Warranted the person is an idiot. — Posty McPostface

He doesn't have to, it's just basic psychology.

Take luxury clothing. If I'm a millionaire and someone wants to sell me a $10 dollar shirt, I won't even bother. But if they start talking of some unique $1000 shirt, I might start listening and inquiring more - I'd be asking myself, how can a shirt be worth so much? Maybe there really is something to it, etc. In other words, it would catch my attention, which is half the sales game.

That 'feeling' can only be established relative to a competitors product. — Posty McPostface

Yes and no. It's also relative to what you perceive your own worth to be.

So take it like this. I receive 5 offers:
website for $200
website for $1000
website for $2000
website for $5000
website for $10000

I don't even bother looking at the first one, because it seems too low, I will say that's low quality work - I automatically make that assumption. I will associate the 10K one either with a rip off, or with premium quality. So I will look into it. If I can easily afford all of them, just on a psychological basis, I will choose one of the top 2 by highest price in this case.

Again, you're talking about 'good' and 'bad' quality work now — Inter Alia

The "good" and "bad" are psychological associations made based on price. The $200 one may be as good as the $10,000 one in reality.

You can only do what you say if you have a monopoly or market fixing agreement. If there was another water salesman in the same desert he'd get the billionaire's money by charging less than you. You'd then respond by offering less than him, this would carry on until the supply value of the water was reached (which no one would charges less than otherwise they'd make a loss). — Inter Alia

No, I'd just agree to charge his whole wealth and split it with the other water salesman. Why fight, when we can cooperate and make the most?

the point is if it isn't better that the coffee shop version at £5 (English keyboard so I've changed your prices), then what's to stop your competitors from pricing their website to the oil tank firm at £5? What firm would pay you £100 rather than pay your competitors £5,youd very soon be out of business, surely? — Inter Alia

Psychologically speaking, if my company is selling $1,000,000/product through that website, I will want that website to be good. I'm not a web developer or a web expert though. But I will be okay paying what is still relatively little to me in order to ensure that it's as good as it can be. Paying $200 for it would be disgusting - I will feel like I'm getting a bad deal, and would much rather have the certainty of paying more to ensure good work. Relatively low prices are always associated with bad quality.

website for the rich firm is a 'better' website — Inter Alia

Why is it better? It's as good technically and in all other ways as the other one. The only difference is that they will be advertising to different groups of people. And of course they'll have different designs, since, well, they are different websites. And possibly slightly different functionality too.

And setting up multiple slightly different offers (the extra premium seats which cost $100,000 at football matches and the regular $10 seats) basically lets any producer or service provider to price discriminate.

But, you seem to have a very special product or service if you can charge 10000 to one company or individual and at the same time charge 1000 to another company or individual. I'm afraid we're in the twilight zone — Posty McPostface

Yeah that's what I meant to tell you. So this is another way in which some markets can operate, with transactions happening all over the actual demand curve. If the products sold are unique and there exists high differentiation amongst the participants along with the possibility of market segmentation this can end up happening. Market segmentation is possible because, for example, one of your clients does not know how much you charge the other.

Clearly the supermarket cannot do this, because they can't price discriminate (it's illegal, since their goods are commodities). But if you sell unique goods, oh well, then you're basically always price discriminating.

No, in the case I'm describing there isn't one equilibrium point at all, but rather multiple equilibrium points, all along the demand curve. So some person is willing and able to pay $10,000 for a website since the website is worth more to him (because of his business model and what he is selling) than someone else who is only willing to pay $200.

So draw a demand curve. At Q = 10 you have P = $10,000 and at Q = 50,000 you have P = $200. That means that 10 people are willing (and able) to pay $10,000 for the website, and 49,990 are willing and able to pay less than $10,000.

The idea is that if you could segment the market such that you can charge every person what they're willing to pay, then you'd be able to get the whole area under the demand curve as Revenues, instead of just the rectangle Peq * Qeq (well almost, to be mathematically correct, you'd be able to get all the area under the demand curve that emerges when you integrate with a step size dx = 1).

