Strictlylogical

1 hour ago, caroljane said:

Just for the record, I am not the person I have loved most in the world, and I have certainly hated myself for some things I have done which I will always regret

This is unfortunate, but not unique.  But you are defined more by what you DO, than what you have done, and in a sense what you attempt to do even if you fail.  With repeated effort, you become a person you can love more (with time).. if not the most.

1 hour ago, caroljane said:

Michael evinces hate towards others which he justifies by citing their evil.

"Evil" certainly constitutes evidence citable to justify hate. 

The more one loves oneself, and loves one's life, loves family and friends, and all the values one has and pursues, all the more hatred one could have or justify having toward the evil that exists and threatens all that which one loves.

We all know (including Michael) that meditating incessantly or obsessively on Evil and one's justified hatred of it, is not conducive to flourishing.  BUT wholly evading evil or suppressing the momentary experience of the appropriate emotional response is not useful either.

1 hour ago, caroljane said:

I can understand and feel that too, but hate is a small part of my life and I try to waste as little of it on myself as possible. Righteous anger is too heady a brew to live on.

You speak of wasting hate on yourself (or your life), best we all try not to waste life on hate, no more than appropriate in any case.

2 hours ago, tmj said:

Armed pacifist ?

For peace one must be prepared for war. 

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

TG is right that in my world, this lady would always be safe. And I know that in her world, I would not be safe. That's just the way hate works. The haters are the ones who promote and do violence.

BTW that was me. 

7 hours ago, ThatGuy said:

As the kids today might say, "Imma stop you right there..."
 

Pacifism. "The necessary consequence of man’s right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. If some 'pacifist' society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it." [“The Nature of Government,” VOS, 146; pb 108.]

Ayn Rand; Harry Binswanger. The Ayn Rand lexicon: objectivism from A to Z (Kindle Locations 7074-7076). Meridian.

There should be a word for properly peaceful, but that would have to have evolved in a society which discovered morality and the non-initiation of force.

Technically "pacifist" is not the correct word to convey the meaning meant.

1 hour ago, caroljane said:

Since you have not been shot, -as a decent person who does not deserve to be shot,- it is rather sleazy of you to imply that someone else deserves to be shot because in your view they are wicked and evil. In no way did you say this, of course. You have decided that if you were shot, however, she would wish you to die. Again this is the   Implication I derive. 

I hope I am wrong.

 

 

I think Michael is being ironic.

1.  He's extending a "wish" as an Objectivist who knows such things to be irrational and ineffectual.

2.  He is doing so despite the absence of reciprocation, which is contrary to justice and self-interest which is immoral to an Objectivist.

So he is saying something untrue... but what he says is also VERY true...

On an emotional level, he likely does "wish" Ms Johnson a full recovery (because he is decent), while at the same time observing the likely truth that she is not a decent person, and would celebrate his passing.  This seems quite reasonable given Michael's political views, and her views of what persons who have those views are like and what they "deserve".

I get nothing of the "deserves to be shot" in there.  Objectivists are pacifists who never initiate or "wish" for the initiation of harm, we also believe in justice, in freedom of speech and freedom of thought, so you should not have any worries about what Michael means. 

Ms. Johnson would be perfectly safe in Michael's world and would be equally safe in a world full of Michaels so to speak, while the converse, however, most likely would NOT be true.

18 hours ago, caroljane said:

Is self-satisfaction strictly compatible with self- hatred, Strictly Logical?

I cannot speak from experience (to your disappointment I am sure), but there is a certain consistency with those who are consumed with a hatred for everything on earth including themselves to be eminently satisfied, in fact proudly self-martyred (so to speak) with that kind of self-hatred.  How else can a culture of small envious people who vilify the rich or successful arise without a hatred of the good for being good... and hence at least partly... the archetype of that small wrinkled hating thing hating those good parts of the psyche within.

The Canadian Liberal and the NDP might be already be worse than the Marxist-leftist wing of the US Democratic party, but darn it of those Yanks aren't doin' their dangdest to out Marx them Socialist Canucks.

