'guess if you take the idea of a means to its logical end, it really could be the entire state of affairs (Mises) someone is faced with. an axe is my means to chop wood…but really so is gravity, friction, momentum, my arm, the fact that my arm is attached to my body, the fact that i am not in handcuffs, the fact that there is light for me to see by…these are all means if any of them is! why the axe any more of a means than the light?
still, all of those are necessary for me to chop the wood. there being 9 donuts in my car is not necessary for my chopping of the wood. i don’t utilize that aspect of the state of affairs as a means…but then, is it really an aspect of my state of affairs? or, in such cases, is it just an irrelevant nothing?
ok wait, i think i got something: “there are 9 donuts” has meaning to me in the present moment only as far as it is relevant to whatever action i am taking now. specifically, if i just try to collect random facts that may at some point be useful to me, and this seems a habit of most humans, “there are 9 donuts” is going to be relevant to me for chopping the wood…orrrr maybe not?
nah, this is it: eureka! (maybe). it’s really that there’s this state of affairs, whole and undifferentiated. it is state of affairs A, and it includes an unchopped block of wood, a whole slew of other things…and 9 donuts in my car. i want to change this state of affairs to a state of affairs B that includes a chopped block of wood, that same whole slew of other things…and that same 9 donuts in my car. i don’t care about the 9 dounts really, but if we look at the entire state of affairs as whole and undifferentiated, then we cannot say anything other than that i am “utilizing” or “working” or “acting on” state of affairs A to change it to state of affairs B. then all of A is the means and all of B is the end. that is with no subdividing of the two states of affairs down into specific parts like the axe or the light or my arm or the donuts. then once i reach B, it becomes my new means, and i select a new action to reach state of affairs C, my new end. and so on. or something like that?
it is as if the current instantaneous frame of your experience is your means, the entire thing, not any one part of it, and the next (or next next next…) frame of your experience that you anticipate or hope your present action to accomplish is your end, and each end achieved becomes a new means because it is now your present frame of experience that you will act on to try to get something even better, or at least less worse.
in some ways it’s a very unenlightening way to think of means and ends, but it could perhaps have its uses?