(July 25, 2015 at 7:47 pm)Nestor Wrote: Is my belief that anything is more meaningful than another just as groundless as the object "Bill" cherishes as his "spirit" or "higher power"?
Yes, if your measure of meaningfulness is some consistent objective criteria that must take its place on some fixed unalterable scale. I don't necessarily disagree with the hierarchy of abstraction, but have a difficult time with a ladder as an analogy. What of the grey areas between rungs; similar to the fact that every offspring is the same species as its parents yet we acknowledge speciation. Demanding objectivity where only subjectivity is warranted may cause one to lose his/her mind.
Extending Exian's point, no single molecule of water is wet. It's an emergent property when a shitload of them get together and even that's state dependent. As far as we know, mind is an emergent property dependent on lower level physical and chemical interactions. The same way wetness can't be reduced to a property of a molecule of water, the mind may never be reduced to a simple accounting of physical/chemical interactions. I can't be certain that his was precisely what Exian meant, but is why I'm just as comfortable with subjectivity. The fact that you and Bill don't place the same meaning and value on all states of existence suggests that meaning and value cannot be grounded as one might expect; i.e., reduced to an optimum and preferable physical and chemical state. Add just a few more people and your ladder becomes a web or cargo net.