18 hours ago, caroljane said:

And please supply a list of tyrants noted for their politeness.

Any neighbor who would say "please", "sorry", and "thank you" to your face, but would have no quandry robbing you blind in your sleep to keep their party's corrupt politicians in power, squashing your right to free speech, or forcing you to risk your life with mediocre state run healthcare or at least trying to guilt you into not "jumping the queue" (as if one exists) by seeking healthcare in a freer country..

The little tyrant next door, might smile at you in the street, but would grin at the chance to have you shackled and cowed by her leftist strong men.

I need not list them, they are legion.

I do not know you personally, but perhaps

You might have seen that tyrant in the mirror, if you ever had the secret wish to force others against their will, not because they violated anyone else's rights but because you wanted to see them suffer, because you wanted to equalize their success with other's failures, you wanted to violate the rights of those innocent not because of their incompetence and disability but because of their competence and ability, because you wanted to knock them down a notch or two, for being successful... because you wanted to eat the rich, and strike out at the good for being the good, because you wanted to lash out in your own shame... or perhaps you no longer see that tyrant in the mirror,

or indeed, perhaps in fact, you are one of the lucky few who never saw it.

Trust me, as a person raised in a mixed economy, semi-socialist state, rife with a culture of altruism, and dominated by progressive education over the last 5 decades, I indeed was one of those tyrants in the mirror and next door.

Now I know better.

I see what you did there with the politeness.... quite funny.  I observe that the statement I have heard: "Canadians are polite, but Americans are friendly", as an aphorism is quite true, very much, most of the time.

Not all Canadian politicians are as I allude to above, THIS guy can actually be quite impressive from time to time:

Watching a bunch of self-satisfied and self-hating meddling polite do-gooder tyrants with a case of "big-brother-US envy" enslave themselves into a backwater of insipid virtue-signaled mediocrity...

is simultaneously absolutely beyond belief AND dull and tedious.

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

"Maternal instincts"?

My wife went through a phase, when she was about 23-24 during which she had an intense and visceral urge to have a baby... was drawn almost with a kind of yearning.. to every baby she saw... we finally had a baby close to 10 years later.

Those could have been voluntary chosen rational urges... or she may have temporarily and involuntarily transformed into an animal of sorts... like a Weremother or something.

1 hour ago, atlashead said:

this proof was constructed by myself alone (with bits I learned from Rand):
1. If you can imagine god or a superior being to you, you have theory of mind.  A non-mind imagining another non-entity is a contradiction & proof of free will

2.Thinking, judging, acting, feeling are functions of the mind.  To any function one can apply any number of combinations of functions.  Thus you are both an absolute & finite.

3. From physics, every action has a cause & effect (disregard causal mechanics).  There must be a mechanism of digesting reality & taking action.  But there is no such proof of such mechanism.  So that mechanism is you.  A third point to free-will. (If there was a mechanism you'd live in two realities at once)
Since you are aware only of reality & yourself, but there are 3(+?) proofs of freewill, either reality or your self should disappear when you set them equal.

So free-will exists.

 

You should send this to philosophy and/or science of mind journals.  Get it published and peer reviewed.

You'll be famous, and win a Nobel prize.

11 hours ago, anthony said:

Anthropomorphism: projecting human nature and actions onto animals.

A bird must do what its programmed to do. Instinct. Build nests, mate, rear young, feed young, find food, defend its nests... An African Weaver for instance, searches for strands of vegetation from specific stringy leaves and even is known to peck hairs off horse tails and steal girls' ribbons. (Which is not being 'creative', it's obeying its instincts to select and use strands). Their nest building DNA demands only stringy material, and that's only what it looks for. The nests it weaves are elaborate and pouch-shaped with small entrance tunnels. They are always hung at very ends of branches to protect from snakes. (And each bird does not have to see 'snake' or 'know snake' to do so. It just does automatically what it must do). Most often his mate rejects the nest by tearing it to pieces and he starts again.

I've watched weavers and many animal species many a time. I'd expect others have.

