…use to think about it, they’re just symbols of the underlying thing most assume them to actually be. For example, if I were to ask you what the image above is, you’d probably respond with something along the lines of: “oh, that’s a pipe”. But of course there’s no smokeable pipe in front of you. It’s an image of a pipe that once existed in an artist’s mind, portrayed upon paper for others to see, and presently viewed upon your screen. In other words, the mental mapping between the image representing the pipe and a pipe itself is so strong that it practically disappears. This metaphor approximates the manner in which we consider the money we hold in our hands to actually be valuable, rather than to merely stand in as placeholders for value.
But I keep asking, because when one ponders the question for any substantial amount of time, the concept of money begins to seem rather absurd. These little pieces of paper we use as money — each covered in symbolic flourishes — have somehow come to represent the collective set of values otherwise trapped inside the skulls of 7 billion apes. Quite strange, indeed. Yet the US Dollar, and for that matter all other currencies, have much in common with the Magritte p…