If you established that thoughts in the brain are neurons firing off, transmitting electrical signals in specific patterns, and if you could establish certain patterns to be chains of thought, would those patterns exist if you could identify them? If so, then concepts would indeed exist.
The patterns themselves vary from brain to brain and additionally every concept exists. This doesn't mean that every concept is true. And by true I really want to say applicable to nature.
Your point being?
The way I see it ends, means and justification are words to which each of us apply similar and strongly defined concepts, which means that regardless of them being human constructs, we can discuss the relation between them.
We think about very similar things when we use words like "ends" and "means", but we can't quite define them exactly in physical terms either, simply because that is not possible.
Your argument is stupid and senseless as it precludes the discussion of anything that is not directly tangible, while human beings clearly value discussion of non tangible things and have done so for thousands of years.
Those discussions that humans value, are they valuable ? We don't care. My argument does not preclude the discussion of anything that is not directly tangible. I'm only in the mood of pointing out that this debate cannot end conclusively. Which also means that if we discussed tangible things we could theoritically be able to do just that, even though we don't really value it.
To start such discussions automatically leads to "now bring it to eleven" arguments that push our definitions of the concepts to their limits. At some point we realise we are like blind people trying to reason why blue is more aesthetically appealing than red, and quickly forget about the subject.
