WEBVTT NOTE The Nature of Man and the Human Condition: Language, Property, and Production 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Thank you, Lou, for inviting me for this occasion. 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:10.000 Just a few introductory remarks. 3 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:15.000 My accent is quite different from Mises'. 4 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:23.000 I come from northern Germany, and in northern Germany we speak correct German. 5 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:27.000 Mises, as you can imagine, had, of course, an Austrian accent. 6 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:37.000 If you have an ear for things like this, you can immediately tell the difference between my accent and his. 7 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:53.000 What I want to do in the seminar is to reconstruct world history, so to speak, from the bottom up, 8 00:00:53.000 --> 00:01:06.000 from the beginning of mankind so to speak to the present and gradually enlarge and expand the picture. 9 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:21.000 I will give you a brief overview of what I have planned, but let me say from the outset I have never given these lectures in this form before. 10 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:30.000 Before I have presented some of these topics in various lectures and in my class on comparative systems, 11 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:40.000 I talk about subjects similar to the subjects that I will deal with in the seminar. 12 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:48.000 But never before have I presented lectures structured in this way. 13 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:56.120 And because I have never done this, I have also not timed the lectures correctly. 14 00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:02.160 So it sometimes can happen that I don't use all my time, and sometimes it might happen 15 00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:08.840 that I will take more of the time than has been allotted for these lectures. 16 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:26.700 Also in any case I ask you to bear with me and to pardon me if I mismanage my time occasionally. 17 00:02:26.700 --> 00:02:37.560 This is also supposed to be a seminar style, so I encourage you if you have questions during 18 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:45.300 During the lecture, if they are short, then please raise your hand and I will handle these 19 00:02:45.300 --> 00:02:47.240 questions during the lecture. 20 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:53.600 If they are more involved questions, then I would ask you to wait until the lecture 21 00:02:53.600 --> 00:02:59.760 is over and please also keep in mind that obviously some questions would be more appropriate 22 00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:11.360 to be brought up somewhat later during the seminar and some questions are more appropriate 23 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:20.240 at the beginning in order to give you some basic idea of how this whole thing is structured. 24 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:46.240 The first lecture I want to talk about the nature of men, comparing men with animals and illuminating the major differences and characterizing what one can call the human condition, the condition that mankind finds itself confronted with. 25 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:49.160 was in the second lecture. 26 00:03:49.160 --> 00:03:59.000 I will talk about the spread of humans across the globe 27 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:04.080 and the development, the extensification, 28 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:08.320 and the intensification of division of labor. 29 00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:31.320 The third lecture deals with the next element in human and economic development, that is the development of money and the expansion of money and the consequences that money has for the development of the division of labor. 30 00:04:31.320 --> 00:04:48.320 The next fundamental element will be the theory of time preference and of capital and of technology and of economic growth. 31 00:04:48.320 --> 00:04:57.320 All of the lectures, by the way, will contain, so to speak, theoretical elements and also historical elements. 32 00:04:57.320 --> 00:05:16.320 I'm not a historian by profession. My advantage, so to speak, is that I know more theory than most historians and reconstruct history because of that in a slightly different way than a historian might do it. 33 00:05:16.320 --> 00:05:42.320 The fifth lecture will deal with ideological factors that have an influence on social and economic development, that is in particular religion, that will be a lecture on comparative religion and comparative ideologies. 34 00:05:42.320 --> 00:05:53.560 and the Lecture 6 will be dealing with details of the theory of private property and the 35 00:05:53.560 --> 00:06:08.440 issue of how societies would defend property rights with special reference to feudal societies 36 00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:18.480 and what defense mechanisms would be used in modern societies, 37 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:28.400 where we can take some ideas or cues from the feudal age. 38 00:06:28.400 --> 00:06:31.320 The lecture number seven will deal 39 00:06:31.320 --> 00:06:38.840 was parasitic behavior that is exploitative behavior 40 00:06:38.840 --> 00:06:44.840 and the origin of the state. 41 00:06:44.840 --> 00:06:50.600 And lecture eight will be based on something 42 00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:55.160 that I have done in my book, Democracy, The God That Failed. 43 00:06:55.160 --> 00:06:59.860 That is the transition from monarchical states, 44 00:06:59.860 --> 00:07:10.260 Monarchical Governments to Democratic Governments, the following lecture will deal with states 45 00:07:10.260 --> 00:07:21.660 and imperialism and war, and the final lecture will address some strategic issues, that is, 46 00:07:21.660 --> 00:07:35.660 How do we go from here to a society that is free or at least more free than the current one? 47 00:07:35.660 --> 00:07:50.660 So with this, let me begin to talk about the nature of men and the human condition and 48 00:07:50.660 --> 00:08:01.660 I want to speak in particular about three elements that are unique, so to speak, to mankind. 49 00:08:01.660 --> 00:08:18.660 One is language, the second one is property, and the third one is production or technology. 50 00:08:18.660 --> 00:08:31.740 You realize then when we begin all of this here, we are already talking, we are already 51 00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:44.100 using some of our capabilities, some of our skills and achievements that are the result 52 00:08:44.100 --> 00:08:49.460 of Human Evolution. 53 00:08:49.460 --> 00:08:55.860 That is, the reconstruction that I will offer you of human history 54 00:08:55.860 --> 00:09:01.820 makes already use of some of the tools that have only gradually 55 00:09:01.820 --> 00:09:06.540 evolved in the course of time. 56 00:09:06.540 --> 00:09:22.940 Actually, the origin of language is dated back roughly to 150,000, 250,000 years ago. 57 00:09:22.940 --> 00:09:30.260 All of these estimates are, of course, as you can imagine, rather vague estimates. 58 00:09:30.260 --> 00:09:37.220 Nobody was around at that time and recorded it exactly when they started talking. 59 00:09:37.220 --> 00:09:46.620 But these are the numbers that some geneticists and biologists and anthropologists give us 60 00:09:46.620 --> 00:09:50.300 for the beginning. 