Private property, or the extensibility of self

There are intellectuals who discuss this subject from the perspective of the right to private property. Establishing this right makes it possible to assert that one thing or another is what one owns, and I do feel important so that one goes against the situation that object is taken from them without legitimacy. Although I do respect the rights of citizens, the word has been used in a way that is wide and convenient. The following writing develops the ideas on private property, not limited in the perspective of the rights.

Right to property arises in the circumstance that there is at least another person around oneself. If there’s no person around, would one claim the ownership of property? There’s no need to insist the ownership unless there’s another person in the world. In relation to the labour and property, “every Man has a Property in his own Person: This no Body has any right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his”(1).

Private property is related to the extensibility of self, that is to say that to what extent one thinks their self extends. One’s body is physically always with self. One is likely to think that it is self.

The works created by author is the extended part of that author. Especially I believe that my works are going to continue to exist in the world based on the robustness and resilience of the ideas embedded in them.

The works created by artificial intelligence are perceived different from what I wrote by myself. Suppose I hand over the former to others as a submission, I am reluctant to do so. They are not my works. In the process of making works, I embed what I perceived and felt from my life in the works. Some of the readers may feel them in reading, that makes difference. Also, regarding AI, the knowledges on the work are internalised in oneself. That has to do with if one can present it proficiently to the audience if requested. The output is also in details carefully organised by oneself (one’s will is in every piece of contents) compared with the ones created by AI.

In the world where extended intelligence spreads, people would be more sceptical towards the world. The objects created by the EI comes from persons, but since the distance is broader, the people who create and their output has a certain distance.

For example, Aristotle “places dianoia and epistēmē praktikē, practical insight and political science, at the lowest rank of his order, and puts above them the science of fabrication, epistēmē poiētikē, which immediately precedes and leads to theōria, the contemplation of truth”(2).

Fabrication is a type of expression that one expresses oneself to the world. It requires, though depends on what kind of artifact one fabricates, a lot of time to be spent while contemplating in oneself. This time is precious in the sense that it ferments thoughts in the inner part. Because the aim of capitalism is to gain profit and it is required for firms to seek efficiency in that game, the fabrication of things which takes inefficient cost of time came to face difficulty in continuing their business, except a few products which has success of attaching high values. Having said that, one doesn’t have to deal with it in the perspective of capitalism or business.

When one is dedicated to what one cares in his private life, in some cases, the private aspect may contribute to the public benefit.

In addition, based on personal experiences, the wisdoms that are beneficial to the public can be produced.

As regards copyright, privacy, and particularly on the Internet, “there’s a bit of ‘our’ data that ‘we’ve’ lost control over. In the case of copyright, it is the data constituting a copy of our copyrighted work; in the case of privacy; it is the data representing some fact about us”(3).

As for privacy and how personal information is maintained, the concern was raised in 1973 that “an individual’s control over the personal information that he gives to an organization, or that an organization obtains about him, is lessening”(4), and “Nowadays an individual must increasingly give information about himself to large and relatively faceless institutions, for handling and use by strangers-unknown, unseen and, all too frequently, unresponsive. Sometimes the individual does not even know that an organization maintains a record about him. Often he may not see it, much less contest its accuracy, control its dissemination, or challenge its use by others”(5).

We can find that the technological environment regarding privacy has changed. Previously “given the technology of 1790, trespass law was a meaningful legal protection for privacy. So long as entering was a necessary step to effective spying, laws against entering without permission were effective protections of privacy”(6).

When a baby/child starts their life, they start recognise the self. The example of “new-born child” who starts recognising what is own and what is object which exists outside own, that “It must make the strongest impression on him that some sources of stimulation, which he will later recognize as his own physical organs, can convey sensations to him at any time, while other things – including what he most craves, his mother’s breast – are temporarily removed from him and can be summoned back only by a cry for help”(7).

After learning to a certain level (going beyond the elementary level), it becomes internalised. In learning another language, it may first learn via what you know such as first language, they acquire the ability to use another. By reaching certain level, you are able to skip using another language. You understand the meaning of what is in front of you without first language. It has the feeling of directly understanding it, that is the object and self.

Imagine in playing music with more proficiency, there may be no boundary between the musical instrument and self.

Aspiring to have something as one’s own property is ultimately to make it oneself or internalised.

The psychedelic experience reports that “when activity in the default network falls off precipitously, the ego temporarily vanishes, and the usual boundaries we experience between self and world, subject and object, all melt away”(8).

(1) John Locke, Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), p.15.

(2) Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018), p.301.

(3) Lawrence Lessig, Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2.0 (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.200.

