@north,
Hi North!
...bare in mind that the "objects" one is speaking of are concepts of objects...
...its not even the question of if these concepts refer or not refer to actual things, but rather, in
where to what they refer its either in the mind or out the mind which as world contains the mind who contains the objects who again are contained in the world...
As concepts, either more or less extended, objects still are things which are actual in whatever medium they are...the extension or the size they have is limited by our knowing on their operational functionality at least as concept objects...since objects beyond our computable concept of them are actually ultra-objects with an almost if not infinite amount of functions and therefore potential meanings...
...that all to say that in or out the mind probably is irrelevant...either way they are actual, since they are what they are...
...to say also:
...if to consider all potential its true then HARD DETERMINISM its fact, since all possible is actual in whatever space time or multiverse there can be...
even as concepts they have a huge potential scope in description although smaller then the actual if actual objects as outside objects, since they would still be actual even if in mind, well never mind !...
...imagine for instance that a coca-cola bottle can be a nut-hammer for a chimpanzee, or even a blunt weapon, and so on...
...in this regard the operationality/functionality/meaning of the object can eventually be extended directly to all the local potential agents in its radius scope having a specific algorithmic relation to every single one including parts and sub-parts (atoms) thus being many in one...and if we are to go indirect then a potential relation with the entire reality...somehow the part equals the whole via function which makes it what it REALLY is...
