Euthyphros dilemma...

[Neo-Scholastic]

No, I really do understand because I agree with you! You must start with some basal value(s) as the foundation. The first such basal value is that which is indispensable: life. You don't assign value to life in comparison to anything else. It serves as the basis of all derivative values.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that life is inherently valuable, it just means that you have no underlying value that grounds your valuing of life. Money has no inherent monetary value, it has it because we say it does.

You sound like an existentialist.

[MindForgedManacle]

Well, I enjoy some of their writings (mostly Sartre). :p He was brilliant and understood the potential of what an author can do than just about anyone.

But what I'm saying is effectively this. What do we mean when we say something has value? Clearly, we don't mean there is this property called 'value' that is objectively held by the object in question, regardless of what agents think about it.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I agree. Sartre is brilliant and has been a major influence on me. As I see it there is an ontological difference between mental properties and physical ones. Value can be an essential property of mental things but not of physical things. The only reason we can confer value on physical things is by reference to some irreducible nonphysical source.

[Angrboda]

I agree. Sartre is brilliant and has been a major influence on me. As I see it there is an ontological difference between mental properties and physical ones. Value can be an essential property of mental things but not of physical things. The only reason we can confer value on physical things is by reference to some irreducible nonphysical source.

Why do irreducible nonphysical sources have the capacity to serve as foundation of value if physical sources do not? What is it about these hypothetical sources that makes them capable of providing foundation for intrinsic value? How does intrinsic value work? Is it like ectoplasm that's left behind by the mental? What's the operational concept here? Are we just natural intrinsic value bestowers?

[MindForgedManacle]

Hm, not sure I agree there. If something is externally imbued onto something by a mind, I don't think it's coherent to claim it can be an essential property of that thing or the thing imbuing it. After all, color isn't a a real property of objects, but a mental interpretation of sense data. But neither is color an essential property of the mind, it's something the mind creates and we experience as being part of the thing, when we are the key component.

So, I don't think it's quite right to say value is a property of mental thngs, but rather that value is a construction of the mental which it treats as a property of other things, much like how when I say something is tasty, I don't mean there is an objective property of what I'm eating that itself is 'taste', I mean it is appealling to my sense of taste.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I agree. Sartre is brilliant and has been a major influence on me. As I see it there is an ontological difference between mental properties and physical ones. Value can be an essential property of mental things but not of physical things. The only reason we can confer value on physical things is by reference to some irreducible nonphysical source.

Why do irreducible nonphysical sources have the capacity to serve as foundation of value if physical sources do not? What is it about these hypothetical sources that makes them capable of providing foundation for intrinsic value? How does intrinsic value work? Is it like ectoplasm that's left behind by the mental? What's the operational concept here? Are we just natural intrinsic value bestowers?

I will answer your question after you explain what it is about physical sources that makes them capable of supporting extension in time/space and fundamental forces.

[Angrboda]

Why do irreducible nonphysical sources have the capacity to serve as foundation of value if physical sources do not? What is it about these hypothetical sources that makes them capable of providing foundation for intrinsic value? How does intrinsic value work? Is it like ectoplasm that's left behind by the mental? What's the operational concept here? Are we just natural intrinsic value bestowers?

I will answer your question after you explain what it is about physical sources that makes them capable of supporting extension in time/space and fundamental forces.

No, I will not. But you're welcome to pretend that's a valid reason to avoid answering my question if you like.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Why do irreducible nonphysical sources have the capacity to serve as foundation of value if physical sources do not? What is it about these hypothetical sources that makes them capable of providing foundation for intrinsic value?

My question and the failure to address it reveals the blind spot of materialism. You place a greater explanatory burden on dualist theories than on monist ones. My point was that your questions can be turned back on naturalistic theories, as in “Why does the physical ground of being have the capacity to serve as a foundation for physical properties?”

You can know many things about the material world, like forces and constants, without actually knowing what gives matter the power to express them. Materialist theories take for granted their assumption that, at base, an irreducible primal matter, distinct from the various properties assigned to it, underlies all physicality.

So when I ask, what gives matter the power to manifest physical properties, you have no answer. A source (Plotinus called it the Soul of All) for pure intentionality serves as the informing principle for primal matter, that which has a propensity to exist. The reason you can assign meaning and value onto physical reality is because you partake of that source.

Are we just natural intrinsic value bestowers?

No. That which bestows has inherent value. That is to say, you are the source of the value you give to the world.

... color isn't a real property of objects, but a mental interpretation of sense data...neither is color an essential property of the mind, it's something the mind creates... [and] ...value is [not] a property of mental things, but rather...value is a construction of the mental which it treats as a property of other things...

@MFM, your analogy fits. Color is a psychological (mental) phenomenon. Wavelength is a physical phenomenon. They are closely related; however, I think it begs the question to say one creates the other.

[Angrboda]

My question and the failure to address it reveals the blind spot of materialism.

Failure? You're hallucinating again. I refused to answer your question. That says only that I refused to answer and nothing more. As usual, you infer more than the facts allow.

You place a greater explanatory burden on dualist theories than on monist ones.

Liar. I chose not to answer and noted that your question did nothing to help your point. That's all. You can stop constructing straw men at any point here.

My point was that your questions can be turned back on naturalistic theories, as in “Why does the physical ground of being have the capacity to serve as a foundation for physical properties?”

Your point was a fallacious attempt to shift the burden of proof through slander and a tu quoque argument. But I've come to expect little better from you.

So when I ask, what gives matter the power to manifest physical properties, you have no answer.

More lies. My refusal to answer neither implies that I have no answer, nor that no answer is available to me. When you stop trying to play Sigmund Freud and cease building your straw man army, you be sure to let me know.

A source (Plotinus called it the Soul of All) for pure intentionality serves as the informing principle for primal matter, that which has a propensity to exist. The reason you can assign meaning and value onto physical reality is because you partake of that source.

I'm not really in a charitable mood, given that you've once again chosen to trammel my reputation with a bunch of spurious lies, all founded on a threadbare argument from silence, but if we derive value from partaking of that source, how does that source acquire value? All you've done is substitute one empty argument for another; you're trying to equivocate your way out of trouble. Or am I supposed to infer that you're making the ipse dixit argument that it has value "because it just does?" ("That which bestows has inherent value. That is to say, you are the source of the value you give to the world." Is this bare assertion what all these lies have been used to defend?)

You've explained nothing. And as usual, leveled a bunch of slanderous and unfounded accusations against me.

Now, if you're not going to actually answer the questions, fuck off, you characterless twat.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I’m sad that you put so much of your effort into insulting me. No offense was intended. Because this discussion is moving tangential to the OP, I will pick up the theme on my Scientism thread.