61 00:09:50.300 --> 00:10:02.740 And you notice something else from the fact that we begin all of this enterprise by talking 62 00:10:02.740 --> 00:10:15.340 to each other, that somehow humans are social animals. 63 00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:22.660 You are aware of the fact that there exist people who are interested in game theory, for 64 00:10:22.660 --> 00:10:31.200 instance, who seem to have sometimes problems explaining why do people cooperate at all 65 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:35.060 and do not fight each other all the time. 66 00:10:35.060 --> 00:10:45.260 But the funny thing is that this debate takes already place using language, which in a way 67 00:10:45.260 --> 00:10:53.140 The way, from the outset, explains that there must be something wrong with this idea that 68 00:10:53.140 --> 00:10:59.060 man at some point was, so to speak, deciding whether they should fight each other or whether 69 00:10:59.060 --> 00:11:01.860 they should not fight each other. 70 00:11:01.860 --> 00:11:10.580 Obviously, as soon as mankind began to talk with each other, they must have already recognized 71 00:11:10.580 --> 00:11:21.860 that there are certain advantages to doing this and to be social in one's endeavor. 72 00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:28.820 And it is perfectly clear, of course, from the outset what the great advantage of having 73 00:11:28.820 --> 00:11:35.500 a language available and communicating with other people is. 74 00:11:35.500 --> 00:11:44.220 We can convey knowledge to other people in a much faster way than would be possible if 75 00:11:44.220 --> 00:11:50.420 we simply have to just look what other people are doing and then try to reconstruct, so 76 00:11:50.420 --> 00:11:56.780 to speak, the ideas that were behind what they were doing through language. 77 00:11:56.780 --> 00:12:04.020 We have the possibility of communicating directly what it was that led us to do this or led 78 00:12:04.020 --> 00:12:10.500 us to do something else. 79 00:12:10.500 --> 00:12:25.940 Now with language two ideas so to speak emerge and I use here the ideas that were developed 80 00:12:25.940 --> 00:12:38.640 first by some Austrian psychologist, Karl Bühler, who also had some influence on Karl Popper, who uses his ideas. 81 00:12:38.640 --> 00:12:54.700 And Karl Bühler makes a point that we can distinguish when we look at language, so to speak, between four different functions, 82 00:12:54.700 --> 00:13:05.900 Two of which we find already on the animal level and two of which are unique to humans. 83 00:13:05.900 --> 00:13:25.060 On the animal level, we find use of symbols or sounds that express something. 84 00:13:25.060 --> 00:13:28.100 Like pain, for instance. 85 00:13:28.100 --> 00:13:36.820 is an expressive function of language we can ascribe easily also to animals and say in 86 00:13:36.820 --> 00:13:45.980 this sense that they can express some internal feelings, they can do this. 87 00:13:45.980 --> 00:13:55.360 On the other hand, language has sometimes a signal function, that is, we can produce 88 00:13:55.360 --> 00:14:07.360 There are two sounds that indicate there is some danger coming, warn other animals to run away or something like this. 89 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:11.360 Both of this, of course, is also possible for humans to do. 90 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:20.360 Language has an expressive function for us and also has this signal function to make other people aware of things. 91 00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:33.360 What is not found in the animal kingdom is that language has a descriptive function. 92 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:40.360 That is, language describes this is such and such. 93 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:50.360 And with the descriptive function of language, for the first time the idea of truth emerges. 94 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:58.360 That is, for expressions and signals, whether that is true or not is not really an issue. 95 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:08.360 But when we say, this is such and such, then it becomes possible to say, is that really the case? 96 00:15:08.360 --> 00:15:14.360 And we can try to find out if this is the case or is not the case. 97 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:25.360 So the idea of truth comes into being because there exists, because language has a descriptive function. 98 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:34.360 And the most primitive descriptive propositions would be of the type, this is such and such. 99 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:49.360 that is having a proper name or an identifying expression and then a general term characterizing a particular object as having some general characteristics. 100 00:15:49.360 --> 00:16:05.360 And the second unique function, second unique human function of language is the argumentative function. 101 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:17.360 That we have complex statements connected by and and or, several statements combined to each other 102 00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:24.360 and that we investigate whether certain arguments are valid or not 103 00:16:24.360 --> 00:16:36.360 and investigate, so to speak, if we drew inferences in the correct way or in incorrect ways and so forth. 104 00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:46.360 And you realize that it is precisely this last function 105 00:16:46.360 --> 00:17:13.360 This argumentative function that we must also use as a tool if we now want to make a more precise distinction between the abilities of man on the one hand and the abilities, the different abilities of animals. 106 00:17:13.360 --> 00:17:36.360 And I want to follow here a philosopher brand Blanchard who has pointed out some important differences between animals and humans. 107 00:17:36.360 --> 00:17:47.920 And I want to begin with a little quote from Blanchard in a book called Reason and Analysis, 108 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:59.920 where he says this about animals and then draws a conclusion that this is somehow still 109 00:17:59.920 --> 00:18:04.680 very different from what mankind can do. 110 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:14.560 He says, what does it mean to have human reason or human rationality? 111 00:18:14.560 --> 00:18:25.000 And he answers, it cannot be consciousness, of course, because no one can sensibly doubt 112 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:35.240 that animals feel fear and hunger and pleasure and pain. 113 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:41.120 Animals can also make mistakes, which we recognize 114 00:18:41.120 --> 00:18:44.640 as when, for instance, a dog drops 115 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:53.720 a bone for a more inviting bone that he sees in the water. 116 00:18:53.720 --> 00:19:03.920 And since only judgements can be mistaken, animals must be also in some way able to make 117 00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:13.840 judgements, just come to the conclusion that I made a wrong judgment. 118 00:19:13.840 --> 00:19:23.680 And since judgment is sought, we can also say that animals think. 119 00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:30.120 But they do obviously not think in the same way as humans do. 120 00:19:30.120 --> 00:19:41.760 Now what is the difference between our way of thinking and their way of thinking? 121 00:19:41.760 --> 00:19:52.560 Let me emphasize four points in this connection which partly overlap. 