This all went from extending animal, instinctive behavior onto humans, and now the reverse: a human mind's purposive "discovery"(identification and evaluation) projected onto animals. That's to blur the line. There's also often a sentimentalism about animals and animal behavior in the anthropomorphic mode.

Some direct study and knowledge of animals will go a long way here.

You have it backwards and your fabrications, straw men, mischaracterizations, and intellectual dishonesty are so blatantly on display that it beggars comprehension.

On occasion I would confuse your evasions and twisting of other’s words as honest mistake, but now, I just don’t buy that anymore, but it perplexes me.

Do you think it’s impressing anyone?

Do you think you are learning, growing, or refining your learning by faking to hash it out with discussions?

Do you think you are winning some kind of competition, earning golden stars in some universal ledger by fake debating people?

Why pretend to try to have a conversation you are not actually willing to have?

I have no illusions that you would deign to answer anything close to honestly, and be willing to listen, think, and fully engage with intellectual objectivity.

Know that I had hoped to have and would have valued having a real conversation with the person you could have and should have been.

Your concept of man is an overblown cardboard cutout, that you would openly admit to ignoring essential and universal characteristics because they are “lower” than others shows clearly how polluted your process of thought by your subjectivity.  I suggest you reconsider, elsewise you will never fully understand what you are, and accordingly never know what you should do.

Good luck.

44 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

SL,

That's part of the problem when using examples, and only examples, as the arguments.

But there's even a deeper problem.

Can a hatchling or chick build a nest by instinct?

No it can't. It can't even fly.

Whenever people talk about instincts in O-Land and are of the view that human instincts do not exist, they always leave out growth. The logic goes like this.

If you point to an instinct (like being left handed or right handed, which only appears after growth takes place), they claim that this is a learned behavior because experience helped fill the "blank slate."

(btw - The natural instinct in that case can be modified by conscious effort or being forced to use the other hand, but that's a different issue. The natural impulse is there and it only develops after growth takes place.)

But when they point to animals (or insects) they always talk about ADULT members of a species. That's what they use when they point to an example of an instinct. They never talk about why such instinct isn't visible in the very young.

In other words, if an animal grows into a behavior, it's because that's an instinct. If a human grows into a behavior, that's because experience is feeding conceptual development.

Experience doesn't count for animal instincts, but it does count for proving humans don't have instincts

It's a double standard.

Also, I'm still stuck on the instinct of a black widow spider eating her mate after copulation. I've known several human women like that. I wonder if that's by instinct...

   

Michael

I agree.

I would go on to imagine the following.

By the time birds are adults they are quite familiar with things they pick up or manipulate with their beaks, insects, nuts, pebbles, leaves, straw, sticks, grass etc...  they’ve seen piles of them, perhaps seen others making piles...

and perhaps having never had the urge to do so previously, one spring a bird sees a particularly interesting crook between a branch and a tree trunk... it’s dark and empty and enticing... irresistibly so.  

An urging to perch there... multiple times reinforces itself and then another urge is born... to fill it, yes

with... with.. sticks, and straw and grass 

after finding straw, grass and bits of string the urge to fill that place.... make a space in the middle... all play out as an incremental process of contextual reproductive urging and discovery.

Who here would claim in a sort of Blue Lagoon scenario, that in a completely different way but quite analogously, two completely innocent and ignorant adolescents having no knowledge about how certain things work would not end up discovering it,  in a similar incremental contextually urged human process.

28 minutes ago, anthony said:

Can you build a nest, by instinct?

That's what in meant by "knowledge" in the context of instinct in animals. I.e. HOW to do something and WHAT to do.

"Thought" doesn't enter the -many- amazing things which a bird can do - instinctively. I'd have thought that was plain.

I didn’t say humans have bird instincts,   I merely note that your so called logic you use to refute any and all instinct in humans is premised on an assumption that instincts we observe in animals should be experienced in a certain way when you have no idea how instinct is experienced by the animals you accept have them.  What basis could you possibly have to posit that humans should experience, something you claim we absolutely do not experience, namely instinct, in a particular manner, namely, as knowledge instead of an urge, feeling, or impulse?