(4) ‘Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens’, ASPE, published 30 June 1973, accessed 28 July 2024, https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/records-computers-rights-citizens. Jonathan Zittrain refers to this part in his book Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It, (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008), p.201.

(5) ‘Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens’, ASPE, published 30 June 1973, accessed 28 July 2024, https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/records-computers-rights-citizens. Jonathan Zittrain refers to this part in his book Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It, (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008), p.201.

(6) Lawrence Lessig, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), p.260.

(7) Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (London: Penguin Book, 2002), p.5.

(8) Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics (London: Penguin Books, 2019), p.305.

Tolerance, forgetting, progress

Contexts have been established over time. Some of them can be forgotten as people knowing them in detail cannot live forever in the world. With some faded away, new context can appear as some conditions disappear, which may have restricted the emergence of the new. Thus it doesn’t keep completeness.

Some say that it is misinterpretation, but misinterpretation can be a way to develop theory. Information is storaged and difficult to be forgotten in the world of the first quarter of 21st century. Even minute behaviour of the past is put in record. That leads to unforgetableness of the world.

Remembering previous sense is difficult for people in general, some portions are at least forgotten. Remembering the previous sense could in some case unsmoothen the current sense. Especially what has impressed intensely captures one for a long time.

As the example of forgetting, when one got quarrel with another, and at the same they would have anger. In some cases as time passes, they may not continue to have the same degree of anger with before, and they may progress their friendship after a while. Some factors override what has happened, or others bring them back to the friendship, and so forth.

Forgiveness lets one to restart from what one has done in the past. When it comes to punishment, it can play the role somewhat of forgiving by receiving it. Going through the punishments that society indicted is to go forward. Unless one tolerates self, it may move to the destruction of oneself, not justifying the act. For forgiving others, it should not be the case that the system or people surrounding them doesn’t pressure victims to forgive(1).

If one can move back to the past and correct what one thinks wrong, they cannot move forward as every tiny piece of the wrong is tried to be found.

What has occurred cannot be back to the state that wasn’t done(2). Even if one tried to undo everything back to the beforehand, the trace of being done may remain in the world and one’s mind.

As regards freedom, it also feels that it is a topic of tolerance. To what extent the environment can tolerate. It cannot be said in just one sentence that the current epoch doesn’t allow tolerance compared with the previous one as some may guess that some domains now became flexible in dealing with difference.

In terms of economy, they prefer to maximize profit by limiting the possible sphere into more profitable reality. In society in general, they would like to avoid possible risks in similar way. Whether instructed clearly or not, it becomes difficult to behave in terms of avoiding risks. At least at the first quarter of 21st century, locals are not able to talk frankly to the pupils of their district such as greeting (assume pupils walking on their way to school in the morning) as they are, supposedly, regarded as strangers from the perspective of children.

On forgetting, as you forget, you can move forward in some case. Not forgetting makes us stop at one place as you continuously think about it for the coming moments. The transition of thinking from the current to the developed takes place when newer one comes into mind by putting the present one to, more or less, the rear line, or it can be said in parallel.

A progress takes place often as a leap from convention. In order to create that leap, one has to innovate the present cases. The originality or uniqueness of its ideas is born by mixing their ideas in mind with the current ones in society, or it may be that one pushes the former ones (the ideas in mind) to the front. In order to develop, it needs a careful consideration so that it can retain robustness and resilience to overcome a number of obstacles.

Born in the same age and grown in the similar environment, things become similar than being different. The difference that is witty and has robustness and resilience. Expanding a little difference to the grown, than being in the established frame. Some people may lose their uniqueness, moving to imitate others by their own choice.

Being obsessed with the past traditions with its values decreased, it is not going to be supported by society. Although the one with value is being evaluated even if it has long history since it was generated, it needs to catch up with the changing social perspective.

In community, there’s a certain standard shared. People may feel what is expected within the community as such that how one is expected to behave. Those behaviours are to give one’s response in communication with others. Knowing the supposition, one may behave in a way that is slightly detached from the standard. Gradual expansion of the current standard broadens the sphere.

Progressing gives hope. Giving the impression of progress makes people feel that there would be better consequence than the present circumstance. Installing new, for instance, product to society brings about convenience, in the meantime it could cause downside too.

(1) Influenced by Martha Minow, When Should Law Forgive? (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020), p.161.

(2) Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018), p.233.

On economy

It feels that Bitcoin is related to philosophy. In the paper that was published under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, it was proposed in the thought that “What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party”(1) as written in the introductory part. As known, “The very first bitcoin block that was mined famously included a message containing a reference to a newspaper headline: ‘The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.'”(2)

Exchanging things between two parties at the same time has restriction. Bartering cannot happen without those two parties’ having what can be exchanged at that moment and physically being in the place. Currency and bookkeeping lifted this restriction. It enabled people to behave in a broader time scale than being limited to just the moment. As for the relationship between trust and currency, “the value of a unit of currency is not the measure of the value of an object, but the measure of one’s trust in other human beings”(3).