122 00:19:52.560 --> 00:20:06.140 The first thing to be noted is that animal thought is always tied to perception, whereas 123 00:20:06.140 --> 00:20:17.500 human thought can wander around, go back to eternity, wander to the future, can think 124 00:20:17.500 --> 00:20:29.500 Animals cannot think about objects that are far away, can even think about objects that have never existed. 125 00:20:29.500 --> 00:20:33.500 Animals cannot think in this way. 126 00:20:33.500 --> 00:20:42.540 Whatever their thinking is, it requires, so to speak, some present cue, some observation 127 00:20:42.540 --> 00:20:51.640 that makes them, from which their thinking arises. 128 00:20:51.640 --> 00:20:59.460 We can imagine, for instance, that animals can also think to a certain extent about things 129 00:20:59.460 --> 00:21:16.460 There are things that are absent, as if a dog sits in front of a house because the dog knows that his master has gone into the house and waits there patiently until the master comes back out. 130 00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:20.460 But even there you can still see that it is tied to perception. 131 00:21:20.460 --> 00:21:30.460 He would not have thought the master go in there. He would not do what he does sitting there waiting. 132 00:21:30.460 --> 00:21:43.460 And in any case, he cannot think about things far away or impossible or things in the far distant future. 133 00:21:43.460 --> 00:21:55.460 Is it possible that my dog is not waiting for me when I come back? 134 00:22:13.460 --> 00:22:23.460 So here I'm talking, so to speak, about the most developed of animals. 135 00:22:23.460 --> 00:22:40.460 How do we know that they're not thinking about the stars or infinity? They don't report that. 136 00:22:40.460 --> 00:22:57.460 That brings me, that brings me exactly to the second point that they, that precisely, you say, that's one other fundamental difference between humans and animals, that they cannot do this. 137 00:22:57.460 --> 00:23:08.460 So even if you think they might, they might think about this sort of stuff, they have no way of conveying this type of information to us. 138 00:23:08.460 --> 00:23:20.460 Or we can say animals can't abstract in the way that humans can abstract. 139 00:23:20.460 --> 00:23:32.460 Certainly animals can see shapes and colors and they can perceive smells and things like this. 140 00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:51.460 But it doesn't seem to be the case that they have a concept of shapes, of triangles or whatever, or a concept of green or blue or yellow, or a concept of different types of smells. 141 00:23:51.460 --> 00:23:55.460 Again, this is an aspect of what I just mentioned. 142 00:23:55.460 --> 00:24:05.460 It is just tied to specific events, but they cannot abstract from the specific event and build a general concept. 143 00:24:05.460 --> 00:24:18.460 If they could, then we would expect them to form a word for these things. 144 00:24:18.460 --> 00:24:24.460 And it is not that animals are not capable of producing sounds. 145 00:24:24.460 --> 00:24:30.460 Many animals do have the equipment to produce sounds. 146 00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:36.460 So this does not explain why they don't have words. 147 00:24:36.460 --> 00:24:41.460 Obviously, despite the fact that they can form sounds, 148 00:24:41.460 --> 00:24:46.460 they cannot form what we refer to as words. 149 00:24:46.460 --> 00:25:02.460 Sounds to which we attach a certain abstract idea for which we find various instances in the real world. 150 00:25:02.460 --> 00:25:22.460 The third thing that distinguishes mankind from animals are that animals cannot make inferences explicitly. 151 00:25:22.460 --> 00:25:29.460 Again, this has something intimately to do with the two points that I already made. 152 00:25:29.460 --> 00:25:38.460 Animals can, of course, make inferences, but these inferences are implicit. 153 00:25:38.460 --> 00:25:48.460 That is to say, if you have a chicken and you give some food to the chicken that is too big, 154 00:25:48.460 --> 00:25:56.460 doesn't fit into its mouth or so, and it is desperate that it can't eat it, 155 00:25:56.460 --> 00:26:03.780 and then you throw another one of roughly the same size in front of it then the 156 00:26:03.780 --> 00:26:09.860 chicken might refuse to even try to do the same with a second piece of material 157 00:26:09.860 --> 00:26:15.260 because it recognizes that it didn't work with the first it's not going to 158 00:26:15.260 --> 00:26:24.420 likely work with the second but again due to the lack of concepts they cannot 159 00:26:24.420 --> 00:26:34.700 not make explicit inferences, that is, infer from one concept to another and thereby be 160 00:26:34.700 --> 00:26:42.860 able to say why such and such caused such and such a problem and why it would be in 161 00:26:42.860 --> 00:26:54.620 in vain to try the same thing twice that already didn't work in the first case. 162 00:26:54.620 --> 00:27:05.340 And the most important difference between animals and humans is the difference that animals 163 00:27:05.340 --> 00:27:10.180 do not have what we call self-consciousness. 164 00:27:10.180 --> 00:27:13.460 They do have consciousness, but not self-consciousness. 165 00:27:13.460 --> 00:27:24.220 And what I mean by self-consciousness is they cannot stand back, so to speak, and reflect 166 00:27:24.220 --> 00:27:30.140 about their own behavior. 167 00:27:30.140 --> 00:27:37.140 They cannot pause and criticize their own behavior. 168 00:27:37.140 --> 00:27:44.980 Think about why their behavior was successful or unsuccessful. 169 00:27:44.980 --> 00:27:58.820 They do not have anything like norms or principles against which they can judge their own behavior 170 00:27:58.820 --> 00:28:05.620 and criticize their own behavior. 171 00:28:05.620 --> 00:28:15.300 Let me on this point again quote Blanchard on this most important of differences that 172 00:28:15.300 --> 00:28:21.660 is the human ability of self-conscious reflection. 173 00:28:21.660 --> 00:28:29.940 There he says, finally human reason has added an extra dimension to the animal consciousness 174 00:28:29.940 --> 00:28:32.980 in the form of self-consciousness. 175 00:28:32.980 --> 00:28:46.980 An animal lacks the power which is the source in ourselves of so much achievement and so much woo, of standing off from itself and contemplating what it is doing. 176 00:28:46.980 --> 00:29:01.980 It eats, sleeps and cavorts, but never pauses in the midst of a meal to take note that it is eating greedily, never asks whether it is not unseemly to sleep the hours away, 177 00:29:01.980 --> 00:29:28.980 Apparently never reflects as it leaps and runs that it is a little off form today. It makes mistakes, but having made one, it cannot sit down and consider what principle of right thinking is violated. 178 00:29:28.980 --> 00:29:50.980 Because it cannot contemplate its own behavior, it cannot criticize itself. Being below the level of self-criticism, it has no norms. And having no norms, it lacks one great obvious essential to the life of reason, namely the power to be guided by principle. 179 00:29:50.980 --> 00:30:03.980 And Blanchard then summarizes all of what I tried to convey up to this point by saying the following. 180 00:30:03.980 --> 00:30:17.980 When we say that man is a rational animal, then we seem to imply that he can command ideas independently of sense, 181 00:30:17.980 --> 00:30:31.980 that he can abstract, that he can infer explicitly, and that he can sit in judgment on himself. 182 00:30:31.980 --> 00:30:36.980 The highest of animals can do none of these things. 183 00:30:36.980 --> 00:30:44.980 The stupidest of men, if not a pathological case, can in some measure do them all. 184 00:30:44.980 --> 00:31:08.980 So much about the human ability, the human language ability characterized in particular by our ability of self-reflection, self-criticism, self-control and so forth. 