In any case, my comment regarding the paucity of your concept of man, as in incomplete rather than in low esteem, still stands, and does so irrespective of whether man has instincts or not.

55 minutes ago, anthony said:

Some projecting going on. Identify one human instinct that there is.

"Innate knowledge" is the definition.

But you guys won't provide a list of observable instincts that are not biological behaviors and needs, subconsciously-gathered knowledge, previous value-judgments, etc.

I've made all the argument and zip from you. Now a ludicrous and presumptuous ad hom.

What makes you think instinct has anything to do with knowledge or thought?

Speaking of projection... you project onto animals and the instinct guiding them with your unique human capacity of rational thought.

There is no reason to think any human or animal experiences instinct as knowledge or thought. 

As for distaste... you think some aspects about the nature of humans are not high enough to include in your concept of human... making it impossible for you to make decisions about what a man should do if it has anything to do with his lower nature... but man is man... and what he should do is contingent on the entirety of the reality of his nature.

22 hours ago, anthony said:

To stress the point, even assuming an "instinct for self-preservation" - what use is it? How are you going to live for more than a day on that, and any other instincts?

What to do to 'self-preserve'?

Go find water, by instinct. Can anyone? I've not touched on, e.g. how you weave a basket, build a wall, design a skyscraper, raise a child, instinctively.

That's how much civilisation and the reasoning which produced it is taken for granted by everybody - presumed upon (the stolen concept fallacy). 

 

You seem to be fighting against the idea instinct is the primary guide to action or its final arbiter, but I don’t think anyone is making that claim.

I think you tend to deny the significant impact of instinct on human function and  experience, on our minds and bodies, even our feelings and thoughts, because you find certain things about what a human is, to be distasteful.

You ignore those things about the nature of man which you find distasteful... at your peril.  For to think about what man is and what he should do you cannot use a concept of man which fails to accept the reality of his entire nature, not if you wish to know or to live.

19 minutes ago, anthony said:

Yes.

Why is consideration of a digestive system relevant in determining what a man should do? 

39 minutes ago, anthony said:

 I don't understand why you are raising any incompatibilism of being both biological and rational animal. Envisaging any fissure between the 'meat and the mind', crudely. I've seen you write some good material on this.

If one wants to survive, be healthy, think well of oneself, be self-reliant, understand existence, develop his knowledge, create things, find non-destructive pleasures, have good relations with others, earn and own material goods and attain spiritual well being - etc. - in all, seek and maintain his purpose and happiness in life, he hasn't traditionally had any moral guidance.

Except for "you Must - you Must Not".

By what standard? By whose standard?

You don't know by instinct what it good for you and what is poison, with food as well as moral ideas. (An eastern philosopher Lin Yutang remarked that every good philosophy should begin with men possessing stomachs...Fair enough).

The virtues, one's tools for life, singly and in combination, very well cover what a person "should" do for his objective good and fulfillment.

Yes, that does "depend on the fact that he is rational" (by one's nature - distinct from not always by one's thinking and actions). 

???  So... does the fact that he has a particular kind of digestive system and metabolism come into consideration or not?

1 hour ago, anthony said:

The first question is, why be up a tree? It's not one's natural habitat. First experience as I remember was looking up and thinking how exciting it would be to be up there. And to see down. Then came, how to do it? So I put one foot up on a limb and followed with the next, and so on. After a few painful tumbles I sort of mastered tree climbing. The "how should I" came after the "I want". IF I want that, I must do this. The value I anticipated initiated the actions, none of which came automatic or instinctively, but demanded rationality, identifying the nature of tree, and 'climbing' - and of gravity, when I erred. 

So that was learned experience.

Sorry if I don't understand the pertinence of this.

Don't get hung up worrying about the pertinence... it's a simple question you can think about and answer straightforwardly and honestly.

As an alternative how about:

When determining whether a man "should" eat fast food (say greasy burgers), for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every day of the week, or in fact should not do so, does the fact that he has a particular kind of digestive system and metabolism (which happens to be specific and different from that of some other animals which are not rational) come into consideration, or does such determining whether he should do so only depend on the facts that he is rational and the general fact that he is also an animal?

