ribuck

Copying is copying. Example 1: You see your neighbor making a new type of chair, and you make one too (by copying the process that you saw). Example 2: You hear your neighbor performing a new piece of music, and you perform it too (by copying the sounds that you heard). In neither case was there trespass, nor theft.

Most people don't realise that the host knows the location of the prize and deliberately exposes a door that he knows to be empty. Most people "kind of assume" that the game is not rigged, and that the host is opening a door at random. In that case it wouldn't change the odds, so it's not surprising that most people don't switch.

Fair enough! It seems you are setting out to show that "if homesteading of physical property is legitimate, then homesteading of non-physical property is also legitimate". That's an interesting way to argue it, but it's not as powerful as showing that non-physical property is legitimate without any precondition. It's clear to me that a person owns the fruits of his labor, but it's not clear to me that land can be owned for all time simply by using it for a finite time. So I would be more interested in your theory if its precondition didn't require me to already accept the homesteading of land. (There's an interesting duscussion about property ownership here, by the way.)

David, this is something that fascinates me. Most people think of "language" as having an existence transcending any individual, but many people are now looking at language in a different way. Researchers have long been aware that every individual speaks a slightly different dialect: that each person uses some words with a slightly different meaning, and in a slightly different way, and with a slightly different grammar, and with respect to a slightly different worldview. A person's own language is called an idiolect (i.e. a dialect spoken by only one person). A language, then, just happens to be the common intersection of the idiolects of a usefully-large number of people. Naturally these people share a large number of words, and share many grammatical constructs, and share some degree of worldview. Yet each person's idiolect is truly their own individual language. Anyway, this is tangential to Alex's thoughts about IP, but I do find it interesting.

Furthermore, rule 2 is unusable because it uses the phrase "rightful property". It is therefore assuming that the definition of rightful property is already determined. Alexander, before I comment further I would like to see your whole argument. If you unravel it piece by piece, we need to critique every sentence, even if most of those will turn out to be uncontentious or irrelevant. That's a very inefficient use of everyone's time. If you post your whole argument, we can focus first on what appears to be its weakest point. This is much more efficient. Then, if the apparently-weakest point is OK, we can check whether the rest of the argument is sound.

This "rule" obviously does not hold, whether X is physical or imaginary property. What some state may or may not have done in the past cannot possibly determine a matter of principle. Perhaps you mean something like this: Physical property can be locked in a container. Then, exclusive use (by the holder of the key) is the default condition, and requires no initiation of force. On the other hand, breaking that exclusive use would require the initiation of force. However, imaginary property can be copied without the initiation of force, because access to a physical manifestation of the original is not required. If you have heard a song, you can sing it without requiring access to the original CD.

The above "rule" does not hold when X is physical property. It also does not hold when X is imaginary property. Perhaps you meant something like the following:

If your approach boils down to "In the absence of a state, we can voluntarily license our IP containers", this is going to be a big let-down after such a build-up.

Yes, of course. Well, bring it on then! I'm interested to see how your approach to IP deals with the first person who worked out the process by which fire could be initiated and harnessed. Although the patent office did not yet exist, this person nevertheless held the process in his brain. Is the "Process for initiating and harnessing fire" a valid instance of intellectual property according to your approach?

I'm not even sure if that's true. Support of IP amongst libertarians seems fairly widespread to me. To Murray Rothbard, you can of course add Ron Paul, Ayn Rand and many others.

Are you counting a "brain" as a physical container or not?

These scientists have not achieved a temperature below absolute zero in the "familiar" sense, where temperature is proportional to the kinetic energy of an object's molecules. Obviously that kinetic energy can never drop below zero, so the temperature can never drop below zero. What these scientists have done is very cool nevertheless. They have cajoled some matter into a state where there are more particles in higher-energy states than in lower-energy states, rather than the other way around as is usual. Scientists working with such systems use a more general definition of temperature, which gives the same answer as the "familiar" definition in the usual case, but gives a negative number when there is a deficit of particles in the lower-energy states. As the Wikipedia Article explains, these "negative" temperatures are actually hotter than temperatures with a positive sign. It's just an artifact of the way the signs are handled in the equations.

Some people may find the following explanation more satisfying: There are 3 doors, and you choose one of them. There is a 1-in-3 chance that you have guessed correctly. If you have guessed correctly, you will win if you stick with your original choice, and you lose if you switch. On the other hand, there is a 2-in-3 chance that you have guessed incorrectly. In that case, the host will open an empty door, and the prize must be behind the other door. You will lose if you stick with your original choice, and you will win if you switch. So, "not switching" wins 1-in-3 times, and "switching" wins 2-in-3 times.