And the more your good is unique, the more you're able to do this.

Supply and demand. — Posty McPostface

It can't be supply and demand when the same good gets sold at about the same time to two different clients at wildly different price points. Supply and demand gives only one equilibrium.

So my reputation, portfolio, past clients, testimonials, etc. etc. is only relevant in giving them the confidence that the website I design and develop can bring them results. But the value of the website to them is determined by their business model more than by the previously mentioned factors.

Depends on many factors. How much you customer is willing to pay above market price and why would they do that, how your product or in this case service differs from the rest of the competition, reputation, etc. Too many to list but you get the idea, no? — Posty McPostface

And what determines what the customer is willing to pay?

What matters is the value of the website to them - what results they can get with it. That's what determines the cost of the website for them, and what they're willing to pay. If the website will get them $1,000,000 in sales (through a single client for example), clearly they're going to pay a lot more than if it will get them just $10,000.

I would agree with that.

The whole efforts of sales and marketing are (1) to make sure the goods that are sold are as far away as they can be from commodity status, and (2) the market can be segmented as much as possible (hence multiple offers at different price points). The opposite of a commodity good is a unique good. So we're trying to sell, as much as possible, unique goods. To give an example:

I was discussing with ssu the act of selling poems. When I start a poem selling business, I don't have a price. I need to determine one. I can look at an average price poems sell at on the market. Let's say this is $5. But now I want to move away from that price. So how do I do that? I need to clarify what needs my poems can meet, and attempt to quantify the value of those needs. That means I need to narrow down on my ideal customer - who would buy those poems.

So why might you buy a poem? Let's see, you want to give a special gift for your significant other, not some cheap sleazy common good that everyone gives them when asking them out. You want something personal that will showcase your love for them. You want it to be unique, effective, beautiful, and get the job done - ie get them to be impressed and say yes.

So now suddenly I'm selling personalised poetry that helps you get the girl of your dreams (expecting most of my customers to be men). How much is that worth? Well, who do I want to sell to? If I want to sell to millionaires it's going to be worth something different than if I want to sell to average people. If I sell average, I will look at the average wages of my market. Say that number is $4,000/month. So I will put my price at 10% of that. So $400/poem. So that will be one offer.

But I'll also have a super-premium offer, poems written by some of the best published poets in the world, combining psychological persuasion techniques with effective and sensual words. Get the girl of your dreams, or 100% money back guaranteed. There we go. How much is that worth? Well, say my intended audience is people who make $20,000/month or more. So I set my price at $2,000/poem.

The above is to illustrate how prices would be set. Of course, after those initial prices, you'd need to test them, and see how the market reacts. Meaning you send highly targeted advertising and marketing to whoever the ideal customer is, and see what kind of results it gets. You test $2,000 for the premium, $1,500, etc. and see whichever gets better (and more profitable) responses. Then you stabilise the price. But quite likely, those first prices will work - they may not be absolutely optimal, but they will get decent results, because they were built up based on some relatively simple (not in a bad way) and firm reasoning - that a man is willing to spend 10% of his monthly income to get a gift that could secure the girl of his dreams saying yes to his request to go out with her.

Umm, service goods or products offered obey the same relationship a commodity good does based on supply and demand. There should be no confusion with that. — Posty McPostface

So why is it possible to sell one website for $200 to a client, and another for $10,000, even though the same work goes in both, and they are essentially the same good? Why the price difference? The market doesn't have a single equilibrium or what?

Yeah but your only talking about supply and demand. I really don't get what's the issue. Maybe you would prefer a econometric explanation but I can't help with that. — Posty McPostface

The issue is that for non-commodities real value is often not the same as market value. So how can we scientifically calculate this real value? For example, someone is saying that XYZ stock is undervalued. To say it's undervalued means that the market price isn't the same as the real price, and the real price is actually greater. In the long run, the market will approximate the real price. So you ought to buy the stock. Right?

