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From: ian@utcsstat.UUCP (Ian F. Darwin)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: New topic: property status of information
Message-ID: <1458@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Nov-83 00:02:16 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1458
Posted: Mon Nov 21 00:02:16 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Nov-83 01:19:25 EST
References: <204@wxlvax.UUCP>
Organization: Univ of Toronto (UTCS)
Lines: 23

Actually some comments on Wexelblat's comments;

	Property is theft

Is it? And what is theft? Theft is the removal of property without
its owner's permission. Nice try, but you can't define theft except
in terms of property, not vice versa. (Rand calls this an example of the "stolen
concept", which I find a useful designation).

	All property is information

Well, that's stretching things a bit. Any material goods taken out of the
ground & made into something have information content, but it ain't necessarily
so that the information is a primary part of its form. What is primary
in a hammer, for example; the information that went into digging the iron
ore, smelting it, etc., or the fact that it's real good for driving nails
and not bad for smashing skulls? Your hero (Proudhon) might well say the
labor to dig the ore &c. Is labor the same as information?
I think not.
-- 

Ian F. Darwin, Toronto
uucp: utcsstat!ian