Next week's Excel spreadsheets are most definitely imaginary.

Kind of.

I guess I'm not following where the "semi" part comes in, then.

Well, it's not totally imaginary--and my assumption (watch me project into Sean) is that imaginary comes up at all because it's sustained by our acceptance of and belief in it. My chair needs no such sustenance. Even if I don't use it to sit in, it's still chairy.

I don't know what the proper word is, and I haven't seen it used here yet, or at least not recognised it as such.

And if I'm going to get really semantically nitpicky, semi-imaginary != fictional.

Well, you asked me to clarify what my problem was, and that's how I read semi-imaginary.

I think you read me to be disagreeing with you when I was responding to Sean. In re-reading, I see a misunderstanding that needs to be cleared up, and Jessica has done most of the heavy lifting there. There is a big difference among (1) a market for a particular item (2) the economy as a whole and (3) economics as a description of certain behaviors. The fact that the value of something changes /= disappearance of a whole economy /= the scientific status of economics. Economics and economies are not "semi-imaginary", even if the values of some things are highly disputed at different periods of time.

What ita said.

Economies are not imaginary. An economy will always exist when there is competition over access to limited resources. An anthill has an economy, even though individual ants don't possess much of an imagination.

If our existing money-based economy gets replaced with one based on the blunt-force application of sticks and rocks, it doesn't mean that one is more real than the other.

Next week's Excel spreadsheets are most definitely imaginary.

My personal experience contradicts your assertion!

Just a small town girl...

Just a small town girl...

I can sense my put increasing in value already.

I think you read me to be disagreeing with you when I was responding to Sean.

Well, I'm mostly agreeing with Sean, but that's not it. I have seen reactions to ideas where the ideas don't seem to have been posted. That's why I keep saying "I don't know who said that" and why I ask who did. Not just because I didn't say it.

If no one trades, there is no economy, right? Or is the null economy still considered one? I mean, if I create most of what I need and steal the rest (assuming the actual existence of other people doing the same, because the economy that is null because there are

The fact that the value of something changes /= disappearance of a whole economy /= the scientific status of economics.

I don't think I was explicitly asserting any of those things. I don't think changes in value, even drastic ones automatically cause an economy to disappear, but they do sometimes disappear. To the point of damaging the ability to trade effectively on many different levels. And I recognize that there are different levels of economic activity, in fact one of my points is that sometimes an entire level can be crippled or destroyed for a time. I don't believe I ever asserted that all economic activity can vanish with a thought, just that the amount of trust and consesnual reality involved in economic activity seems greater and to have a more significant impact than in other areas of human endeavor that involve high degrees of trust and/or consensual reality.

And I don't see where any of that implies that I think there cannot be scientific measurement, study or understanding of economics on any level.