185 00:31:08.980 --> 00:31:21.980 This capability we can now use in order to describe the human condition, which will be my next step. 186 00:31:21.980 --> 00:31:29.980 This human condition can be characterized in the following way. 187 00:31:29.980 --> 00:31:46.980 Mankind finds itself equipped with consciousness and discovers that they have a physical body 188 00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:56.980 and discovers that there is something outside of the physical body, what we in economics call land. 189 00:31:56.980 --> 00:32:25.980 that is nature given resources, things outside, independent of our body and what we learn immediately is that we are constantly and permanently pressed by various needs and have to act in order to satisfy these needs. 190 00:32:25.980 --> 00:32:38.980 What men immediately discover is that certain things he can control directly. 191 00:32:38.980 --> 00:32:49.980 That is, we can all discover that we can directly control our own body. 192 00:32:49.980 --> 00:33:04.980 I can just say I lift my arm and my arm is lifted, or I lift my leg and my left, my leg will go up. 193 00:33:04.980 --> 00:33:13.980 And we realize that nobody else can do this. Everybody can do that with his body, of course. 194 00:33:13.980 --> 00:33:22.980 But we have this ability of directly controlling something only with very limited things. 195 00:33:22.980 --> 00:33:32.980 I cannot control you directly. I can only control you by being in direct control of my own physical body first. 196 00:33:32.980 --> 00:33:38.980 Then I can of course indirectly make an attempt also to control you. 197 00:33:38.980 --> 00:33:56.980 So this explains, so to speak, why we have the concept of I, of me, because certain things only I can do and that distinguishes me from the outset from everybody else. 198 00:33:56.980 --> 00:34:02.980 This is what I can do and nobody can do this to my arm in the way I can do it. 199 00:34:02.980 --> 00:34:14.980 We can also say that we discover then immediately what we mean by having a free will. 200 00:34:14.980 --> 00:34:21.980 I can just want this. I just pick this up and that's it. 201 00:34:21.980 --> 00:34:31.980 There's nothing that forces me. It is just my own wanting it so that makes it so. 202 00:34:31.980 --> 00:34:41.980 And we also develop immediately some sort of idea of what it means to cause something. 203 00:34:41.980 --> 00:34:53.980 I am the cause of this bottle of water being in my hand and I am the cause of now drinking out of it. 204 00:34:53.980 --> 00:35:07.100 So we recognize our unique relationship that we have to our own physical body and that 205 00:35:07.100 --> 00:35:11.660 other people have to their own physical body. 206 00:35:11.660 --> 00:35:21.180 We know that I am, because of this, not you and you are not me. 207 00:35:21.180 --> 00:35:28.300 We understand the concept of cause and we understand the concept of free will. 208 00:35:28.300 --> 00:35:37.420 Then we recognize, secondly, that there are other things out there that we can only control 209 00:35:37.420 --> 00:35:45.100 indirectly with the help of those things that we can control directly, that is, with the 210 00:35:45.100 --> 00:36:01.100 with the help of our body, we can now, of course, also attempt to control things that exist external to our own physical body. 211 00:36:01.100 --> 00:36:13.100 We refer to those things as means, and we realize also that there exist things that we cannot control at all. 212 00:36:13.100 --> 00:36:24.100 We cannot control sunshine or rain. We cannot control the movements of the moon or the stars. 213 00:36:24.100 --> 00:36:38.100 Those things we refer to as the environment, which we have to take, so to speak, as a given, as something that is beyond our control. 214 00:36:38.100 --> 00:36:43.500 Control. The borderline between those things that we can control and those things that 215 00:36:43.500 --> 00:36:49.980 we cannot control, the borderline, so to speak, between those are means and that is the environment 216 00:36:49.980 --> 00:37:03.220 in which we act is movable. That is, certain things might come in our reach and can become 217 00:37:03.220 --> 00:37:08.820 Controllable that were initially not controllable. 218 00:37:08.820 --> 00:37:16.900 Just think of just to build a tool, for instance, that 219 00:37:16.900 --> 00:37:22.620 makes it possible that you can, whatever, reach up high 220 00:37:22.620 --> 00:37:25.460 that you initially couldn't, or reach heights 221 00:37:25.460 --> 00:37:30.460 that you could initially not reach, or reach depths 222 00:37:30.460 --> 00:37:34.340 that you initially could not reach. 223 00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:40.380 So the limits between the range of objects that become means 224 00:37:40.380 --> 00:37:45.140 and the range of objects that remain environment, 225 00:37:45.140 --> 00:37:49.180 the limits are movable, flexible. 226 00:37:49.180 --> 00:37:52.580 It might well be the case that one day we 227 00:37:52.580 --> 00:37:56.620 are able to just move the moon around 228 00:37:56.620 --> 00:38:10.940 by waving certain types of instruments, but currently at least we are unable to do so. 229 00:38:10.940 --> 00:38:19.980 Then Men learns immediately that some of the means, some of the things that he can control, 230 00:38:19.980 --> 00:38:34.980 that he can move, that he can manipulate can be referred to as goods and others can be referred to as bads. 231 00:38:34.980 --> 00:38:44.980 Goods would obviously be those means that are suitable in order to satisfy some needs that we have 232 00:38:44.980 --> 00:39:05.980 And bads would be objects that we can control, but that would have negative repercussions on us, that would not satisfy any needs, but to the contrary, may harm us or even kill us. 233 00:39:05.980 --> 00:39:14.980 So, at this point, let me read you the definition of goods. 234 00:39:14.980 --> 00:39:27.980 Goods being means that can be controlled and being suitable for the satisfaction of human needs or ends. 235 00:39:27.980 --> 00:39:33.980 And I will give you the definition that Carl Menger provided us with. 236 00:39:33.980 --> 00:39:51.980 Carl Menger pointed out that there are four requirements for objects to become goods for us. 237 00:39:51.980 --> 00:39:56.980 The first is a human need. 238 00:39:56.980 --> 00:40:12.980 The second requirement is such properties that render the thing capable of being brought into a causal connection with the satisfaction of this need. 239 00:40:12.980 --> 00:40:31.980 That is, this object must be capable by performing certain manipulations with it to cause certain needs to be satisfied or relieved, at least, or whatever it is. 240 00:40:31.980 --> 00:40:48.980 The third condition is that there must be of course human knowledge about this connection, which explains of course why it is important for people to learn, to distinguish between goods and bads. 241 00:40:48.980 --> 00:41:06.980 So human knowledge about the object, our ability of controlling it, and the causal power of this object to lead to certain types of satisfactory results. 242 00:41:06.980 --> 00:41:24.980 And the fourth is, as I already indicated, is of course that we must have command of the thing sufficient to direct it to the satisfaction of the need. 243 00:41:24.980 --> 00:41:47.980 So in this sense, for instance, even though we might consider sunshine to be a good or also rain to be a good, it would not be an economic good because we have no control over the object that is capable of producing sun or producing rain. 244 00:41:47.980 --> 00:42:00.980 Only objects that we can bring under our control and then lead to certain results would be referred to as economic goods. 245 00:42:00.980 --> 00:42:11.980 Men then learn that some goods are immediately useful. 246 00:42:11.980 --> 00:42:28.980 We refer to those goods as consumer goods. They can be appropriated and almost instantly turned into some form of satisfaction. 