19 hours ago, anthony said:

SL,

One needs to conceptualize to structurally retain a huge amount of knowledge; and to abstract, to reduce untold numbers of existents to their core nature. So one can mentally eliminate (e.g.) biological differences and other characteristics in order to  the totality of individual men - to "man" and his fundamental identity: his consciousness.

"How do you pick and choose?" A good question.

 

19 hours ago, Strictlylogical said:

When determining how a man "should" descend a tree so as to avoid injury, does the fact that he has four limbs and no tail (as opposed to some other animals, which are not rational, who do), come into consideration, or does such a consideration only depend on the fact that he is rational?

Is there "the principle behind anthony"? 

Something about how a conversation just stops... when there is only silence in response to some question ...

a something about the point at which there is no longer any reply?  Perhaps...

But I would rather that there were no such principle,

and that we could continue having a conversation.

3 minutes ago, anthony said:

SL,

One needs to conceptualize to structurally retain a huge amount of knowledge; and to abstract, to reduce untold numbers of existents to their core nature. So one can mentally eliminate (e.g.) biological differences and other characteristics in order to  the totality of individual men - to "man" and his fundamental identity: his consciousness.

"How do you pick and choose?" A good question.

 

Fundamentality, Rule of.

[Definitions, ITOE]

"Now observe, on the above example [the definition of “man”], the process of determining an essential characteristic: the rule of fundamentality. When a given group of existents has more than one characteristic distinguishing it from other existents, man must observe the relationships among these various characteristics and discover the one on which all the others (or the greatest number of others) depend, i.e., the fundamental characteristic without which the others would not be possible. This fundamental characteristic is the essential distinguishing characteristic of the existents involved, and the proper defining characteristic of the concept.

Metaphysically, a fundamental characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others.

For instance, one could observe that man is the only animal who speaks English, wears wristwatches, flies airplanes, manufactures lipstick, studies geometry, reads newspapers, writes poems, darns socks, etc. None of these is an essential characteristic: none of them explains the others; none of them applies to all men; omit any or all of them, assume a man who has never done any of these things, and he will still be a man. But observe that all these activities (and innumerable others) require a conceptual grasp of reality, that an animal would not be able to understand them, that they are the expressions and consequences of man’s rational faculty, that an organism without that faculty would not be a man—and you will know why man’s rational faculty is his essential distinguishing and defining characteristic".

When determining how a man "should" descend a tree so as to avoid injury, does the fact that he has four limbs and no tail (as opposed to some other animals, which are not rational, who do), come into consideration, or does such a consideration only depend on the fact that he is rational?

Anthony, I had initially asked you what the purpose of abstraction was.

This answer

On 3/26/2021 at 3:47 PM, anthony said:

 To remove and isolate all lesser attributes of entities (here, individual men/women) to arrive at "one", all-embracing concept, i.e. "man"? That's my best shot right now. Thanks for an easy question SL!

and the answer to my follow up question focus on what abstraction is.  I'm still interested in talking about the purpose of abstraction. 

Why bother with the process of arriving at the concept?  What use is a concept? "What for"?

As an aside your answers imply abstraction involves a removal or ignorance of some universal characteristics, i.e. some particular "lesser" or "less significant" "non-relevant" characteristics.  How do you pick and choose which universals to keep in the concept?  Does your concept of "man" include that he is a kind of mammal with four limbs and no tail?  Is that part of man's nature?  When thinking about how man could or should climb down a tree, what abstraction do you use to take into account this fact about the nature of man?

18 hours ago, anthony said:

 To remove and isolate all lesser attributes of entities (here, individual men/women) to arrive at "one", all-embracing concept, i.e. "man"? That's my best shot right now. Thanks for an easy question SL!

What is a "lesser attribute" of an entity.  What determines it's removal from a concept?

For example, what about a particular apple, what "lesser attribute" is to be removed from the "one", all-embracing concept "apple"?