So for every asset out there, we must be able to distinguish between market value and real value - we must be able to determine what something should be worth, given a particular situation, not only what it is worth.

And this can actually be quantified scientifically. The "need" of the billionaire lost in the Sahara desert can be cashed out as the opportunity cost of refusing the water. If he refuses the water, he loses his fortune (by dying). If he accepts the water, he gets to keep a part of his fortune and all the money he will make in the future. Keeping a part is better than losing everything including the possibility of making more. Thus he will choose the water, and will, if he is strictly rational, accept any price up to the level of his wealth. That represents the value of the water bottle to him.

So it is with any other good. The value of the good must be cashed out in financial terms for the person in question given his situation. The same good can be worth a lot to someone, and very little to another, depending on their circumstances.

Yeah, and that's what makes prices stable over time also, what you didn't mention. — Posty McPostface

Again, this applies to commodities, not to other goods. Commodities do tend to have the same price for everyone. If I'm dying of thirst in the city and go to the supermarket, I'll buy a water bottle for the same cost as the person who has already drunk 3L in the day. For commodities, market value is equal to real value (for the most part). This isn't necessarily the case for other goods - and the farther away they are from commodity status, the least this is likely to be the case.

If we have a supply shortage of water, prices will go up. But over time they will come back down. What determines the level they climb to, and the level they go back to over time? I'd say the level they go up to is determined by the market. The level they go back down to is the real value (which the market approximates in the long run).

How is arbitrage possible then? — Posty McPostface

Arbitrage is buying one good from one market, and selling onto a different market at a higher price.

If I buy a water bottle at my local supermarket, and then get it to the billionaire lost in the Sahara desert who is dying of thirst, I'm sure I can pocket hundreds of millions for that bottle of water (and getting him to safety).

What makes this possible? The fact that in one place the person needs water much more than in the other AND he is capable to pay for it. So the price I can sell once I bought the water depends on two factors: (1) how much do the people of the market I want to sell on need it?, and (2) how much can they afford to spend on it?

So people lost in the Sahara need water much more than you, who lives in the city, where you have a lot of water around you. And billionaires lost in the Sahara can pay millions for it. If you're lost in the Sahara, I can only sell the water to you for a maximum of your entire wealth - I cannot sell you for 100 million dollars, if you don't have 100 million dollars. You may be willing to pay me 100 million, but you can't.

So arbitrage is possible because needs differ from market to market, and possibilities of payment also differ.

There are also those people who are ignorant of some academic field of study and proclaim it to be non-scientific and wrong and consider the truth of it to be how they think and operate themselves. ;) — ssu

Sure there must be. And they're probably right usually. Practice beats theory in economics. But in my case, I have studied my fair share of economic theory - was it helpful for anything? Nope. What use that I understand the relationship between maximising profitability and making my marginal revenue = marginal cost, etc? In fact, economics is one of the most frustrating sciences precisely because it is so useless in its current form. That is evidenced by nobody from the supply-demand side in this thread being able to answer my questions and charges.

Really, I think economics is the field most in need of a revolution at the moment. People are stuck in absurd ways of thinking, that literarily don't have much to do with reality anymore.

But, you pay for the bread at a similar average amount every week, don't you? — Posty McPostface

No, there's more expensive and less expensive types of bread. And as I previously said, the closer a product or service is to being a commodity, the more real value approximates market value, meaning that the market does not overvalue or undervalue it.

Typically the invisible hand does that for you. — Posty McPostface

Sure, soon you're going to tell me that the invisible hand also puts money in my pocket :-}

When people don't understand how something happens, they postulate non-scientific entities like "invisible hands", "powers" (opium having sleeping powers), and the like, thinking they have explained the matter, while actually they left things as unexplained as before.

