Does baseball exist? It’s nowhere to be found in the Standard Model of particle physics. But any definition of “exist” that can’t find room for baseball seems overly narrow to me. It’s true that we could take any particular example of a baseball game and choose to describe it by listing the exact quantum state of each elementary particle contained in the players and the bat and ball and the field etc. But why in the world would anyone think that is a good idea? The concept of baseball is emergent rather than fundamental, but it’s no less real for all of that.
In the modern human society money is no less real than guns or food. This may change if the society will collapse or change forms, but as things are now, there is nothing illusionary about money. When you donate money to charity, they gain the power to get food, or mosquito nets, or workers on the ground, or anything else that is hard to provide in a direct way.
I would alter that ever so slightly to say that money is as real as mathematics. Math is an unreasonably effective abstraction that allows us to efficiently and comprehensively describe a wide range of natural phenomena.
Similarly, money is an abstraction that allows us to trade a wide range of goods and services.
Mathematics is more real than money certainly. If we collectively agree that money has no value, it has no value. If we collectively agree that mathematics has no use, it does not stop being an unreasonably effective abstraction for describing natural phenomena.
To paraphrase Sean Carroll, money is as real as baseball.
In the modern human society money is no less real than guns or food. This may change if the society will collapse or change forms, but as things are now, there is nothing illusionary about money. When you donate money to charity, they gain the power to get food, or mosquito nets, or workers on the ground, or anything else that is hard to provide in a direct way.
I would alter that ever so slightly to say that money is as real as mathematics. Math is an unreasonably effective abstraction that allows us to efficiently and comprehensively describe a wide range of natural phenomena.
Similarly, money is an abstraction that allows us to trade a wide range of goods and services.
Mathematics is more real than money certainly. If we collectively agree that money has no value, it has no value. If we collectively agree that mathematics has no use, it does not stop being an unreasonably effective abstraction for describing natural phenomena.