I spent a large number of hours in adolescence playing Rummikub with my family. We played the game according to our understanding of the printed rules that came with the game. Eventually we lost that piece of paper, but we kept playing and having fun.

As an adult I sometimes play this game with new groups of people with prior experience of the game. Sometimes they interpreted the rules differently. Generally we resolve these differences without calling the police or giving someone the right to beat up whoever disagrees. I would be very unhappy if the police threw my friend in jail because he wanted to play the game differently. I would be very unhappy if my friend had to pay a heavy fine because he understood the rules differently than a judge.

Do I really need a government forcing my friends to play Rummikub with a specific set of rules? Things seem to work pretty well without it. Maybe the same can be said of coercive government in other areas too.

A person may note the necessity of judges in any highly competitive game. The World Cup and World Series use judges to resolve inevitable disputes. Not all people agree with the results, but the process works pretty well.

Does this idea work as well in real life?

The nature of games and real life have a very importance difference: the goals of a game are predetermined. Everyone playing the game agreed to play by those rules beforehand. It is impossible to play outside the rules or invent new rules while still playing the game.

For example, a player cannot decide during a chess match that he wants to arrange his pawns in the shape of an S. His goal is predetermined: capture the other player’s king. The black and white teams cannot decide to work together to move all their pawns to the other side of the board.

Real life is more flexible. A baby is not born holding a piece of paper upon which a handy set of rules and goals are written.

In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises noted how man must discover his own goals:

man chooses not only between various material things and services. All human values are offered for option. All ends and all means, both material and ideal issues, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision which picks out one thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at or want to avoid remains outside of this arrangement into a unique scale of gradation and preference.

And the best way to accomplish them:

Means are not in the given universe; in this universe there exist only things. A thing becomes a means when human reason plans to employ it for the attainment of some end and human action really employs it for this purpose. Thinking man sees the serviceableness of things, i.e., their ability to minister to his ends, and acting man makes them means. It is of primary importance to realize that parts of the external world become means only through the operation of the human mind and its offshoot, human action. External objects are as such only phenomena of the physical universe and the subject matter of the natural sciences. It is human meaning and action which transform them into means.

We will disagree on both goals and the means to achieve them: I want to code; you want to fish.

Daneil Lapin explains how these disagreements are what creates prosperity:

If we all agreed that fishing was better than sitting on a computer, none of us could be discussing such things on the internet.

Robert Murphy posts that God could create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it but chooses to abstain from such activity. He also claims that God could kill himself. Let us consider this question further.

We ask this question because we consider God to be like ourselves. We can lift some things but not others. God is omnipotent. Does that mean God can lift everything?

Lifting requires a subject and an object. It implies the existence of two things: the subject doing the lifting and the object receiving the lifting. An object like a stone will only lift after forming a relationship with a subject. Until the object is subjected to some other force, it remains in its current state.

Lifting — like action generally — adds characteristics to the object at the expense of the subject. I expend energy in order to add velocity and altitude to the boulder. The first law of thermodynamics tells us the work outputted never exceeds the work inputted. So if the object of input and output are one and the same it is impossible to accomplish anything. I cannot move myself. Lifting — like all action — requires distinction between subject and object.

At first it may appear otherwise — I can lift myself in the air with a handstand. But this ignores the other forces at play. A handstand works on the ground because I can push against the earth. But throw me out of a plane: my handstands no longer have any effect. I can only perform a handstand when a platform is under me. In reality, the object of my handstand is the earth itself. I do not lift up myself; I push down the earth.

So the question, “can God create an unmovable object?” assumes that God can create something beyond himself. Is this a wise assumption?

Saint Anselm described God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived. He used this idea to prove God’s existence in reality. To do so, he assumes attributes can only add to existence. So existing with attributes A and B is greater than existing with attribute A alone. If we consider God to have all the attributes that we imagine, then we can also conceive of God having those attributes and in addition the attribute of existence in reality.

Spinoza and Leibniz built upon this framework to show that God must be part of everything. If we can conceive of God having the particular set of attributes that allows him to create an unmovable object, we can also conceive of him having the attribute where he is part of the unmovable object in addition. Therefore, God includes the unmovable object — and everything else. God is everything and everything is God.

Who wonders whether he is a better lover than God? This assumes love is possible outside the presence of God. The reality is that it is only through God’s graces that love is even possible in the first place. The question makes no sense. No one asks this question.

The unmovable rock makes no more sense. The idea of a rock — movable or unmovable — existing outside of God contradicts the very meaning of the word God. Asking whether God can move himself assumes there is a place outside of God to which he can move. This is no less a contradiction. So asking whether God can create an unmovable rock makes no more sense than asking whether God can create a square circle or a colorless blue.

I have an interesting question for the author of the Human Action Study Guide: Can a God who is all knowing nonetheless act?

People engage in war to seek glory, power and wealth. I believe this shows that achieving happiness is complicated. And people often act in erroneous ways.

Acquiring a certain amount of money does not guarantee satisfaction in life. The same problem comes with living standards. Compare a person in the US with one in Asia. The person in the US probably has much more money and a higher standard of living. Who is happier? It depends.

No man is qualified to declare what would make another man happier or less discontented.

As Ludwig von Mises wrote in Human Action, we cannot know what other people value. One person may exchange income or living standards for more time at home with a larger number of children. Another may seek material wealth and abandon the pursuit of family. It is not our place to decide which path is more valuable — except in as much as it directs our own personal choices.

I believe war comes after a failure of understanding. One must understand the things that make himself happy. Otherwise his actions will be random; he is unlikely to find success in achieving happiness.

Man may think money and power are the only things that make him happy. He values other things solely in their capacity to increase his money and power. This man understands himself from a very limited framework.

So might such a man act in ways harmful to others? Of course. One acquires money and wealth from stealing. One obtains a great deal of power before murdering another. Mises explains further:

the concept of action does not imply that the action is guided by a correct theory and a technology promising success and that it attains the end aimed at. It only implies that the performer of the action believes that the means applied will produce the desired effect.

So is this murderer likely to find happiness? The psychological state of men returning from war suggests this is unlikely. Thieves are no different. Stroll the halls of any penitentiary. I suspect one will find stories of neglect, regret, anger and pain. One would hear few stories of joy. I suspect the same holds true of Stalin, Hitler and Tojo. Bush too.

People enjoy helping others. We are a social species. This lies at the heart of cooperation. So I believe that a person will do something to increase his satisfaction with life, even if it increases someone else’s
satisfaction more.