Question for Atheists

[Neo-Scholastic]

If minds are a property of matter, is it still not possible for those minds, made of matter, to create purpose for things, solely as a function of their material mind's ability to conceive of something as "being for" something else?

I think you are begging the question by essentially asking if a mind made of matter could have mental properties (like create purpose and concieve things). If you could make a mind out of matter then sure. But can you actually make a mind out of just matter? Speaking hypothetically, it depends upon what you think the world is made of and at what scale you believe mind manifests itself. If you are talking about the biological scale, described with 19th century physics, then I do not believe electro-chemical and mechanical processes can generate mental properties.

Then again what exactly is matter (the stuff) when you deconstruct it to the most fundamental level? After you remove every contingent property all that remains is primal matter. And yet in order for something to actually exist is must exist as something. So what exactly gives primal matter form, since it doesn't get it from itself? Reality as we know it is made manifests by these two distinct principles: the propensity to be and the intentional agency. These two are distinct in thought but not in actuality. The interaction problem disappears if you can erase the gap between psychological properties (akin to form) and physical objects (akin to substance). So basically, I am saying that mind and matter are both fundamental and necessary parts of the world. Trying to build it all out of matter or all out of mind is like trying to make a one-sided coin.

So as it relates to the OP, a reality that consists of only matter (?) has no way to manifest anything at all, much less mind. And without mind you cannot have meaning.

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Of course meaning only comes in with agency. Things and experiences don't have meaning in themselves. They have meaning for agents.

Exactly my point.

Any qualia you have ever experienced was experienced by the physical you.

You are begging the question.

... the teleological is supplied by our own agency, something again which is embedded in the physical.

Why do you assume it's embedded (or perhaps generated by) the physical? What if reality was actually the action of agency upon the physical? Or stated otherwise, physicality shaped by agency.

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No amount of causal power is made manifest without an object upon which it can be exerted.

I agree.