Money is the most perplexing notion that we humans have ever devised. On the one hand, money is basically a unit of measure of value, like grams and metres. On the other hand, we have reified money, turning it into an object, which can, itself, be valued. So money markets, where dollars are exchanged for euros, for instance, is like converting inches into centimetres.
As an object, the money supply, whether it be physical, in the form of coins and notes, or signate, as numerical data types in computers, must be limited. For if the forms of money were too plentiful, such as grains of sand, they would lose their value.
The absurdity of this situation became obvious in the 1970s, as we entered the Information Age, following the invention of the stored-program computer in the late 1940s.
For money is a type of information and so can be represented in the models of businesses that information systems architects develop. However, the value of information, which is determined by its meaning, cannot satisfactorily be represented in the quantitative financial models used by accountants, economists, and bankers.
So, if we are to manage our business affairs in a meaningful manner, we need to view money solely as a common denominator, as a measure of value, eliminating it as an object that can be exchanged in money markets, as Jesus did in cleansing the temple.
For, until investment bankers stop running our political and business affairs for their own benefit, we shall not be able to sort out the mess human society is in today. We could do so by looking at organizations through the eyes of information systems architects rather than those of financiers.
Such a harmonious system of governance can only become meaningful when we look at the Totality of Existence as an information system, whose data elements are interpreted and evaluated within the Cosmic Context of the Absolute, as the union of God and Universe, the ultimate contexts for religion and science, respectively.
Some insights into the religious and psychological causes of dysfunctional and unsustainable monetary economic systems are outlined in a 50-page essay from 2013 titled ‘The Sharing Economy: Transcending the Divisiveness of Money’, with some key terms defined in this Glossary.
Middle English moneie, from Old French, from Latin monēta ‘mint, coinage’, from Monēta, epithet of the Roman goddess Juno, in or near whose temple money was coined. The proper name may have developed from an Etruscan family name.
An alternative possible root is monēre ‘to advise, warn’, (root of monitor, with PIE base *men-¹ ‘to think’), with the sense of ‘admonishing goddess’. Apparently this is sensible, but the etymology is difficult. So a possible link of money to mind is not included in the Glossary.