Earth. — TimeLine

Good! :D

the most common, basic, and accepted acts of human existence - sex — TimeLine

:s - are you living on planet Earth, or Mars? :-d As far as I know, eating, going to the toilet, drinking, sleeping and working are all far more common, basic and accepted than sex.

Pretty arrogant of you not to explain why a relationship based solely on sexual pleasure and economics is morally good. — TimeLine

It's not necessarily morally good, but it can certainly be morally good.

The high rate of divorce and failed relationships that were originally initiated solely for economics and sexual pleasure implies an absence of love and that emptiness impacts on the development of the child whether directly or indirectly. — TimeLine

The high rate of divorce has to do primarily with the lack of moral education. Contributing factors are also wrong social expectations and social relationships. One doesn't need to love the other, once married, in order to respect them, live with them and not divorce them - and act as one team together. That just requires moral discipline once a decision was made (to get married) to stick with it. Most people lack that.

In addition, contributing factors are matrimonial stress which typically comes from the fact that the two partners don't have common goals. If the wife, for example, stays at home all day, while the husband goes to work, it's inevitable that she will, sooner or later, feel neglected and start getting bored. Now boredom will push her, presuming that she lacks moral discipline, to engage in all sorts of actions from not taking good care of children, to not wanting to do her part in the house, to even cheating. So the elimination of "free time" is important. Therefore arrangements must be taken in order to ensure that there is little free time. And so on so forth.

It is wrong to spend $50,000 on a wedding, I can even go so far as to call that unethical. — TimeLine

No, it may be absolutely necessary to spend that or maybe more if you can afford it on the wedding. If you're worth nothing when you marry a woman, you don't have to. If you're a millionaire, then you sure as hell have to, otherwise she will think that she doesn't mean anything to you. In other words, the marriage must be a material effort it mustn't be easy. If you can easily afford to spend $10,000 on the wedding, then $10,000 is not enough. It's the effort that binds people together - something easily gained is easily lost.

So by spending less than you ought to on your marriage, you are actually undermining it.

I think antinatalism ought to be qualified as a mental illness O:)

tale of St. George and the dragon is factual — Sapientia

Actually I think the tale of St. George slaying the dragon is factual. Is there something wrong with that? :B O:) >:)

And the one who does have the sales skills, well, he very likely will not work for me, or for anyone for that matter. He can make more than enough alone, and he surely, if he wants, could open his own agency.

So putting your two arguments for the calculation of value together, what value does the boss in the first example use to determine what his employees 'could' earn on their own, if what a website designer 'could' earn is not a fixed rate anyway? Does he use the wage they 'could' earn by selling to oil tank producers or the one they 'could' earn by selling to coffee shops? — Inter Alia

Generally to coffee shops. To sell to oil tank producers you don't have to be a good developer, you have to be a good salesman. Those are two different skills. In the case where you're the independent developer, you can combine sales skills with development skills - you cannot just assume that someone who would work independently as a developer also has the sales skills. Most don't. Sales skills are actually the ones which are worth the most.

The other way is to think of an average they can earn in a year. The may get 1 oil tank producer and 100 coffee shops @ an average of $200. So that would be $50,000 per year. You may calculate a salary based on that.

In Marx's view machines don't create new value like human labour power. Machines (that were all originally created through human labour power, and thus have value) merely transfer a portion of their value into each commodity they help produce until they have become used up or obsolete. Human labour power can produce new value over and above its labour price unlike machines which merely transfer value. — bloodninja

Okay but then 10 hours of a software developer's time is worth more than 10 hours of a taxi driver's time? This does lead us to a situation where labour power is vastly different from one job to another.

This quote sounds Marxist to my ears. I'm thinking of a website like a machine. Like a machine, eventually the website will become redundant and need to be overhauled. Like a machine, contained in the website's value are the labour power (your qualifications and genius), the raw materials (software/hardware in this case), and the value transferred from other technologies (e.g. google analytics, etc). Like a machine, the website can be used in conjunction with fresh human labour power (in this case perhaps a marketing department?) to create new value over and above the value of the actual machine or website. — bloodninja

Agreed.

