Why bitcoin isn't currency.

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"Intrinsic value," used in economics context, simply means the underlying value of an asset (as opposed to its market value).
It can always be quantified in dollars, that's what makes it useful.
The philosophical concept is literally "valuable in itself," with examples being truth, beauty & love.  These things can not be quantified in units other than themselves, unless by "love" you mean "a tuggy from a hooker."

What is this "underlying value", how does it differ from market value, and how do you measure it?

You say it can always be quantified in dollars, and imply that this can be done in the absence of market transactions. How do you do this?

The book value of a company certainly isn't the underlying value of the assets. The underlying value of the assets of the company (all the assets, including the copyrights, trademarks, goodwill, etc.) is the market value. And it can't always be quantified in dollars, because a market in the underlying assets might not exist.

I don't want to turn this into a lesson in economics.  This should get you started:

Definition of 'Intrinsic Value'
1. The actual value of a company or an asset based on an underlying perception of its true value including all aspects of the business, in terms of both tangible and intangible factors. This value may or may not be the same as the current market value. Value investors use a variety of analytical techniques in order to estimate the intrinsic value of securities in hopes of finding investments where the true value of the investment exceeds its current market value.

I posted to differentiate "intrinsic value" as used in economics from the term's use in philosophy, not to lecture on economics.  Suffice it to say that the term is used differently in these two fields, having separate and distinct definitions.  

A bit more on economics usage:
Intrinsic value of a company is only relevant if it could be expressed in dollars and cents, we're not writing poetry.  If you can not express "good will" in terms of dollars when determining the intrinsic value of an asset, you either a) don't have sufficient information b) aren't any good, or c) said good will plays no part in the asset's value, and should be ignored.

Some examples:
Your love of the company it does not affect its intrinsic value.  Other people's love of the company does.

An analyst is able to say that a stock is "undervalued" without instantly falling into a logical contradiction because: "intrinsic value."
A philosopher can answer the question "what's beauty good for?" because: "intrinsic value."
Same phrase, different meanings.

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[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Investopedia is confused. anth0ny and deisik seem to be agreeing with each other that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. And it is. Sure, it's used in common parlance...but one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context, even if certain academics are in the habit of doing do.

[deisik]

This notion of intrinsic value that things have value in and of themselves has no application in economics.

It has no application in philosophy either.

Except to refute it.

Why then would you use it in this discussion, to make things more complicated or what?

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Investopedia is confused. anth0ny and deisik seem to be agreeing with each other that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. And it is. Sure, it's used in common parlance...but one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context, even if certain academics are in the habit of doing do.

One of the first lessons in clear thinking is not to reject a something with a knee-jerk reaction, but first ask yourself "maybe i don't get it?"
What you have described above is not clear thinking, but stubborn contrarianism.  A donkey can do it.

In simpler terms:
If 99% of the academia disagrees with you, chances are it's you who is wrong.  Not guaranteed, but plenty good for me.

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[snip spergings]

Investopedia is wrong.
Wikipedia is wrong.
Philosophers are wrong.
The society is wrong.
Only Anthony, who likes to spellingz his naem like a 4realz h4x0r, is right.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Investopedia is confused. anth0ny and deisik seem to be agreeing with each other that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. And it is. Sure, it's used in common parlance...but one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context, even if certain academics are in the habit of doing do.

One of the first lessons in clear thinking is not to reject a something with a knee-jerk reaction, but first ask yourself "maybe i don't get it?"
What you have described above is not clear thinking, but stubborn contrarianism.  A donkey can do it.

In simpler terms:
If 99% of the academia disagrees with you, chances are it's you who is wrong.  Not guaranteed, but plenty good for me.

Appeal to authority and appeal to popularity. Not likely to fly on bitcointalk.

[deisik]

Investopedia is confused. anth0ny and deisik seem to be agreeing with each other that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. And it is. Sure, it's used in common parlance...but one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context, even if certain academics are in the habit of doing do.

Actually, I don't say that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. I just say that this term has a very limited usage in economics nowadays, and it was used by anth0ny in a sense for which there is already a proper well-established term. I can't say anything specific and definite about its use and coherence beyond economics... 

[crumbs]

Investopedia is confused. anth0ny and deisik seem to be agreeing with each other that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. And it is. Sure, it's used in common parlance...but one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context, even if certain academics are in the habit of doing do.