247 00:42:28.980 --> 00:42:41.980 And we learn also that most things, however, are only indirectly useful. 248 00:42:41.980 --> 00:42:51.980 They require that we must transform them in some way, that we reshape them in some way, 249 00:42:51.980 --> 00:43:05.980 that we move or relocate them in some way using our intelligence in order to lead to satisfaction. 250 00:43:05.980 --> 00:43:15.980 And those objects that we have to do something intelligent to before they lead to satisfaction, 251 00:43:15.980 --> 00:43:21.980 and what we would call producer goods. 252 00:43:21.980 --> 00:43:36.980 And men also recognize, and this brings me to my second main point here, besides language, the concept of property. 253 00:43:36.980 --> 00:43:52.980 I have already made the point with respect to our physical bodies where it is intuitively clear that people recognize this is my body because I am the only one that can do this with it and nobody else can do it. 254 00:43:52.980 --> 00:44:00.980 I have a unique relationship to my body, a relationship like nobody else has it. 255 00:44:00.980 --> 00:44:07.980 When it comes now to economic means, a similar idea arises. 256 00:44:07.980 --> 00:44:18.980 Those people who appropriate a certain object, bring it under their control in order to satisfy certain desires, 257 00:44:18.980 --> 00:44:28.980 have thereby of course also established a unique relationship to those things that they have for the first time appropriated. 258 00:44:28.980 --> 00:44:39.980 and they consider those things also theirs, maybe not in the same direct way as with my body, but as an extension of my body. 259 00:44:39.980 --> 00:44:54.980 I used after all my body in order to appropriate these things and in this sense I have a unique relationship with these objects as well. 260 00:44:54.980 --> 00:45:12.980 Let me read you in this connection a quote from Herbert Spencer, who also explains, so to speak, the naturalness of the idea of property. 261 00:45:12.980 --> 00:45:31.980 He says that even intelligent animals display a sense of proprietorship, negatives the belief, propounded by some, that individual property was not recognized by primitive men. 262 00:45:31.980 --> 00:45:57.980 When we see the claim to exclusive possession understood by a dog, so that he fights in defense of his master's clothes if left in charge of them, it becomes impossible to suppose that even in their lowest state men were devoid of those ideas and emotions which initiate private ownership. 263 00:45:57.980 --> 00:46:09.980 All that may be fairly assumed is that these ideas and sentiments were first less developed than they have since become. 264 00:46:09.980 --> 00:46:24.980 While in the early stages it is difficult, not to say impossible, to establish and mark of individual claims to part of the area wandered over in search of food 265 00:46:24.980 --> 00:46:42.980 and Food, and I'll come to that subject later on in a future lecture, it is not difficult to mark off the claims to movable things and to habitations and these claims we find habitually recognized. 266 00:46:42.980 --> 00:46:56.980 It is perfectly clear that movable objects, tools and so forth that people have at all times was private property in those objects recognized. 267 00:46:56.980 --> 00:47:05.980 In the most primitive men, the concept of private property exists not only with respect to his physical body, 268 00:47:05.980 --> 00:47:17.980 also with respect to those appropriated means of production that indirectly satisfied his various desires. 269 00:47:17.980 --> 00:47:29.980 Now let me elaborate a little bit on this concept of property by introducing a second person Friday. 270 00:47:29.980 --> 00:47:47.980 And again, you recall, we are already talking with each other, so we have to assume that these types of Fridays existed, so to speak, from the very outset of mankind on. 271 00:47:47.980 --> 00:48:01.980 With a second person, it becomes possible that conflicts over scarce goods can arise. 272 00:48:01.980 --> 00:48:07.980 It is not possible that conflicts arise over things that are in superabundance, 273 00:48:07.980 --> 00:48:13.980 or conflicts that arise with regard to events caused by the environment, 274 00:48:13.980 --> 00:48:21.800 the environment we cannot influence, and if there exists a superabundance of goods, then 275 00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:27.340 it is impossible that people have different ideas of what should be done or should not 276 00:48:27.340 --> 00:48:32.540 be done with the good, because whatever I do, it doesn't affect what other people can 277 00:48:32.540 --> 00:48:43.540 can do with the same type of good because it simply exists in superabundance. 278 00:48:43.540 --> 00:48:58.540 And what people from, again, from the most primitive stages of mankind on recognize is 279 00:48:58.540 --> 00:49:09.460 How to solve these possible conflicts with regard to scarce resources? 280 00:49:09.460 --> 00:49:24.060 They will point out that, look, I have an objective, perceivable, noticeable connection to such 281 00:49:24.060 --> 00:49:32.020 and such a thing, because I have appropriated it, I have control over it, I have used it 282 00:49:32.020 --> 00:49:40.580 for this type of purpose, and I have all of this done before you ever came along and wanted 283 00:49:40.580 --> 00:49:43.780 to do something to the same object. 284 00:49:43.780 --> 00:49:48.540 So my claim is better justified than yours. 285 00:49:48.540 --> 00:50:17.540 As a matter of fact, your claim is not justified at all because you cannot point to any objective link established between your body and a particular object whereas I can point to a particular visible, noticeable, intersubjectively ascertainable link between me and a particular object. 286 00:50:17.540 --> 00:50:37.540 And we can recognize this again by the fact that people are, again from the most primitive stages on, willing to defend these objects from invasions by other people. 287 00:50:37.540 --> 00:50:58.540 If I would not defend anything, if I would not put up the slightest resistance against somebody taking whatever, my axe or my arrow, then I indicate in a way that I do not consider it to be my property. 288 00:50:58.540 --> 00:51:11.540 If I show the slightest resistance, saying no or pushing my hands in the direction of the person trying to take it away from me, 289 00:51:11.540 --> 00:51:21.540 this indicates clearly that I regard myself as being the owner and having a special control over these things. 290 00:51:21.540 --> 00:51:46.540 Again, we can see this also if we look at small children. If they have disputes over whose toy this is, the typical response is of children to say, look, I'm already playing with the car, and you are not. 291 00:51:46.540 --> 00:51:58.540 And if they put absolutely no resistance up, then they indicate that for the time being, so to speak, they have abandoned it and made it available to others. 292 00:51:58.540 --> 00:52:15.540 So again, very primitive sentiments. In this sense we can probably assume that the development of children in a way repeats to a certain extent the development of mankind as a whole. 293 00:52:15.540 --> 00:52:44.540 So by this, theoretically speaking, you can't steal from a pacifist or some sort of ascetic who doesn't really claim to hold any possessions, and by that you can also not really enslave them, moreover just have them do work for you? 294 00:52:45.540 --> 00:52:56.540 What sense does it make to say that you steal from him when you just go to him and just take things away and he doesn't even say no? 295 00:52:56.540 --> 00:53:04.540 In that case you would say he doesn't indicate that he has any particular claim to it. 296 00:53:04.540 --> 00:53:10.540 That is in a way the best refutation of pacifism. 