It feels that people need to get support from others in their daily life, or in the perspective of developing their civilisation it is efficient to collaborate with others to meet the necessity arising out of their daily life. When one gets support from another, but one didn’t have things to pay back to another, they use the currency which is in use in their community so that another can get the benefit of what they offered then.

Besides “did money serve largely as an accounting measure rather than physically changing hands, merchants and tradespeople developed credit arrangements of their own” mostly in “clay tablets” in the civilisation of Mesopotamia(4).

Apart from that two parties exchange product, one may give the money equivalent to the product received. Money as a medium works as useful, but it needs to have trust.

It is described that “Credit system, tabs, even expense accounts, all existed long before cash. These things are as old as civilization itself”(5). At a point in the latter half of 20th century, “The world’s transition to a full fiat money system took place as recently as 1971 when President Nixon announced the suspension of the dollar’s convertibility into gold (i.e., the gold standard)”(6). After 1971, one can see “a marked increase in the money supply and monetary debasement globally”(7).

In the world where capitalism prevailed, it is difficult to have a business of not seeking profit at its first priority. Perception of capitalism by people in general puts those who most earn at the top of hierarchy, and if that governs the world, it is mono-cultural. Those who wanted to be the one but couldn’t get a success in that rule need to be saved by other values. Selling goods or services towards customers outside their company and putting the priority in their sales often lead their company to look at the customers and care less about their labourers. Lack of insights into the inside of their firm undermines the happiness of their labourers. Only seeking capital is to become exploitative in some sense, what for capital is required what is the purpose needs to be in higher priority.

Those who are typically in the managing position manages the schedule and try to make their team and people around to meet the deadline even if they need to work overtime. If one works hard to meet the deadline, one sacrifices something. Does it lead to one’s happiness?

Happiness to a person isn’t what another can determine. It is what one would feel. People have different interests and from what they feel happiness is different. Empathy to another also depends on individual sense as one may feel empathy in a situation but another may not feel that way. This subjective aspect of empathy is partly related to that the reason why people behave kindly to the elderly. It is because they know when getting older they would face the same kind of difficulty the elder person in front of them is facing. They can feel the trouble as their own one. It also is that previously the kindness given from another remained in one’s heart that encouraged to behave kindly to others.

This characteristic of thinking it as one’s own comes needs thinking. It is subjective in the sense that one needs to think in oneself but it is a cycle of taking things outside into oneself through the process of thinking. Besides, anyone cannot know what another thinks as they are different individuals.

In the society of more freedom, a variety of standards is in place so that different people are valued. Even what is not measurable should be recognised as the important. Seeking profit is on the top of the list at company in capitalism, and it often makes their labourers suffer from their labouring conditions.

Economy resonates with the rapid cycle of decision-making. Increasing power of computation catches the future. In order to move things forward, people often require one step further for those who are involved to take action as demanded. That makes them feel uncomfortable and everyday labouring it accumulates stress to them. It is better to let them have some flexibility to decide by their will as, not just labouring, labourers have their own conditions of life that are not just labouring but stemming from other factors in their life.

I believe there are cases that in tiny tiny details it is correct, not wrong, to do that way but in larger scale, reflected on the original purpose, doing it can disturb the success of original purpose. Investing time and effort in that tiny details without enough consideration to the larger picture may lead to the collapse of the work in progress. One of the reasons to this could be related to the available resources. That is why thinking from the perspective of primary principle works.

Just because one is told to do doesn’t guarantee that one will follow that order. It has incentives around that order such as reward, motivation, trust. To the object it refers to, there are objects other than that which could affect the execution. Logic seems creating a dimension based on which they talk about things in line. People do not necessarily be on that dimension as they can be influenced by factors outside.

Machines that follow instructions would be evaluated more than those which halts or malfunctions. However the latter may lead to discovery of unfound aspects.

The world focuses too much on the present, or the pleasures. Rapid flow of information on the Internet excites the feelings of people, rather than spending time in tranquility, people tend more to spend time effectively. Spending time in thinking about the future may make the history of the human beings prospective.

(1) Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, accessed 28 June 2023, written date 21 August 2008, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3440802. Posted date 22 August 2019.

(2) Vijay Selvam, Principles of Bitcoin: Technology, Economics, Politics, and Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2025), p.121.