I might have misread you, but this example you gave makes your website pricing look arbitrary. — bloodninja

Depends on what you mean by "arbitrary". It's not arbitrary in the sense that I pick any number out there that meets my fancy and call that my price. But it is arbitrary in the sense that my price depends upon who is buying even though the work for client A and client B may otherwise be similar from a technical point of view. What they intend to do with the work is more relevant though - they're mostly looking to get clients through websites. So if I can better help one client with that, he will get charged more, since it's a slightly different service that way. I generally calculate a return value that my services will bring to my client, and then charge somewhere between 10-1% of that.

Marx looked at the economy from a socially average perspective. So for example, within our economy there are millions of website designers all trying to sell their product. The basic idea is that competition (and supply and demand) among website designers in conjunction with their socially average labour power (value) will determine a socially average exchange-value; not value but exchange-value. I feel like I'm ranting sorry.... — bloodninja

And that's the problem - Marx seems to apply the one-equilibrium idea from supply-demand economics. But things don't trade at one equilibrium since they are more valuable for some people than for others. Return to my example:

So if I make a website for an oil tank producer, where one sale is worth $1,000,000 on average, that is entirely different than if I make a website for a local coffee shop, where one sale is worth $5. I will charge the oil tank producer a lot more, even though it's about the same amount of work for me. — Agustino

So I might charge the coffee shop somewhere between $200-1000 depending on their size. If I charge them $1000, then they need to sell roughly 200-300 cups of coffee through the website to recover that investment - from there, it's all profit for them.

On the other hand, the oil tank producer is targeting B2B and 1 client will be worth $1,000,000. So if my website gets him just 1 client, he will get $1,000,000 in sales. So I can charge him much more - I can ask him for $30,000 for the website - that's 3% off 1 sale.

So the same work-time (roughly) can get me $1000 in one case, or x30 in another. Think about the downsloping demand curve. According to supply-demand economics, the way the demand curve functions is that sales happen at the price where supply = demand regardless of who the customer is. But market segmentation changes this. To the customer who is willing to pay $30,000, will get charged $30,000. And to the customer who is willing to pay only $1000, will get charged only $1000. The reason they're willing to pay more or less has to do with how much value the website brings to them, since there may be slightly different uses for the website. One client may need a different marketing strategy to be deployed through the website, etc. For an oil tank producer, the website brings a lot more value - 1 sale for him is worth x200,000 compared to the coffee house. So it's only reasonable that he's willing and able to pay more.

You may ask, why doesn't he just find a developer for $1000. He could, but that person will not be able to guarantee quality to the same extent, and it may end up being a bigger headache for themselves. So they feel much better in setting a big price to one good developer (a price that is still relatively pennies for them) and know that good quality work is being done, that will need very little effort from their side.

Now I only have limited time. So naturally, I will gravitate towards the oil tank producer types of clients. With them, for the same work time, I get paid x30. Of course, those clients are rarer, so I will also have some of the other, smaller clients.

The presence of smaller clients is good for people who are looking to enter into web development. It's a training ground. Everyone starts there. As you get better and more confident since your time is limited, you'll have the courage to move up the demand curve.

Would they not then be taking the mystical experiences of others on faith — Janus

They would be accepting that others, and even themselves, have mystical experiences. What they would deny is that those experiences yield knowledge. Remember the skeptical method as drawn out in Outlines of Pyrrhonism and similar works. It is to set different experiences against each other to show that they are contradictory to each other and hence knowledge in those regards is not possible.

So the skeptic would say that people do have mystical experiences. But an experience can be interpreted in contradictory ways, and therefore knowledge is impossible. For example, the same experience can be interpreted as sent by God to reveal truth, or sent by the devil to deceive. The same mystic can have an experience indicating absorption into God, and another indicating that there is a difference between God's essence and his essence. Etc. Thus no mystical knowledge is possible.