297 00:53:10.540 --> 00:53:28.540 I mean, obviously, I can hardly believe that a pacifist would go as far as to not put up any resistance if I try to pull out some teeth or take out some organ out of him or a cut of his ear or something like this. 298 00:53:28.540 --> 00:53:42.540 Obviously, he does claim that he owns at least that, and if he would not put up any resistance, then we would indeed doubt whether he is a man. 299 00:53:42.540 --> 00:53:50.540 Not in the distinction of being a man as compared to a woman, but a man. 300 00:53:50.540 --> 00:54:12.540 Now let me come to the third unique capability of mankind besides language and the recognition of property. 301 00:54:12.540 --> 00:54:32.540 And I have already touched upon this sort, one that is that man can produce things, that man is a producer that is capable of developing technology. 302 00:54:32.540 --> 00:54:49.540 You realize animals live, so to speak, a parasitic life in that sense that they never enhance the endowment of the world. 303 00:54:49.540 --> 00:54:58.540 They eat something and in a way diminish the amount of things that are available on earth. 304 00:54:58.540 --> 00:55:12.540 But they never add anything to it, except themselves, except their excrements and things like this. 305 00:55:12.540 --> 00:55:19.540 But they do not do, but no goods, they do not add valuable goods to it. 306 00:55:19.540 --> 00:55:24.540 They subtract something from the available resources. They eat certain things up. 307 00:55:24.540 --> 00:55:41.540 In general, I think you're correct, but bees certainly produce honey, and there are ants that grow mold and eat it. 308 00:55:54.540 --> 00:55:59.540 And it is not characteristic, so to speak, for the animal kingdom to do something like this. 309 00:55:59.540 --> 00:56:06.540 And we can also imagine, of course, mankind in certain stages, 310 00:56:06.540 --> 00:56:12.540 where they also lead by and large parasitic lives, 311 00:56:12.540 --> 00:56:18.540 that would be during the stage when they are merely hunters and gatherers. 312 00:56:18.540 --> 00:56:33.540 In that case, we can also say all they do is diminish the existing resources, except, again, with the small exception that they tend to use some tools to do this. 313 00:56:33.540 --> 00:56:41.540 And the tools can be described, of course, as additions to the nature given resources. 314 00:56:41.540 --> 00:56:51.540 They are transformed into objects that are more valuable than the objects that were initially found in nature. 315 00:56:51.540 --> 00:57:01.540 So mankind can also lead a semi-parasitic life, and as long as they were hunters and gatherers, 316 00:57:01.540 --> 00:57:23.540 We can describe them as, Quigley for instance in his book makes this distinction saying we are only talking about human civilizations as soon as man adds something to the existing equipment that we find in front of us. 317 00:57:23.540 --> 00:57:41.540 And we would not refer to hunter-gatherer societies as civilizations precisely because, by and large, they lead a parasitic life, leaving less resources left over than they began with, so to speak. 318 00:57:41.540 --> 00:57:46.540 Is this language one of those tools, or I think produced by humans? 319 00:57:46.540 --> 00:57:47.540 Yes. 320 00:57:47.540 --> 00:57:49.540 So it's sort of a subset of that. 321 00:57:49.540 --> 00:58:13.540 Yes, of course it is a tool. Actually one of the most important tools that they produce, if you think what it is capable of doing, spreading knowledge from one person to another without having to experience all the experiences that people initially had to experience. 322 00:58:13.540 --> 00:58:25.540 And then especially if you come to the stage of written languages where you can transport knowledge, so to speak, to people who live at the other end of the globe. 323 00:58:25.540 --> 00:58:38.540 So obviously language is an extremely important instrument, but I'm concerned here more with technical objects. 324 00:58:38.540 --> 00:59:03.540 And what we notice here is the following, man is unique in the sense that they have, as compared with most animals, a distinctive lack of specialized organs 325 00:59:03.540 --> 00:59:28.540 and of instincts that makes them basically incapable of survival unless they develop, so to speak, substitutes for this lack of natural equipment that they have. 326 00:59:28.540 --> 00:59:34.540 Men have no natural weapons with which to defend themselves. 327 00:59:34.540 --> 00:59:37.540 Nothing to speak of, so to speak. 328 00:59:37.540 --> 00:59:45.540 We have practically no instincts that guide us automatically to do this and that 329 00:59:45.540 --> 00:59:55.540 and avoid this and recognize dangers without having to know about it. 330 00:59:55.540 --> 01:00:08.540 So what we can say is, man needs culture in order to survive in nature. 331 01:00:08.540 --> 01:00:20.540 And the two tools, the two most important tools that man has are on the one hand his hands, 332 01:00:20.540 --> 01:00:25.540 and, on the other hand, of course, his brain. 333 01:00:25.540 --> 01:00:33.540 But neither one of these tools can be described as a highly specialized tool. 334 01:00:33.540 --> 01:00:44.540 They are useful for a wide variety of purposes, which is, so to speak, an advantage, 335 01:00:44.540 --> 01:00:49.540 but it is also obviously initially a disadvantage. 336 01:00:49.540 --> 01:00:57.540 We just have to learn what we can do with our hands and don't automatically know what our hands can possibly do. 337 01:00:57.540 --> 01:01:13.540 And we have to learn what our brain is capable of doing and do not automatically, like most animals, know to what uses to put our brain power. 338 01:01:13.540 --> 01:01:26.540 So, men must then intelligently transform nature by using brains and hands in particular. 339 01:01:26.540 --> 01:01:37.940 And there are certain patterns in the development of technology that we can perceive if we look 340 01:01:37.940 --> 01:01:47.300 at the Development of Mankind as a Whole. 341 01:01:47.300 --> 01:01:50.820 Technology for Men has, and here I 342 01:01:50.820 --> 01:02:00.420 follow a German sociologist, anthropologist, Arnold Galen, 343 01:02:00.420 --> 01:02:02.500 which I recommend quite highly. 344 01:02:02.500 --> 01:02:04.740 I think one of his books has also 345 01:02:04.740 --> 01:02:10.360 has been translated into English, it's called simply man, I believe. 346 01:02:10.360 --> 01:02:16.820 Galen does not have a very good reputation because he had some sort of connection with 347 01:02:16.820 --> 01:02:31.860 the Nazis, as you know, that's always a career killer, but that does not make his observations 348 01:02:31.860 --> 01:02:35.340 Any Less Important. 349 01:02:35.340 --> 01:02:40.140 So he points out there are, so to speak, 350 01:02:40.140 --> 01:02:43.620 attempts in our technological development 351 01:02:43.620 --> 01:02:50.540 to substitute for the lack of organs that we do not have. 352 01:02:53.180 --> 01:03:00.180 Then technology serves a purpose of relieving 353 01:03:00.180 --> 01:03:21.420 us of insufficient capabilities, and then it has the tendency of strengthening our nature-given capabilities. 354 01:03:21.420 --> 01:03:27.900 Let me just read you a quote from him, and the quote is in German, 355 01:03:27.900 --> 01:03:34.700 And so I have to just ad lib that here a little bit in translation. 356 01:03:34.700 --> 01:03:46.300 The man is in every natural environment incapable of survival and because of this needs culture 357 01:03:46.300 --> 01:03:51.660 due to a lack of specialized organs and instincts. 358 01:03:51.660 --> 01:04:12.660 without an environment that is specific to his species, in which he would fit in, without inborn purposeful behavioral patterns, 359 01:04:12.660 --> 01:04:23.480 Due to a lack also of specific organs and instincts, with less than perfectly formed 360 01:04:23.480 --> 01:04:38.300 senses, without any weapons, naked in his habitus embryonic, insecure in his instincts, 361 01:04:38.300 --> 01:04:51.500 We must rely on action and on intelligent transformation of those circumstances that he happens to find. 362 01:04:51.500 --> 01:05:06.500 Hands and brains might be considered to be specialized organs of man, but they are specialized in a different sense than animal organs are. 363 01:05:06.500 --> 01:05:17.500 They can be used for many purposes. They are specialized for unspecialized purposes and achievements. 