Economics of God

Scarcity, Time, Value, Knowledge, Multiverse

• Ammous: time is scarce for the individual; he has to economize his time; he values certain things over other things because his time is limited; immortal men will not economize.

• Voskuil: scarcity per se doesn’t equate to value (labor theory of value didn’t get this, as well as Ammous’ time theory of value); value comes from human demand—from preference, which is subjective; time preference is the ratio between capital invested versus consumed, and is a preference; immortal men will also manifest time preference, unless they are all-knowing; even under the assumption of non-depreciating physical capital, they will economize—because they have preference; scarcity (or abundance) doesn’t necessarily affect time preference; although abundance in general will lower time preference, that (or scarcity) is not the source of time preference.

• Mises: if future is certain, there is no need for money; omnipotence implies no money (ERE); omnipotence implies no need for economization (ERE); all-knowing men will allocate his capital accordingly, but it’s not based on time preference—it’s not subjective but objective, because he knows what will be needed in the future; immortal men will manifest time preference, if not all-knowing.

• Deutsch: other times are special cases of other universes; humans are significant, to the extent that we create knowledge; knowledge is by definition unpredictable; our ability to create knowledge in unbounded; applied to the problem of scarcity, that means any scarcity can be resolved (remember: where there is demand, there is supply—with the exception that knowledge doesn’t have stability property).

• Me: knowledge is by definition unpredictable; humans create knowledge; thus future conditions are unpredictable; thus we will need money—although no money can guarantee that it will be the money—holding onto “money” is also a speculation; even if we achieve immortality, as long as we are humans, we will still be economizing because future will be always uncertain due to our ability to create knowledge; in the case of immortal men, it is the finiteness of capital then that compels them to economize—because the capital depreciates (and also because physical resource remains always scarce relatively against our knowledge then—assuming otherwise you are evoking an omnipotent being, because only perfect knowledge will do away with scarcity); humans are by definition fallible and imperfect, and that will imply scarcity at any point in time of its existence; knowledge actively created via memes is non-depreciating capital (human capital), and hence should be differentiated from capital goods (non-human capital), which depreciate—to assume otherwise would defy the laws of physics (or more precisely, that would be the equivalent of evoking omnipotent being—because things can remain non-depreciable only when we apply our knowledge); to assume that immortal men will not economize is the same as assuming that they will be forever content with the present and will not engage in the improvement of their conditions via knowledge creation—such creatures are not men; time preference is about the allocation of capital for both present and future satisfactions; in short, men economize not because their time is limited (Ammous), but because they create knowledge—because knowledge is unpredictable and imperfect (viz., the beginning of infinity), the relative scarcity will exist at any point in time.

• Voskuil+Deutsch: Why is value subjective? Because knowledge has to be created individually. Time preference is subjective preference, and to the extent that money is hedge against future uncertainty, the more money can imply lower time preference. Technology (i.e., knowledge) can influence time preference, because the knowledge is the basis of one’s preference.

• Mises: Market has the tendency to move toward the state of rest.

• Everett: Scientific knowledge doesn’t entail cultural knowledge.

• Mises: Science is about is. Rational economics is also about is but the subject is human action which is end-oriented (viz., should). Price doesn’t project objective value, but instead mediate subjective values. This is why science cannot be applied to price, but also why price is needed for humans.

• Deutsch+Everett: Physical forces are indexical. But physics is symbolic.

• Infinite time doesn’t guarantee knowledge-creation.

• It is the imperfectness of knowledge that forces us to economize scarce resources. Time doesn’t count.

• And we don’t even know what time is—if you have to base your argument on time, then your argument should explain what that is (e.g., Deutsch argues that other times are special instances of other universes), instead of presuming the existence of it. The same goes for causality within the context of Austrian economics—you have to explain why causality makes sense (e.g., Deutsch explains causality in the context of the multiverse).

• Time preference is positive, because nothing is certain.

• New axioms: value is subjective; knowledge is unpredictable; human knowledge is imperfect.