(3) David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (Brooklyn: Melville House Publishing, 2014), p.47. New and expanded edition.

(4) David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (Brooklyn: Melville House Publishing, 2014), p.214. New and expanded edition.

(5) David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (Brooklyn: Melville House Publishing, 2014), p.18. New and expanded edition.

(6) Vijay Selvam, Principles of Bitcoin: Technology, Economics, Politics, and Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2025), p.33.

(7) Vijay Selvam, Principles of Bitcoin: Technology, Economics, Politics, and Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2025), p.127.

Logic and rules

It is not that simple to divide the things in life into categories. Often, complexities in life are quite powerfully placed into them by the force of categorising.

Categorization causes bias by which discrimination arises. Due to its function, people memorize things easier. The function is, often, to recognise things in outer world from self. Categorization is the capability equipped in persons. Finding difference is to identify an individual. Difference matters in this world. People try to appreciate the difference among people. Contrarily, we have a vector of power that is attempting to homogenize the world. Categorisation has a bit of distance from the subjects that it refers to, categorising and grouping a set of subjects can group not only the subjects from which one began that categorising but also what will be found in the future as well as in the past which meet a set of standards.

Logical thinking is what is often centred in businesses or academics, it is what people can rely on. For instance, planning a schedule tries to narrow its possibility so that it can meet the demand among groups of people. Otherwise, it becomes more chaotic, without organising the possibility. Demanding logical act excessively make some people feel uncomfortableness. It diminishes the free sphere which tolerates diverse people.

The progress around logic has to do with the past development of logic and mathematics. The discovery of pure mathematics in 1850s emphasised that “We, start, in pure mathematics from certain rules of inference, by which we can infer that if one proposition is true, then so is some other proposition”(1).

Society seeks progress, makes attempts to move towards better world, however it requires immense efforts. The efforts required put people in a situation where they work harder to make it realised. It feels that the amount of time and cost to maintain the individual life occupies a lot. They are concerned with the labouring, in particular it has some stress in their life especially when having trouble. Making the sphere of freedom broader lets people flexibly do their labour.

The masses work for company. A large part of them work for at least 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week with often additional overtime hours. Business model requires employees to efficiently work with the aim of how they can produce efficient output in their limited time. Working more efficiently leads to the situation in which employees need to care about almost every detail to output efficiently. More impressively saying that in every minute they are required to produce maximized output without spending their time in vain. Business world orders employees to labour socialistically (or communistically) by deciding the deadline. That is to say that it is less allows people to have some room.

Capitalism shows its strong influence over the world, but the world covered by mono culture suffocates the world. In the business world, people need to be eager to move things forward. They work hard while managing their tasks by scheduling task by task. Although it in fact often needs to extend the scheduled end date if they have some problems in the situation of their tasks, but basically it is their virtue to meet the schedule of each task even if it requires them to work overtime, even at midnight or weekend. People share the notion of time in the business world so that things can be settled by the schedule that they set up, they relate their tasks to the notion of time(2).

People talk a lot about money. Companies typically care about the growth of revenue per certain period such as month, quarter, and year. Labouring hard every workday and move forward their tasks in rapid cycle may let you earn higher income, but what else is going to be with you after years?

It is absurd to see that developing one’s career makes one difficult to move to other paths, different from the current one, even in academics or professional career. Typically saying, one’s career needs consistency. Without having it, it often fails to get through application process. Some people of antidisciplinary is not within this framework as they are the ones who are interested in more than everything. They are always not limited to one discipline or another. Specialising in a limited discipline doesn’t fascinate this type of person. By growing, why not take a variety of jobs?

Utilitarianism suits in a society being more digitalised and calculated. Considering the principle of utility, it “approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness”(3).

Rules are in place in society, and people practice them in their life. It sometimes feel that the society at the beginning of 21st century, or it can date back to several hundreds years, asks people to follow the rules more rigidly. Not condemning specific actor of society, but society in general has tendency to make each person follow the narrow path. Some people demand that others behave properly even in tiny details. Those rules are made based on the past. Rules are made in some cases based on the frequency of its usage.

Rules already put in place cannot cover all the situations that take place in society. It requires the practical flexibility to appear to be following them. This is not particularly focusing on the cases in which practitioners claim that they follow the rules on the one hand and others in society insist it doesn’t seem to the public that they follow, but in the real world without having the flexibility to be regarded as following the rules, the rules don’t work. Not just obeying the rules literally, there’s some space between what’s written and how it is practised. Flexibility depending on situations is required to run society smoothly. It is because the descriptions of the rules cannot cover all the situations that potentially could happen, there’s always need for practitioners to make them work.

