‘Intrinsic Value’

I have to do some serious writing about this theme. Essentially the problem is this: if I am saying that the ‘value’ of those Turkish carpets is a function of their ability to trigger ‘value’ in us, is that different from saying that they have intrinsic value?

• Brian Eno, “A Year Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary”

While reading Brian Eno’s diary, I stopped at a question.

If the value of something lies in its ability to trigger a sense of value in us, is that really different from saying that the thing itself has intrinsic value?

Reading this, I began thinking about the years I have spent on these islands.

Dusk.
The sound of waves.
Moonlight.
Wind.
A person singing.

Can we really add value to any of these things?

Perhaps something else happens: we encounter what is already there, and something is awakened in us.

Maybe music works in the same way.

Music does not make nature beautiful.
Sometimes music simply makes us hear the wind and waves again, or notice the light that was already there.

Seen this way, perhaps what I have been doing on these islands was never about creating value, but about creating the conditions in which value can be noticed.

Does value reside in nature?
Or does it arise within us?

I don’t know yet.

Perhaps it belongs entirely to neither. Perhaps value comes into being somewhere in the encounter between the world and ourselves.

Today, the words intrinsic value gave me another way to think about this.