2 hours ago, anthony said:

Not "human life" - not "one's own life" - not, of course, other's lives. The standard of value is: man's life. The proper life of man qua man. This was categorically stated by Rand and in the last para, but how many fallacious derivations of it have arisen to confuse and misdirect O'ists!

From the abstraction to the concrete, (an individual life) and he/she refers back to the abstract measure.

How can your own life be the standard of your own life?! (leaving you an absence of "a standard"?). Get's self-referencing and subjective.

Barbara went another step further: "...one's own life is the standard, not the lives of others". Rather, ones own life is one's supreme value. One's purpose acted for by that ~standard~ of value, man's life. 

By this, Peter, it is not necessarily "more ethical than none" to create another human life as was asked.

Anthony, what is the purpose of abstraction?

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

On that other thread, a very interesting question came up.

I gave an extended comment (see here), but now I figured it's time to get more precise. 

I am not an expert in finance and money, so I use Investopedia for looking up technical information.

I found a term there very close to "store of wealth." It is called:

Store Of Value

Here is the quick and dirty definition.

All right! 

Now I can talk about this and know what I am talking about.

 

Using that definition, I went out and did a few searches for info.

And lookie what I found. Just look at this market cap chart from here: Market capitalization of Bitcoin from April 2013 to February 22, 2021.

The price in dollars per Bitcoin follows a similar trajectory since the only way to increase or decrease the dollar price is to buy and sell Bitcoins. Right now there is about a trillion dollars in Bitcoin and about 100 million owners.

According to the Investopedia definition of "store of value," that does 'er. Bitcoin has shown to be an excellent store of value.

Michael

One possibly major difference between units of money which are themselves units of objective wealth/value and instruments/systems for store and exchange like Crypto, is that for the former you need only know of reality, specifically, human nature and the basic need and or use for the unit of wealth/value independent of any specific person, group of persons, or organization of persons, or systems etc., to know your units have objective value, but for the latter, you need to trust the people who set the system up, the group of people who agree to participate in that system, trust that the system works, both in the abstract/theory and in terms of actual implementation with operating infrastructure (hardware, software, electric grid etc) and will never fail. 

For the former you depend on your independent knowledge of reality, 

For the latter you are dependent upon everyone having to do with the currency system, the mechanical/computational system implementing it, and everything that the system itself  would depend upon.

Whether or not this difference is a big deal to you... I suppose will depend upon your sense of life.

[Aside: Physical gold, although ridiculous to carry around, was and has been used at the worst times in history, to circumvent totalitarian rule, and preserve wealth even during the collapse of economies and the effective fallings of civilization itself...  such a high benchmark might prove too high in today's world, but at least the alternative should be immune from the eletists/oligarchs, big tech, and big government...  perhaps China is a good test-bed for how untouchable Crypto can be... is there a darkweb or an undernet there?  I wonder what do they use there as currency on the blackmarket?]

46 minutes ago, HERTLE said:

Michael,

This was not a medical lockdown of any type, no Covid-19 ,and no judicial or governmental reason or cause was involved.

The incarceration by JFK hospitals in New Jersey was for more than five and one-half months during 2019-2020, and more recently for four days, was not involved with any judicial or court action, cause, or medical consideration whatsoever, kept by JFK by force, no reasons for their actions against this person were given, and no contact with the outside was permitted, no access to work or employment, no way to earn money for my apartment rent and threats of eviction, except for one hour no outside walks, roughed up by JFK thugs, no contact with one's personal physician, friends, or attorney permitted, and no access to one's own computer or home, kept naked for one to two months without being allowed to bathe, kept in shackles for days at a time, and also in a wire cage for days, clothes and personal belongings stolen, and the list has more say. Three hours during the duration for guest visits were permitted. My friends thought I had died and didn't know what they could do to help. Other persons were also kept at the JFK facilities who had no idea why. I've been trying to write the story and that is really difficult. Local County authorities were unable to explain or offer help. You won't believe the outrageous amounts of moneys that were billed by JFK and their consultant doctors to the Insurance companies. I received nothing. After my release one attorney told me I had no way to  get any help, legal or otherwise, because I simply couldn't afford the fees. I don't know why all that happened to me, and it appears to be some type of slavery business. I'm out of it. If anyone wants to find out what was happening to me, they may contact me directly.  

