods cannot be owned
- immaterial goods can be owned but are always unique
- ownership of immaterial goods is non-exclusive
Feel free to pick your favourite.

Sorry about a small error. I said

“This is why David Kelley is wrong and you are.”

Please read as “This is why David Kelley is wrong and you are right.”

I went through the article ‘Rand on IP, Owning “Values” and “Rearrangement Rights” ‘. I specifically went through the portion that highlights David Kelley’s explanation on the legitimacy of IP.

The problem as I see it is not even in the portion you have highlighted (“regardless of scarcity”). In fact, that statement in itself is an outcome of an inversion of cause effect relationship in an earllier statement where he talks of “the right to exclude”.

Frankly, the “right to exclude” is by itself nothing more than a recognition of the condition of existence that for man to act his values in the service of his life, he needs to be free to act on it. As Rand put it, rights are a moral sanction of man’s freedom of action in a social context, her emphasis being on the word “freedom”.

Given these, where the need to exclude is an essential condition for man to act on his values in the service of his life, exclusion of others becomes a right. This is true in the case of material objects because their scarcity demands exclusivity. It is not true in the case of ideas and patterns because of the lack of a need for exclusivity for man’s freedom of action to exist.

This further means that the “right to exclude” is relevant ONLY to material objects where their nature (scarcity) demands exclusivity. In contrast, for ideas and patterns, the concept of “right to exclude” is irrelevant BECAUSE exclusivity is NOT a condition existence essential for man to apply his non-material values in the service of his life. Thus, for ideas and patterns, it the “right to exclude” does not flow logically from Objectivist premises.

On the other hand, given that exclusivity is NOT POSSIBLE with respect to ideas and patterns, failure to recognise this is a serious error and a refusal to acknowledge it is a clear cut case of evasion of reality. Further, demanding that such exclusivity be enforced is nothing more than an attempt to command nature without obeying it in the first place. That transforms into the much more serious offence of whim-worshipping – something no Objectivist would consider moral.

This is why David Kelley is wrong and you are. I am quite confident that if this argument is included in any discussion with an Objectivist, it is not going to be too difficult to bring him around. I hope you give it a serious try.