Can a unicorn cause something? Also: Assumption.

What is so special about God? Why do people believe in God? It seems like one answer is

sufficient for this, and that is that we believe because of existence.

What imparts existence (that a thing is) to a thing's essence (what a thing is)?

If I have a gorilla, he has existence and also an essence. Yet, it is the case that his essence and

existence is separable. If it is separable, then that means it is conjoined somehow. The gorilla does

not seem to have the ability to conjoin his own essence and existence together because then he

would need to have been in existence prior to either his essence or existence or both to conjoin

his essence and existence. I was tempted to say that a thing which is nonexistent cannot cause

anything. But saying so unqualified surely is not true. Consider a unicorn, which is nonexistent

and has some causal powers on my brain to think about what it looks like. Obviously this universe

causes some state in my brain at least. So my statement needs to be qualified. Now, here's

another way to put what I mean: a thing which is nonexistent in the sense that it has no positive

ontological status is not able to cause some other positive ontological status. A unicorn does

not have a positive ontological status, so the unicorn cannot cause some other positive ontological

status. My brain states imagining the unicorn means the unicorn causes my brain to have abstract

thoughts. It is not that a unicorn is physically in my brain or its cause is actually in my brain physically.

These things which are found from the unicorn or in its active cause are merely in my abstract mental

state. 


What do we do when someone seemingly is in need of help? If we do help, we are

doing so based on assumption. I think there are safe moments to assume. For example, if an apparent robber seemingly makes a woman distressed, I would be safe to assume that she

is in need of help. My point is to ask how far my assumption can take place so as to not reach

presumptousness in one extreme and callousness in another. It seems to me like there is hardly

a visible boundary for me to recognize. When a friend complains about something making him

disappointed, which he allowed himself to indulge in freely, I want to help him stop. When I ask

questions to suggest help, it can seem disrespectful or like I am a busybody. My problem with

dealing with people and paying attention to people is that it can get too excessive. When it gets

excessive, I recognize these flaws (some of which I definitely have, of course) and it bothers

me that they aren't willing to take a step to move away from such a rut. The overarching point

in my thought is that I will look up to God as my ultimate model, not any other human as my

ultimate model. In other words, a human can act as an intermediate-model, not my final

cause-model.


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