Ralph Hertle

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

 

Don't give up because one lawyer dissuaded you.  Find another, maybe one who will work on contingency, or another who is strongly interested in justice and/or does pro bono work. 

There are many free minded legal big hitters who would be interested to see justice in such a case.  Do not give up.  Reach out and find the others, work together.

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

What is a "store of wealth"?

Wouldn't that be where wealth is stored?

A medium of exchange is different than wealth and it is definitely not a store. It's essentially a process agreed upon between people for trading values.

If I, as a free man, say "My word is my bond," and do business with another who says the same, and we do great business for years creating wealth for ourselves and others based solely on our word to each other as guarantee, is our word, which was the medium of exchange, a "store of wealth"? And what, on earth, is nonobjective about two or more people--without coercion--agreeing on the terms of exchanging their values then doing it that way?

This raises a few interesting questions for me.

Back in the day (prior to paper fiat currencies), store of wealth/value, exchange of units of that value, the long term and the short term were all in a sort of harmony.  At times populations, cultures, and technology were "static" enough over a single lifetime or perhaps even a few generations such that a thing could serve all these purposes: one COULD choose to store wealth long or short term, and exchange value with a single thing, money (e.g. gold coins).  Any IOU based on units of that money was as good on an IOU on units of wealth itself. 

So in essence what was CHOSEN to be exchanged WAS wealth.  

In today's world we see that the value of financial instruments, currencies, various "mediums" or "mechanisms" of exchange are, as you note, NOT a store of wealth.  Modern money functions only a medium of exchange (having itself an eroding value) which is good only for daily, monthly, short term exchanges (that is until we have hyperinflation, and that might be reduce to seconds...)

I find it incredibly frustrating that the whole idea of "saving money", especially in the long term, is practically an incoherent idea as such. 

Modern money, (particularly in our modern economy) is now guaranteed to devalue against reality.  [I find it insulting that through inflation, governments essentially force us to gamble with our savings, invest in others "for the good of society" I suppose, because we face continual erosion of wealth if we try simply to save money.] Ships and shoes and sealing wax, haircuts and legal fees... although they change relative to each other according to the market, are all much more expensive in terms of units of "modern money" than say 50 years ago... everything is worth more.. money is worth less.  What does that say about the "unit" measure of modern money?  I don't see instantaneous and extreme value fluctuations of burgers, lawn mowing services, hair cuts, and vegetables, as measured in the effort and time of productive work which went into them.. as against the effort and time of productive work exchanged (through specialization in a complex network) to purchase them.  Why use a unit whose measure is sure to fail at any long term stability?

As for an honest person's word, I have no argument with you that there is nothing nonobjective about the IOU in agreements/contracts as such, however, the economic objectivity of that agreement is in part affected by the "units" used to make that agreement.  If honorable persons unwittingly contract in units which are subjective in terms of any long term value, I cant help thinking that somehow they have been shortchanged, one or both.  So then assuming both parties should not be unwitting... they should price their exchange based on the fact that the medium of exchange IS short term... and IS completely subjective against long term human values...  use it nonetheless, and then as soon as possible exchange that "money" for some store of wealth until one needs to convert it back into money for an exchange.

So in the end we have to cut what real money previously was into two, and retain only the temporary medium for exchange as a use for that money, and relegate the store of wealth or long term store of value to other things which that money may be exchanged for.

I wonder, if the state did not dictate what passes as currency would we now have two main units of money, one short term (unhinged, possibly subject to fluctuation, inflation, deflation,  etc.), and one long term (tied to some objective standard)?  In that free economy, I would think contracts for anything greater than 10 years should use the second kind of units.

So what is the upshot, the final take away, NEVER save your money?.... and in fact, we never should have done so or even thought to do so?