Is there anything which is truely priceless. Specificly beyond any market value sans emotional or personal value?
I would venture a guess that regardless how much money you have or could acquire, it would be impossible to purchase ocean-front property in, say, Montana. That’s priceless, by your definition.
This priceless thing or object would have to be something that currently exists. Sorry if I did not frame my question correctly.
Does life qualify? For no matter how much money you have or love for somoeone once something has lost it’s live you can never put life back into it.
I would think there are some things–the original manuscripts of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, the Mona Lisa, and so on–which it would be very difficult to sell to anyone for any price, simply because they would be incredibly famous stolen property which no one could hope to hang on to. I guess you could try holding them for ransom, though. (“Give me one hundred million dollars worth of flawless, blue-white, brilliant cut, 1-carat diamonds if you ever want to see the Mona Lisa again!”)
All intangible things are priceless by definition.
Again with the ‘all’ Peice. All intangible things are not priceless. My time and knowledge are intangible, but the going rate is about $20/hour. Freedom is intangible, and yet people have always bought and sold it. A view is intangible, and yet adds to the price of a building. The list goes on and on.
On the OP, I can’t think of any objects aside from people that are truly priceless. There are very few people if any who would not sell their most valued possesion for food if they were starving. Whether something is for sale is dictated by circumstance, but I can’t think of any items that would be truly ‘priceless’ in all circumstances.
I’m going to sit with Peace on this one. My sense is a more romanticized version of “Intangible” than the one just offered. Seems that…maybe…Peace was referring to TRUE intangibles. A human touch. The spoken word, delivered to the ears that need to hear it at just the right time, the powefully brilliant moonrise over a bitterly cold field. A stirring of emotion or images. To me those are intangibles. We, in this lifetime, have defined other things- one’s time, etc.- as very very tangible.
One cannot sell what one cannot control. I can control my time. I cannot control a moonrise. A kiss. A whispered word. A lovely gesture, followed through carefully.
Cartooniverse
Cartoon, tx. If you will allow me to elaborate:
My understanding was, that, using Gaspoge example, a view becomes “tangible”, if it can add value to the house. It will remain immaterial. I.e. only truly intangeable things are to be called “priceless”. Your “time”, at $20/hr, is not what you sell. You sell your labor. You may price it by a time unit, for convenience. If I pay, my only concern is your work. Whether you will spend 1hr or 10hr, is not important to me. I’ll fire you if you become two expensive.
People, on the other hand, can be bought. It may be illegal. Or it may be partial (a part of the body). Or it may include more than that. Or it may be rented. Yes, I’m talking about prostitution, but not exclisively.
Beautifully written Cartooniverse. But do you honestly mean that if you were starving you wouldn’t sell a kiss or a touch. Obviously you couldn’t sell the ones that have already gone or the emotion behind it, but I assumed that we were talking here about things that currently existed. If we’re not constrained to things that actually exist then obviously a dinosaur or a unicorn cannot be sold.
My definition of intangible was simply the common one of something that cannot be touched, and time qualifies for this.
I also assumed that the items had to be ours to sell. If we aren’t constrained to our own possessions then I can’t sell you the Brooklyn bridge either (I hope). You don’t own the moonrise and can’t stop me from viewing it, so any such sale would be very strange indeed. If you had the capacity to sell it, as in you could never enjoy such a thing again, are you saying that you wouldn’t sell it to save your most loved family member from death? Many people do sell views like this every day, and the price is exceptionally high. But there is a price nonetheless.
I agree that there are many intangible things that cannot be sold, but mainly because, as you say, we do not have control of them to sell, as in the case of a moonrise or the stars, or an emotional state. Similarly many peoples dignity, pride or loyalty cannot be bought. But I still can’t think of any physical object aside from another person that a person wouldn’t sell to save her life.
Gaspode, you will love it, because it respectfully treats the official/dictionary (what’s the adjective, BTW, dictionarial?) definition: tangible=touchable, intangible, by default, cannot be touched. But, as we agreed, some things can be sold. Even soul, at least, on stage. Again, you are right about Brooklyn bridge: you have to posess it in order to legally sell it to me. But I have my wife love. I may have it, but can’t sell it to you. You may have the misus, but not her love. Interesting.
. . . back to the OP.
I think DaVinci’s “Last Supper” is painted on a stone wall, and cannot be moved, so is considered priceless. And I don’t imagine there’s any attainable price that would get the Vatican to sell the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel.
–The Rose Windows of Notre Dame
–The statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial
I imagine there are quite a few things, even limiting yourself to “works of art,” that are practicably priceless.
But Liss, even by that logic those items are priceless as they stand now. But say, were the United States fall into collapse and ruin the lincoln statue may be considered up for auction.
I agree with MannyL. The cost of MY life to ME is priceless. There is no amount of money you can pay me to give up my life. No price, so priceless.
smackfu, peace, et al, read the damn OP.
BurnMeUp, spare me. That’s the lamest refuge of someone who’s argued themselves into a corner.
The OP is in the present tense.
“Yeah, but if aliens infiltrated the SDMB with an intergalactic computer virus that would cause all future tense verbs to appear as past tense, then how would you know?”
First things first. Everyone take it down a notch, please.
To the OP: The only tangible things that can be said to be priceless are those which are free to deliver and which have no replacement commodity. Air, for example.
And even then, a price can be affixed at some level – for example, by allowing or limiting or prohibiting pollution, a state is essentially putting a cost (in terms of economic growth) on the cleanliness of air.
So I think in the purest sense your search will be in vain.
I reread the OP. It does not make sense. "Qo: Is there anything which is truely priceless.
Specificly beyond any market value
i.e. beyond price (“market value”=price)
sans emotional or personal value?
Peace