Journeys into the Underworld

  The Cave of the Storm Nymphs, by Edward Poynter There is still much confusion, or rather, ignorance about what the underworld is, in general, and in particular, what Hades, the greek underworld is. Starting from the very concept of the underworld, it suggests an immaterial dimmension located underground where the spirits of the dead go to. But moving beyond this initial contradiction of an 'immaterial realm in a physical location' 1 , maybe the underworld is not actually 'under the ground', but, like what it also suggests, a place where the dead seem to be hiding from sight. Well, this doesn't require that it should be 'underground', since ghosts are invisible. Perhaps, like what the names of Hades and Hel imply, it's just a state of concealment from from physical perception, as if the dead would be hiding 'under' physical perception itself. If this is true, then the underworld can be de facto 'underground', above the ground, in the air

  The recent event of the Brazilian presidential elections, in which Jair Bolsonaro remained silent after his opponent's victory, reminded me of an important concept in metaphysics, and it's a good opportunity to address it. As we know, silence is already an answer, if no answer is given to a question. Why? Because if no answer is given to a question, and the person remains in silence, that probably means that either the person is refuses to answer, or that the answer can be found by the questioner, if he/she only uses his/hers reasoning faculties. This is analogous to the jewish custom of answering a question with a question, to imply that the person can find the answer by itself, with nonetheless with a little help from the other, the question as an answer, a sign to lead the questioner where to go to intellectually to find the answer.   This in turn reminds me of one of Herakleitus sayings (DK93):   "The lord whose is the oracle at Delphi neither speaks nor hides his