364 01:05:17.500 --> 01:05:32.500 And they are, because of that, suitable for unpredictable circumstances arising in the world. 365 01:05:32.500 --> 01:05:49.500 The culture of primitive people thus consists first of in its weapons, in their tools, in their huts, in their animals and gardens, 366 01:05:49.500 --> 01:06:06.500 All of which is changed, transformed, cultivated, that is, newly formed nature by intelligent action. 367 01:06:06.500 --> 01:06:28.500 So the first achievements of men are substitutes of lacking organs, weapons for instance, also fire as some form of natural protection and shelter. 368 01:06:28.500 --> 01:06:48.500 The second type of tools that are developed are developed in order to strengthen naturally given abilities like using stones in order to strengthen the power that a fist has, for instance, 369 01:06:48.500 --> 01:06:59.500 or hammers as tools that strengthen, so to speak, natural given powers 370 01:06:59.500 --> 01:07:11.500 or microscopes as instruments that are more developed than the natural human organs, eyes 371 01:07:11.500 --> 01:07:29.500 or telephones as instruments that strengthen and surpass the natural given abilities that we have through our ears. 372 01:07:29.500 --> 01:07:51.500 And then he points out there exists in human, and again let me just, and then there exists techniques that relieve humans, save them labor. 373 01:07:51.500 --> 01:08:07.500 For instance, a wheeled wagon, which allows us to carry weights that we could not carry naturally, for instance. 374 01:08:07.500 --> 01:08:19.500 And instruments that even combine all of these things, that is, they are in some sense substitutes for lacking things, 375 01:08:19.500 --> 01:08:29.380 In some respects, surpassing natural abilities and in some sense relieving us, saving us 376 01:08:29.380 --> 01:08:36.160 labor that otherwise would be necessary such as, for instance, an airplane. 377 01:08:36.160 --> 01:08:43.440 Airplane allows us to fly, which we naturally cannot do at all. 378 01:08:43.440 --> 01:08:54.580 It surpasses all natural abilities that exist in this regard and it takes work away completely 379 01:08:54.580 --> 01:09:06.040 in so far as it transports us without any effort on our own part from one place to another. 380 01:09:06.040 --> 01:09:15.800 And Galen also points out that there exists in the history of technological development 381 01:09:15.800 --> 01:09:29.080 another tendency that we can recognize that is a gradual substitution of inorganic materials 382 01:09:29.080 --> 01:09:37.720 and Forces for Organic Materials and Forces. 383 01:09:37.720 --> 01:09:43.800 So initially, we use stones and wood and bones. 384 01:09:47.240 --> 01:09:54.800 The Stone Age ends roughly 8,000 years ago. 385 01:09:54.800 --> 01:09:59.880 And then in the next stage, we already 386 01:09:59.880 --> 01:10:06.540 create some sort of artificial materials, bronze out 387 01:10:06.540 --> 01:10:12.420 of copper and tin, that begins roughly at 4,000 388 01:10:12.420 --> 01:10:18.020 before Christ in the United States, only about 1,000 389 01:10:18.020 --> 01:10:22.380 after Christ. 390 01:10:22.380 --> 01:10:42.380 And then the next material, again, already further removed from the nature given materials would be iron, which comes into use around 1200 before Christ, roughly. 391 01:10:42.380 --> 01:10:52.380 And then, of course, finally, steel, which is a development of a relative recent past. 392 01:10:52.380 --> 01:11:04.380 Instead of organic materials, we use increasingly cement and metals and coal. 393 01:11:04.380 --> 01:11:10.380 All of these things replace wood as burning material. 394 01:11:10.380 --> 01:11:21.380 We use steel ropes in order to replace leather and hemp ropes. 395 01:11:21.380 --> 01:11:33.380 We use synthetic colors instead of natural coloring materials. 396 01:11:33.380 --> 01:11:44.380 We use increasingly synthetic medicines instead of natural herbs and so forth. 397 01:11:44.380 --> 01:11:57.380 And we make ourselves successively independent of natural energy sources. 398 01:11:57.380 --> 01:12:10.380 For a long time, mankind was, so to speak, dependent on his energy sources, on woods growing up again. 399 01:12:10.380 --> 01:12:21.380 And the natural speed of woods growing up, so to speak, put a limitation on the speed of development that mankind could take. 400 01:12:21.380 --> 01:12:34.380 and they were also dependent on natural physical forces such as the power of horses and oxen and things like this, 401 01:12:34.380 --> 01:12:42.380 which also could not be deliberately enlarged or empowered. 402 01:12:42.380 --> 01:13:10.380 And in the development of technology, gradually we strip ourselves of these limitations by using, first, coal and oil, and then also watercrafts. 403 01:13:10.380 --> 01:13:29.380 And then, of course, finally, atomic forces, which make us essentially independent of the growth of natural materials. 404 01:13:29.380 --> 01:13:54.380 Let me, to conclude this here, quote again Gehlen, who sees, so to speak, a logic in the development of human technology, 405 01:13:54.380 --> 01:14:01.380 The logic that we can see only if we look back from the present, so to speak, in the past. 406 01:14:01.380 --> 01:14:11.380 We would not have been able probably at the beginning of mankind to predict that this would be the stages that technological development would go through. 407 01:14:11.380 --> 01:14:21.380 But looking backward, we can somehow understand that there was a certain inherent logic at work. 408 01:14:21.380 --> 01:14:33.380 And he says this process of technological development has three stages. 409 01:14:33.380 --> 01:14:47.380 On the first stage that of the tool, the force necessary for work 410 01:14:47.380 --> 01:14:58.860 Work and the necessary mental effort still have to be done by the human subject itself. 411 01:14:58.860 --> 01:15:08.660 The tools somehow make it easier for us, strengthens our forces, gives us more force than we normally 412 01:15:08.660 --> 01:15:17.860 have and reduce somehow the mental effort that is necessary that we have to perform 413 01:15:17.860 --> 01:15:21.900 in conducting certain tasks. 414 01:15:21.900 --> 01:15:37.700 And the second stage of the machine, steam engine and cars and so forth, the physical 415 01:15:37.700 --> 01:15:47.020 All force is already technically objectivated, that means we don't need any force anymore 416 01:15:47.020 --> 01:15:54.400 on our own part, all the force is generated by the machines. 417 01:15:54.400 --> 01:16:02.420 And finally, on the third stage of technological development, which is that of the automaton, 418 01:16:02.420 --> 01:16:14.580 Even the mental effort that the subject had to show in the previous stages becomes unnecessary 419 01:16:14.580 --> 01:16:20.820 or of very minor importance. 420 01:16:20.820 --> 01:16:29.620 And with each of these three stages, the instrument, the tool, the machine, and then finally the 421 01:16:29.620 --> 01:16:44.620 In the automaton, the objectivation of the fulfillment of the purposes of technology comes closer to its ultimate purpose. 422 01:16:44.620 --> 01:17:00.620 And in the automaton it is finally reached because we can do things without our physical or mental contribution. 423 01:17:00.620 --> 01:17:05.620 And with this I'll end my first lecture. Thank you. 424 01:17:14.620 --> 01:17:31.620 Does your research make any statement about what portion of the human brain as an organ is being utilized by mankind in this century? 