GE Morton wrote: ↑November 11th, 2022, 12:09 pmIn ontological realism the assumption is made that the quality 'be definite/determinate' (i.e. that it exists) is able to be denoted meaningfully which means that one is obligated to explain the origin of that ability. It is nonsensical to presuppose that an external world would stand meaningless and independent from a mind that is to 'find' meaning in that world.value wrote: ↑November 11th, 2022, 4:57 amOf course, given that "meaning" and "relevance" apply only to experiencing, sentient creatures. But whether a property is meaningful or relevant to someone has no bearing on whether it exists.
A property can only be considered to have been meaningfully relevant (i.e. be definite/determinate) IN experience.
While an individual creature is evidently not the origin of the external world, the observer per se is a concept that is logically applicable.
GE Morton wrote: ↑November 11th, 2022, 12:09 pmHow can that be said of the idea of notion of properties in a general sense, e.g. the applicability of 'subjective perspective per se' on anything within the external world?Experience therefore must precede all notions of properties and cannot be of the same kind as a something that has properties while experience cannot be factored out either.Again, of course --- one must experience a property before one can develop any notions about it. But the necessary conditions for there to be a notion of a property are not necessary for the existence of the property.
GE Morton wrote: ↑November 11th, 2022, 12:09 pmWith 'reality' I meant 'the external world' that supposedly posseses the nature intrinsic existence without mind.What is reality otherwise than that of which it can be said to have been observed?Anything imagined which may serve as a cause of that which is observed.
The idea 'meaninglessness' is not coherent with the idea of an external world that is to produce conscious experience. Therefore, there is a requirement of 'assignment of meaning' (signification) that requires a fundamental explanation.
As mentioned in an earlier discussion I view the term value to mean 'beholder of meaning' which means that anything that can be seen in the world (all that is empirical) is value. That meaning would therefore be necessarily 'a priori' to (relevant before) value.
The idea that value (e.g. an intrinsic existing external world) can be the origin of itself is absurd. Therefore that external world requires the facilitation of the assignment of meaning (signification) as ground for its value and that cannot be otherwise than an observer since it is the observer that logically introduces the begin by which finite value manifests itself.
The begin introduced by an observer is therefore logically the begin of the external world.
GE Morton wrote: ↑November 11th, 2022, 12:09 pmI have no idea what an "a priori meaning" would be. You're using terms with well-established and understood meanings (i.e., "meaning"), to denote something obscure and not included in any dictionary definition of that term. There are no "a priori meanings." One may only speak of "meanings" with reference to something that has a meaning, such as a term or symbol. What exists a priori --- prior to conscious creatures --- is a (postulated) external world capable of producing them.You do not agree with my use of the term meaning. The basis is the idea that meaning is only applicable from within a subjective perspective relative to an intrinsic existing external world.
My primary argument has been that the idea of value - all of which it can be said to exist or to be empirically evident - to fundamentally be the origin of itself is absurd. Value requires the assignment of meaning (signification) and without that an 'external world' cannot be meaningfully relevant.
Therefore there must be a 'meaning' that is relevant a priori to existence.