One of the first lessons in clear thinking is not to reject a something with a knee-jerk reaction, but first ask yourself "maybe i don't get it?"
What you have described above is not clear thinking, but stubborn contrarianism.  A donkey can do it.

In simpler terms:
If 99% of the academia disagrees with you, chances are it's you who is wrong.  Not guaranteed, but plenty good for me.

Appeal to authority and appeal to popularity. Not likely to fly on bitcointalk.

When dealing with definitions, the only thing one *can* appeal to is authority.  Hence "authoritative reference," "authoritative definition."
When dealing with common usages, the only appropriate reference is popularity.
Basic stuff

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Investopedia is confused. anth0ny and deisik seem to be agreeing with each other that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. And it is. Sure, it's used in common parlance...but one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context, even if certain academics are in the habit of doing do.

One of the first lessons in clear thinking is not to reject a something with a knee-jerk reaction, but first ask yourself "maybe i don't get it?"
What you have described above is not clear thinking, but stubborn contrarianism.  A donkey can do it.

In simpler terms:
If 99% of the academia disagrees with you, chances are it's you who is wrong.  Not guaranteed, but plenty good for me.

Appeal to authority and appeal to popularity. Not likely to fly on bitcointalk.

When dealing with definitions, the only thing one *can* appeal to is authority.  Hence "authoritative reference," "authoritative definition."
When dealing with common usages, the only appropriate reference is popularity.
Basic stuff

Remember when I said, "one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context"? That is exactly what I was talking about. A dictionary definition reflects common usage, which is frequently sloppy. If you want to think and communicate clearly when using words, you've got to ensure that your definitions are clear and unambiguous. Sometimes a word needs to be more clearly defined, and sometimes it needs to be abandoned because it is useless in precise contexts. This is a case of the word being useless.

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If 99% of the academia disagrees with you, chances are it's you who is wrong.  Not guaranteed, but plenty good for me.

I suspect Austrian economists make up more than 1% of academia. And they're only one of the groups that have rejected the intrinsic theory of value.

We're dealing with facts here.  What you suspect doesn't really matter.  There are two distinct definitions of "intrinsic value" used in two different fields, philosophy and economics.  Regardless whether *you believe* in intrinsic value, the definition remains the same.

Dumbed down:  If you don't believe in God, doesn't affect the definition of the word.

[crumbs]

Investopedia is confused. anth0ny and deisik seem to be agreeing with each other that "intrinsic value" is an incoherent term. And it is. Sure, it's used in common parlance...but one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context, even if certain academics are in the habit of doing do.

One of the first lessons in clear thinking is not to reject a something with a knee-jerk reaction, but first ask yourself "maybe i don't get it?"
What you have described above is not clear thinking, but stubborn contrarianism.  A donkey can do it.

In simpler terms:
If 99% of the academia disagrees with you, chances are it's you who is wrong.  Not guaranteed, but plenty good for me.

Appeal to authority and appeal to popularity. Not likely to fly on bitcointalk.

When dealing with definitions, the only thing one *can* appeal to is authority.  Hence "authoritative reference," "authoritative definition."
When dealing with common usages, the only appropriate reference is popularity.
Basic stuff

Remember when I said, "one of the first lessons of clear thinking is not to bring terms of everyday talk into a technical context"? That is exactly what I was talking about. A dictionary definition reflects common usage...

I did not offer you a dictionary definition.  Instead, i gave you the correct technical definition of the term as used in the field of economics.  I referenced Investopedia, which concerns itself exclusively with economics.
If i referenced a dictionary, or Equestria Daily, you might have a point.

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There are two distinct definitions of "intrinsic value" used in two different fields, philosophy and economics.

And you don't think the two are related to each other? It's just a coincidence that they use the same term?

Regardless whether *you believe* in intrinsic value, the definition remains the same.

Dumbed down:  If you don't believe in God, doesn't affect the definition of the word.

What I believe doesn't affect anything, but the fact that there is no God does mean that God can't coherently be defined (and the fact that God can't coherently be defined does mean that there is no God).

Of course the two are related.  They both use words, and the words are identical.  It's the context that differentiates the meanings.

The word leaves is identical to the word leaves, until you provide context.  For instance:

"A panda who eats shoots and leaves" is fine, but "A panda who eats, shoots, and leaves" is a bad panda.