425 01:17:31.620 --> 01:17:35.620 I think in this century it might be very little. 426 01:17:35.620 --> 01:17:45.620 No, I have not investigated that, but I'm sure that there were centuries when more of our brains were used and is currently the case. 427 01:17:45.620 --> 01:17:51.620 No, but I'm not a biologist, you know, so questions like this, maybe there is a biologist here. 428 01:17:51.620 --> 01:18:21.580 And actually I can address that, that's kind of a, that's a very unfortunate thing that someone said 10 or 20 years ago, that everybody else in the world, which has never been said, that if people only use 10% of their brain, if that were true, there'd be some people making a lot of money using 20% of their brain, so, that's, yeah, well some people have more brain power than other people, that is true, but not, you know, 112. 429 01:18:21.620 --> 01:18:38.020 I mean, I can't imagine we could do experiments, you know, we just chop off a little slice 430 01:18:38.020 --> 01:18:43.640 by slice and then see what's left over. 431 01:18:43.640 --> 01:18:48.660 But I think that will not, I think that these types of experiments will not find too many 432 01:18:48.660 --> 01:19:17.660 I think you could say that only certain parts of the brain are useful for the function at hand for what's being done at a certain time. So say you use 10%, there might only be 10% of the brain that's actually useful for the given activity that person is performing at that time. That's why we don't use 100% of the brain. 433 01:19:18.660 --> 01:19:33.660 When you talk about automation that reduces mental efforts, that's like using a calculator or like a scanning thing at a grocery store or something. 434 01:19:33.660 --> 01:19:44.660 Yeah, but also these machines that put car parts together and so forth, robots. 435 01:19:44.660 --> 01:20:14.660 I mean so I don't I mean this is this is all pretty I mean this isn't fun stuff that you want to really be thinking about all the time I mean adding up numbers in your head or writing them down you might as well use a calculator um I don't I don't know I'm I'm confused that some that it could be said that with this we use less of our brain power because I mean do you think we'll ever come to a time when um no we have 436 01:20:14.660 --> 01:20:25.660 You see, it might be a better way to put it that we gain time and possibilities to use it for other than tedious things. 437 01:20:25.660 --> 01:20:35.660 But nonetheless, it would be, so to speak, a relief of brain power that previously had to be dedicated to these types of purposes, 438 01:21:05.660 --> 01:21:18.660 A genuinely human rather than mere animal characteristic was supported by Harold Bloom's book called Shakespeare, The Invention of Human, 439 01:21:18.660 --> 01:21:29.660 in which his thesis is that a soliloquy, a speaking out loud about maybe I really shouldn't have gone to bed with my mother. 440 01:21:29.660 --> 01:21:44.660 Was a self-awareness that we do think perhaps distinguishes us? 441 01:21:59.660 --> 01:22:01.660 The Theory of Money and Credit 442 01:22:29.660 --> 01:22:33.660 You can't get up on another leg today and things like this. 443 01:22:37.660 --> 01:22:46.660 You discussed how property rights are almost a response to the existence of scarcity and the condition of scarcity, 444 01:22:46.660 --> 01:22:58.660 and I was wondering what needs to be said in terms of civilization or societies that exist at different levels of your theory of society? 445 01:22:59.660 --> 01:23:02.700 Now, I'll come back to that in the next lecture. 446 01:23:02.700 --> 01:23:11.100 You know, obviously you have a different range of property in hunter and gatherer societies 447 01:23:11.100 --> 01:23:16.060 than you have in agricultural societies, for instance. 448 01:23:16.060 --> 01:23:25.980 So my point up to this stage was only that the idea of private property in certain things 449 01:23:25.980 --> 01:23:34.980 seems to be the most natural thing imaginable, because we even find it on the animal level already. 450 01:23:34.980 --> 01:23:45.980 It requires, so to speak, another step to develop the idea of private property in land, for instance, 451 01:23:45.980 --> 01:23:54.980 which for a long time has been treated as a good that was not scarce at all, where you just were wandering around. 452 01:23:54.980 --> 01:24:08.980 When we engage in ethical arguments and moral discourse, which of the four functions of language would you say we're using? 453 01:24:08.980 --> 01:24:12.980 Would you characterize that as one of the argumentative functions? 454 01:24:12.980 --> 01:24:20.980 You see, the argumentative function is the highest function if you rank them, so to speak. 455 01:24:20.980 --> 01:24:27.980 but the argumentative function of course must make use also of the descriptive function 456 01:24:27.980 --> 01:24:32.980 because arguments of course refer to certain entities and so forth 457 01:24:32.980 --> 01:24:36.980 you make descriptive statements in arguments also 458 01:24:36.980 --> 01:24:40.980 you make more than descriptive statements 459 01:24:40.980 --> 01:24:46.980 you have conjunctions and disjunctions and so forth 460 01:24:46.980 --> 01:24:56.980 We're not describing... when we make a moral claim, we're not simply then using language to pick out a property that exists in the argumentative function. 461 01:24:56.980 --> 01:25:25.980 We're not describing, when we make a moral claim, we're not simply then using language to pick out a property that exists in the world, I mean, my beige shirt is beige, but if you said the beige shirt is good, you don't expect that goodness to actually be good. 462 01:25:26.980 --> 01:25:52.980 But nonetheless we do talk about shirts, we do talk about objects, we do talk about you have done something to the object, he has done nothing to the object, and in so far we also need descriptive statements from which then our argument arises. 463 01:25:52.980 --> 01:26:14.980 Have you been interested in the story of Prince Kropotkin who was exiled to Siberia and he studied and arrived at your complete lecture at the most remarkable parallel I hadn't recalled it until now. 464 01:26:14.980 --> 01:26:28.980 He was an av to the Czars family, and his views were very much like ours, and they exiled him for a number of years in Siberia, and he spent these years studying the animal life. 465 01:26:28.980 --> 01:26:40.980 It illustrates just what you say, but even a division of labor within that, there were the fast wolves that caught, there were the elders that defended, there were some that bred, etc. 466 01:26:40.980 --> 01:27:08.980 Yeah, I know, but he goes too far in my view. When I will talk about division of labor among men, there is more to it than the division or what we might call division of labor between bees and birds and things like this, because their division of labor is so to speak assured by some instincts. 467 01:27:08.980 --> 01:27:18.980 Whereas division of labor in the case of man can completely break down and requires insights in order to be maintained. 468 01:27:18.980 --> 01:27:30.980 So in this sense, I would not go as far as Kropotkin in wanting to make analogies between animal life and the life of men. 469 01:27:30.980 --> 01:27:33.980 He goes too far in my judgment. 470 01:27:33.980 --> 01:27:53.980 I have one sentence to it. It was not male of the division of labor he saw, and he paralleled that with the study of the humankind, but he found a common characteristic that improved the life of the wild animals, season after season, and improved the life of the humans. 471 01:27:53.980 --> 01:28:07.980 and he used a different term, not of a list, mutual aid, he minimized the importance of family to the humankind and put it into the little cultural group of which they were a part. 472 01:28:09.980 --> 01:28:16.980 I'm not a great expert on Kropotkin, maybe I'll read up on Kropotkin a little. Thank you.