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Not necessarily valuing it on it's entertainment potential, but on it's quality, which I do get is badly/loosely defined. But I'm also open to a conversation about beauty. Could you define what it means in this context?

I don't think that statement follows. Rock is objectively better than scissors, but it's not really quantifiably better. Another example: posets (partially ordered sets) can have a less than or equal function (which would make it objective if the function is well defined), but the qualities...

I'd say that I was talking on my intended topic, then you brought in beauty. What we are talking about is whether entertainment, or by extension art, can be objectively good, or only subjectively good. I argued initially that integrating over people's subjective value of the material gives a...

I'd say I would get it, as your responded to my post, but honestly, we seem to just be talking past one another/just won't agree.

Given this is what the entire conversation was about, and you want to talk about something else, sure I'm done here.

The bolded part. I never claimed beauty was resonation. I'm not even interested in beauty. I'm interested in what makes a work of art better, or more valuable, than another. I disagree that there is an objective beauty at all. I have been talking this entire time about whether the value of a...

This does not imply objectivity at all, as resonation requires participation of the viewer. I was trying to call attention to the resonation as what is valuable, and that without people, there would not be this resonation. Not actually what I'm saying. I totally get that the Mona Lisa is...

That's nearly a tautology. Something about the art moved us, namely how it looked resonated with us. But ultimately, if there were no people, then the art would have no one to move, so it wouldn't be moving. That point gives next to no evidence for your claim that there is some fundamental...

But that's just an assertion as well. It seems we have reached an impasse here.

Fair point, I'll clarify. The value of art is in how it affects people, it doesn't really have much intrinsic value (a book can be burned for fuel, so there is some, but you get the point). A masterpiece that no one sees has no value. But an okay book that touched someone deeply could have great...

I never claimed a full story. I just said that it tells a story. The story is 'X number of people bought Y at Z price'. It informs us about how popular the work was. You see, you assume works of art have objective value, and that's just not true. For a work of art to be objectively good, then...

No, the price definitely tells a story. It tells us how other people subjectively value it. If 40k people buy a certain book for $20, that means 40k people valued the given book at >= $20. And popularity of a book is definitely positively correlated with quality of a book, i.e. it's a good estimate.

No, I'm saying it's an objective estimate, i.e. an estimate that different people with different opinions will come to the same value for. I'm not claiming the estimate is always correct but that it is generally close, allowing for outliers (estimate), and that different people looking at the...

It's not great, but as a rule of thumb, it's honestly pretty good. For every exception like Twilight, there are numerous times it works well. Pointing out exceptions to a rule I say is a general guideline isn't the greatest argument.

But I'm not saying consensus = objectivitiy. I'm saying that the number on a price tag, and how much of the item was sold, are objective facts. Together, they create an objective measure of quality, i.e. one that can be calculated without subjectivity. Now the measure itself is not perfect, but...

First, it's by no means a perfect measure, as I noted repeatedly. A crucial weakness of the measure is that it doesn't differentiate people hating the book versus people just not caring versus people not hearing of it. It also needs to be adjusted for the time period in which it was sold, both...

I disagree with this. If we are accepting a subjective definition of value, then sales figures tell us how many people though the book would be worth X dollars. It's not the best estimate, but it's a pretty good one.

Economic value to a particular person is subjective. A price itself is objective (just look at the tag). If the item sells at that price, that would be a rough survey of the value people place on it. Though this is by no means perfect, as it also matters how much is sold and there are...

I would actually argue a mixture. For example, there are some books that I have very fond memories of reading, like Pride and Prejudice. I probably like this book more than average. In contrast, someone who was assigned it for school might like it less. And honestly, if we integrate over...