Let's take a look at the ending of Montaigne's chapter "On prognostications" from his Essays. He takes a look at something that is close to a mystical experience, but not quite - namely Socrates' daemon.

The daemon of Socrates was perhaps a certain thrust of the will which presented itself to him without waiting for rational argument. It is likely that in a soul like his (well purified and prepared by the continual exercise of wisdom and virtue) such inclinations, albeit bold and undigested, were nevertheless important and worthy to be followed. Everyone can sense in himself some ghost of such agitations, of a prompt, vehement, fortuitous opinion. It is open to me to allow them some authority, to me who allow little enough to human wisdom. And I have had some – equally weak in reason yet violent in persuasion or dissuasion but which were more common in the case of Socrates – by which I have allowed myself to be carried away so usefully and so successfully, that they could have been judged to contain something of divine inspiration.

Montaigne, Michel. The Complete Essays (pp. 45-46). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

So the skeptic may even act on those impulses, and use them in his life, but he will not claim that they yield knowledge. So even while using them, he will remain skeptical that they are things he knows.

The mystic, on the other hand, will claim certainty and knowledge as a result of those experiences.

So, you see the first camp as denying the possibility of mystical knowledge and/or revelation? — Janus

Yes. Think of it like a religious David Hume, instead of an atheist David Hume. So they would take Scripture on faith, and would deny that mystical experience can offer knowledge. Basically a religious Pyrrhonist.

I've never been really clear on the distinction between gnostic experience and revelation. — Janus

The mystics would say that mystical experiences reveal knowledge - so it acts as a revelation itself, along with Scripture. The religious skeptic would say that mystical experiences are to be treated with suspicion and cannot be converted to knowledge - we don't gain additional knowledge by means of these experiences.

I'm not sure about this distinction, because I see the non-discursive knowledge of the mystic to be in the form of intuitive feeling. This experience gets interpreted (obviously quite differently and yet with commonalities across different cultures) to become a form of non-discursive discourse; and that's where the faith comes in. — Janus

Yes, I see. However, from this description, you clearly land in the second camp, not in the first.

Sure, but philosophy cannot give you what you seek; only faith can; so, at best philosophy can prepare you for faith. For that to happen you need to give up the idea that the kinds of "answers" you are after can be acquired by philosophical thought and also the idea that salvation is dependent on some particular metaphysics or other.. — Janus

I generally agree with you on this. But this lands you in either of two categories. Would you say you're more of a religious skeptic of the likes of Montaigne, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Hamann or a mystic of the likes of Berdyaev, Eckhart, Boheme, etc.?

Both paths affirm the limitation of reason (and philosophy). I think the former emphasises faith much more, while the latter emphasises non-discursive knowledge (or learned ignorance) more.

Prayers don't generate profits, but profits are worthless to our soul. In which kingdom should you invest? — MysticMonist

I agree with you, but I don't think there exists this discrepancy between the material side and the spiritual side. I think, along with the likes of Socrates, that ironically, the one who "wins" spiritually also wins materially if that's his aim - but the converse isn't true - the one who wins materially isn't necessarily able to also win spiritually.

Like take me for example. If I neglect the spiritual side, then I am depressed and unmotivated, and so I can't be very productive. It's true that prayer, reading Scripture, meditation, contemplation, etc. don't bring me more business. But without doing those things, I don't have the motivation and mental strength required to do the things which do bring me more business. Humans aren't robots, and without taking care of the spiritual side, you fall apart it seems to me.