If you think that God could not be adequately defined, a whole bunch of dictionaries disagree with you, but this is yet *another* tangent you are derailing the thread on.

[BadBitcoin (James Sutton)]

I try to address the "calculation" I was talking about earlier here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345357.0

critique away gentlemen, however for now I'm off to write a powerpoint before I pass out from lack of caffine 

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[wall-0-text]

Wall-0-text shrunk.  Here are your answers:

One minute you're arguing that "intrinsic value" has the same meaning in economics and philosophy.  Then you shoot yourself in the foot with "Value is not intrinsic," i.e. "no such thing as intrinsic value in economics."  You can't possibly have it both ways.

We're not waxing philosophical here, simply nailing down definitions.  Mundane shit. Please try to stay focused.

To sum up:
1. You set out to convince me that the meaning of "intrinsic value" is one and the same for both philosophy and economics.
Even though there are entirely different definitions provided by every major reference source.
You raged against Investopedia, wikip, and every major reference source.
You got sidetracked into convincing me that there is no such thing as intrinsic value in economics -- an irrelevancy bordering on non-sequitur.
You got sidetracked on another topic, God, and Bob Barker.
You completely forgot that you needed to show (1).

Now that i reminded you what you were talking about, care to make a cohesive argument?  Stay on topic & focus pl0x.

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One minute you're arguing that "intrinsic value" has the same meaning in economics and philosophy.  Then you shoot yourself in the foot with "Value is not intrinsic," i.e. "no such thing as intrinsic value in economics."  You can't possibly have it both ways.

There's no such thing as intrinsic value in philosophy either. There's no such thing as intrinsic value.

(EDIT: The definition of "intrinsic value" as it applies to options represents a valid concept, though the choice of the word "intrinsic" isn't particularly appropriate.)

If you don't think there is such a thing as intrinsic value, that's somewhat tenable.  But it begs the question:  Why didn't you just say so in the first place?
Why insist that the definition is the same for both phil & econ??  It would have saved us both a whole bunch of typing.

To nail this down:
Intrinsic value doesn't exist.
The definitions given by authoritative references are definitions of nothing.
This nothing, is identical for both philosophy and economics, though reference texts of respective fields claim otherwise.
One nothing's the same as another nothing.
Amirite?

[Erdogan]

Nothing has intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is value in and of itself. It is contrasted with instrumental value, which is value as a means of achieving something else.
[...]

It just means direct use value. It is well defined in the money realm. Do we really have to repeat this a thousand times?

Gold has "direct use value"?

Why don't you give me an example of a source that defines it, so I can knock it down?

Ornaments and electrical contacts and more. Direct use value of gold.

[NewLiberty]

There are two distinct definitions of "intrinsic value" used in two different fields, philosophy and economics.  

This

[MoonShadow]

Good God!  I'm looking at three pages of posts wherein some members are, quite literally, arguing semantics.

This is why I said early on that 'intrinsic value' is a bad term to use, because it's imprecise, and means slightly different things in different contexts.  In a field where precision is paramount, it just leads to misunderstandings.

Let me help...

When used in an economic sense, "intrinsic value" is better stated as, "the value that the owner might attribute to some intrinsice characteristics or properties common to the object".  It was never a theory that an object can have a definable value as an intrinic property unto itself.  Even within the context of 'intrinsic value theory of money', all value is subjective.  Which is why we need markets to tell us what the price is.  (There is no way to determine how much any particular person may value his purchase, beyond what he is apparently willing to pay for it; but even then, the price isn't usually set by the buyer, but by what the next willing buyer isn't willing to pay.  Using ebay as an example, the final price of any auction is determined by what the first loser isn't willing to bid, not what the winner was willing to pay to win.)

[MoonShadow]

What's the "intrinsic value theory of money"? An intrinsic theory of value (such as a labor theory of value) is primarily not about money, and it most certainly does not hold that all value is subjective.

Intrinsic theory of value then.  Yes, all value is subjective; even 'intrinsic' value.

[MoonShadow]

What's the "intrinsic value theory of money"? An intrinsic theory of value (such as a labor theory of value) is primarily not about money, and it most certainly does not hold that all value is subjective.

Intrinsic theory of value then.

It's important that we are precise in our terms. In a field where precision is paramount, screwing up your terminology just leads to misunderstandings.

Well played.

:p