Glostik91 wrote:My question was, 'how does one invoke something that doesn't even exist?' I assumed you were going to say something to the affect of one doesn't invoke a nonexistent thing but rather one invokes the idea of it within the mind. Is this what you're saying?
The invocation is part of its existence, like any referral. It seems to me pointless to wonder about "actually existing" since all things we refer to in words are tentative. Its "reality" comes out of the whole context and your relations to that.
To return briefly to the "after death scenario", it's just as presumptious to think about a "nothing" or "ending" as it is to assume continuation or endless repeat. Although I suspect the first options are less scary. People appear to desire that kind of rest, at some level at least. It remains to be seen if they'll ever get it!
....all bogus questions. They are all dumb questions, and one who asks them in expectation of a solution is diseased. There are no philosophical/metaphysical/epistemological problems.
That sounds like a neat solution in itself! Are you happy to have such solution or is that a pranging question hiding in your pocket?
For which the solution provides the fig leaf?
Why is it more natural for people to think that the sun goes round the earth? Because it looks like that is the case.
People would probably sooner think it's a golden carriage going up and down the blue fields of heaven if one would just observe with a simpler (but still symbolic) conceptualization. You appear to assume some "basic" observation of things?
Why is it more natural for people to think that cause and effect exists? Because it looks like that is the case.
It's really a logical concept. Appearances do not appear to confirm cause and effect simply because we cannot deduce all of them. Many times we don't see any causes or effects from our limited perspective. This is how people started with "magic" and "miracles", because it "looks like that is the case".
Causality is logically proven to not exist, but it is insane to think that causality solves anything philosophical in the first place.
I agree that would be insane. But understanding the metaphysical relevance of causality does help to prevent people landing in some kind of swamp. It can help "sobering up" but I don't want to put it on a shrine as some article of faith. In the end it's just a field for personal exploration, how causality can lead to understanding the more complex interconnecting and interweaving, beyond even the simpler scientific meanings.