Multi-disciplined in the same space without causing major conflict protects the sphere in which a variety of people co-habits. It is not governed by one discipline erasing others which make the world inflexible to different situations of different people.

Law is subject to change both its description and its meaning or interpretation, often little by little. The description of law often compresses the cases of daily life of their citizenry to a concise description. Even if the form of law is written in one description, it can be applied to a number of cases in society. The norms are often based on culture that their society owns.

Ethics, or morality, works to some extent to limit freedom of persons as they would refrain from taking certain actions which are harmful to others based on their conscience. Regulated by conscience, being free goes toward public good. Religion plays significant role on the formation of morality, and how they think about the world. It also has been supporting people, without which they would more directly face the reality and are not able to face it continually. Ethics is a set of rules deeply rooted in persons.

(1) Bertrand Russel, Mysticism and Logic (London and New York: Routledge, 2025), pp.69-70.

(2) This sentence is influenced by p.77 of Henri Bergson, Histoire de l’idée de temps: Cours au Collège de France 1902-1903 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016).

(3) John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, Utilitarianism and Other Essays (London: Penguin Books, 2004), p.65.

Logic and categorisation

By the middle of the 20th century, “logic has become more mathematical and mathematics has become more logical”(1).

Logical analysis can converge things into a certain point where things are settled instead of being ambiguous, or chaotic. Wording is to converge things into certain point. Ambiguously uttering is somewhat limiting but not in narrower way.

This convergence into a point in logic is suitable to business in capitalism where a rapid cycle of decision-making and moving tasks forward is demanded rather than continuing to thinking about a certain decision whether it is truly the best answer or not. Even though business world also requires the meta thinking to make a correct decision, it is necessary to move tasks forward rapidly. The use of logic in business world associated with capitalism is different from works that are expected to last forever, logic converges things, there are things not included at the moment logic determines.

This characteristic of convergence is used to make the future converge in a hopeful way. The word “risk” is often paid attention to especially in late 20th century. It is described that “The notion of ‘risk’ is central to modern culture today precisely because so much of our thinking has to be ‘as-if’ kind”(2). Beforehand, they recognise the risks, they make the ways by which risks are minimised. However knowing the risks may makes people difficult to take action. After recognising them, we would choose whether we take action by accepting the risks or avoid taking action so that we will not face them.

In business world, they require the labourers to be logical. Logical thinking has been one of the capacities which is recognised as necessary for each. That is especially in the first quarter of 21st century onwards required.

Analysing the things that one face and identify what is known and not. To the questions that one cannot “here and now give definitive answers”(3), “a method has been discovered by which, as in science, we can make successive approximations to the truth, in which each new stage results from an improvement, not a rejection, of what has gone before”(4).

Logic is related to accountability. It is often seen that people involved ask its explanation which is convincing enough to be provided behind the proposition that one gave. Argument equipped with logic can convince people in front of oneself. Strong logic can make people not be able to respond.

In business world, answering to a question properly is often demanded. Sometimes see people not clearly answer question is that they have other things in mind and are captured by them.

Sharing the same logic with others leads them to work in the same logic in a certain domain. People of different background may indicate that “two individuals may agree on their computations in particular cases even though they are actually computing different functions”(5).

Temper is a large factor that decides whether it is going to be successful or not. If one is not motivated to move forward tasks in a project, it has to do with the outcome of to what extent successful it is going to be.

Given this nature of logic, does it have extensibility in its nature? The extensibility is whether it is opened to the further sphere. The logic often determines the scope before moving forward.

It is a type of categorisation that people judge others by their title as such that whether one is director or just a staff. Even if those who are in the rank of banality has greater capacity in some cases, one may not be regarded so by others.

Labeling doesn’t comprehend the entire aspects of a person, but it attempts to make easier to categorise. It sometimes goes to the end that it is condemned as prejudice. Labeling is to categorise by one or a few aspect of person, sometimes the impressive aspect of a person. People are frequently labelled some as liberal, conservative, or others. It seems that the labelling focuses on an opinion or the tendency that a person more frequently expresses. Presumably a person who is labelled as liberal also has conservative opinion in other topics given the complexity of human being. Even unconsciously people categorise as it is harder for them to recognise one by one, easier to group by similarity. This labeling has negative aspect too as it may group one which isn’t easy to be categorised in one group or another.

Bias is an exaggerated aspect of an object based on one’s past experience. Categorising and prejudice are related. Some fault images accentuating some aspect excessively create the prejudice.

Persons of logic should know what is not logical.

(1) Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge Classics, 2023), p.184.

(2) Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press,1994), p.vii.

(3) Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p.744.

(4) Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p.744.

(5) Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1982), p.32.