Then in terms of realism, there are conceptual idealists (like Kant) who say that universals are only in the mind, and there are conceptual realists who say that they are mind-independent (such as Plato). — Janus

There's also the neo-Platonist or Aristotelian notion that the forms are both in the mind AND mind-independent. And I think the Kantian transcendental idealism does necessarily slide into a more thorough-going idealism. Because the phenomenal world is necessarily ideal, and the thing-in-itself probably isn't spatial or temporal at all. Space and time are mere forms through which our mind organises sensation. So that means that it's like the computer's desktop. It's an interface that allows us to survive, but not also access truth. Maybe the whole world, if we follow Kant, is formed of pathé as TGW would say - and the phenomenon is just a useful interface for navigating our own pathé. So hunger is primary, and then it gets projected through the forms of space and time into a pain in the stomach associated with food, or whatever.

So materialism is incoherent for a Kantian. Idealism is the only possibility. The sensations, the content of experience, is indeed real - but this just means that it doesn't depend on our own mind, there is no solipsism involved. So we're back to a kind of Berkeley, where the question is where are the sensations (as ideas) coming from?

Yet if you take his philosophy to its logical conclusion the world does appear to be an idea in the mind of God, and this does seem to lead to the metaphysical primacy of mind. — Janus

Why do you think so? I see this as one possible interpretation, but why do you think it's the right one?

Spinoza can say that God (substance) is extensa (material), though, insofar as He is infinite extension, but it seems more difficult to claim that God is also form, because 'form' implies 'boundary'. — Janus

Well, in Spinoza's system, any given extension has a corresponding idea/thought - that's the parallelism of the attributes. So, technically, infinite extension would necessitate the infinitude of the other attribute as well.

Also in Aristotle, form doesn't imply boundary, and God is form - form being equivalent to act as opposed to potency.

The thing with Spinoza's system is that it allows for other possible parallel attributes. So we experience things as thought and extension, but maybe there are other attributes that are parallel to those that we don't have access to. That's one interpretation of the "infinite attributes" of the one substance.

The people in the elevator experienced something different than what a scientifically-minded atheist would experience. Why? — Harry Hindu

:s so you think a scientifically-minded atheist would not be afraid in that situation? Fear is a normal reaction when strange, out of order events happen. That event was out of order. If the elevator stops, electricity goes out, and then you find that another random person is inside the elevator who wasn't there before wouldn't you be scared? I'd be very scared, and I might even attack that person out of fear. Becuase I just wouldn't know what happened. Maybe someone hijacked the elevator, some psycho, and they're trying to kill me. How am I supposed to know in just a few seconds reaction time?

I wouldn't necessarily assume it was a ghost, but by all extents something abnormal is happening. I would definitely assume that.

Isn't it because they already accepted the premise of spirits, devils, angels, gods, etc. and THAT influences how they interpret their experiences, which is no different than your interpretation of your experiences? — Harry Hindu

No. It's because an event that they didn't expect - actually multiple events that they didn't expect - happened all at once. So they were confused and afraid because they couldn't understand what was happening. Anyone would be afraid, regardless of religious convictions.

Factually wrong. He had a long-term relationship with Francis Skinner, one of his students, starting around 1933. He later expressed guilt and regret at how manipulative he had been with Skinner. — Akanthinos

Hmmm I've never come across this before, but seems to be true.

Gusty, please do not misquote. — charleton

Where did I misquote?

Well, good, reading again my comment I didn't want to make him sound like an asshole. I mean, very often, when a teacher sleep with his student, that's in part because he's an asshole, but sometimes its not. So yeah, a human being. — Akanthinos

First of all, there is no evidence that Wittgenstein had sex with his male students. And I certainly doubt it, since he had some very ascetic sexual views, regardless of what his orientation happened to be.

This is very difficult to read - you should break it into paragraphs.

And I can't really follow what point you're trying to make. I never mentioned subjective in the text that you quoted so I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest. Perhaps you could clarify.

That ssu didn't understand the fundamentals of the technology of Bitcoin at that point in time - at least as it emerged out of his writing - was true. For example, it's undeniable that the fact that 1 Bitcoin is worth $20K isn't a problem by itself for the currency (unlike what ssu was suggesting) - because things can be traded in 0.0001 Bitcoins, unlike with regular currencies, where the least you can trade is 0.01 units.