To give some input, I do not understand.

if there is such a thing as an idea that has a definable ontology, then it in some way would need to be instantiated. However how does an idea find its first instantiation? — Mark Sparks

If we take an idea to mean a form or structure of organisation, then it would be instantiated only upon its stable and persisting realisation.

That would be the concrete view. A form is what binds material possibility to some enduring state of order. So that is what is found by the end, in the limit, because change has effectively ceased. Instability is what has been eradicated.

This is, I would say, the ontology of quantum field theory and other physical theories based on the emergence of topological order. A hot iron bar has jiggling iron atoms with their magnetic dipoles pointing randomly in all directions. But as it cools, all the jiggling slows and the dipoles have to line up in some mutually agreed fashion. The iron bar itself now has the new emergent and topological state that we call a magnetic field.

So it is the same general logic. Platonic ideas were an early way to talk about what we would now think of as an ontology of structuralism. The world is bound by global mathematical forms – the constraint of symmetries – which it cannot in the end ignore.

These constraints "always exist" in some real sense. It is just that they exist as the final cause or goal state. They are concretely realised by the end when the forces of constraining order have put an end to the hot jiggle of the material possibilities.

They are not instantiated until they are written down, or uttered in language. Only then can one point to it and say “that is an idea”. Even then, though, what they are pointing at is words, symbols, and nothing beyond those. Further, no idea exists until those symbols are read, understood, and considered. I’m afraid “ideas” have no ontology.

Consider ‘computer’. Roughly before 1950 in saying that word people would mean, a person who did computations. Roughly after that, they would mean, a machine that did computations.

Of course there are experts who can make acceptable decrees. In the early 50s atomic explosions created new elements like einsteinium, 99 in the table.

Sometimes we accept decrees in language, but mostly we go with the flow. Every year there are new ideas in the music/software games, for example, that I’ve lost track of.

Not clear what you mean.

Maybe looking into ideas surrounding emergentism would help? Sounds like the kind of ballpark you are playing in.

These constraints "always exist" in some real sense. It is just that they exist as the final cause or goal state. They are concretely realised by the end when the forces of constraining order have put an end to the hot jiggle of the material possibilities.

Interesting thoughts here. So am I understanding correctly that you are saying that a “newly instantiated idea” is not necessarily something new being instantiated but the final form in new order of that which has already been instantiated?

Thanks for the responses so far, I’ll check out emergentism. I also think that if we grant immanent realism then an idea would have an ontology,

For those to whom I have been confusing, I’ll try to restate in an arrangement of propositions.

(1) An idea exists.
(2) That idea has a universal ontology in virtue of its existence.
(3) That ontological makeup is contained within that idea
(4) That idea began to exist at some point
(5) Ideas are instantiated through encounters with other instantiation of the idea

How could that idea begin to exist without encountering an instantiation of the idea?

Hopefully this gives a clearer structure to tear apart.

The only points that are clear to me are 1 and 4. I can't fathom what 2 would mean, especially. It would be helpful if you could give an example.

how under an “in re” realism metaphysic a seemingly new idea (or concept) could come into existence. — Mark Sparks

Realism is the assumption that some things exist independent of us. For example, molecules exist regardless of our discoveries or ways of organizing things.

It does not exclude things whose existence depend on us. For example, money is just as real as molecules but exists only as long as we agree to believe that it exists.

Real things can have different modes of existing, e.g. natural, social, phenomenal. Conscious states, e.g. perceptions and beliefs, are real biological phenomena, and unlike molecules and money they exist only for the ones who have them.

Many ideas exist as conscious states. They come into existence as we use our abilities to think, imagine, perceive etc.

Abstract ideas, e.g. mathematical or logical, seem to have an independent mode of existing as they are discovered and rediscovered by different minds. How do such ideas come into existence? Some things are brute facts, or tautologies, that do not require further explanations.