anthropomorphic, meaning what we call perceptually "out there" cannot be removed from "in here". — Constance

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

God is all about our ethics... — Constance

I strongly disagree. Can you make an argument for why you think God (or religion, including Buddhism) is all about our ethics?

Yes, and it has often struck me that theists are not conceptualizing the same thing when they allegedly share this belief. The notion of god seems incoherent or 'diverse' enough to embrace everything from the 'ground of being' to a throne dwelling elder, with a flowing grey beard. — Tom Storm

But you know this is because this is all scripture based and no care at all is given to making religion respectable to sound thinking. Philosophy is the cure. Philosophy's mission is to replace religion by rationalizing its content (rationalizing in the good sense of this term).

I do not think that word means what you think it means. — praxis

I think the term generally refers projecting features we possess on to foundational descriptions of the world. But take reason: can judgment about what the world is in any way escape the imprint to the reason inherent in the judgment itself? It is not just about blatant physical features as in the image of an old man on a cloud. It is all constitutes human experience, and in this, nothing we give thought to can be free of the anthropomorphic features that are inherent int he thought.

I strongly disagree. Can you make an argument for why you think God (or religion, including Buddhism) is all about our ethics? — praxis

It goes to the matter of metaethical questions and the metavalue of ethical issues. Our mundane ethical affairs have metaphysical underpinnings, and it is here that religious mythology meets the world of the actual.

... metaethical... — Constance

I do not think that word means what you think it means. "What-to-do questions" are questions of normative ethics and not metaethical. In any case, you've made an argument?

I do not think that word means what you think it means. "What-to-do questions" are questions of normative ethics and not metaethical. In any case, you've made an argument? — praxis

What to do presupposes the doing carries a certain weight. Metaethics inquires about this.

"Meta" is an indication of a higher order of analysis, as in metalanguage or meta-anything, really. I refer you to Wittgenstein, just for one. See his Lecture on Ethics, which is available online, I think. ethics has as its core what can be generally called value, and value is the essential ethical presupposition of good and bad in ethical matters. Witt wrote that the good is what he calls divinity, and he meant that value is simply in the givenness of the presence of the world, and is therefore not reducible. Not unlike wwhat analytic philosophers call qualia, but on this, see Moore's Principia Ethica in which he referred value statements as possessing a "non natural quality". He was referring to the metaethical dimension of the good and bad: Put a match to my finger for a few moments. This powerful event is NOT found in the "states of affairs" of the world, and hence, says Witt, it is nonsense to talk about. But it IS there, only unsayable.

I disagree with Witt, somewhat. I think you can talk about it. Value is the weirdest thing in the universe, but talking about it is done indirectly.

To your mind, have you made an argument for why you think God (or religion, including Buddhism) is all about our ethics or are you ignoring my question?

a throne dwelling elder, with a flowing grey beard. — Tom Storm

It's white not grey...dammit!

To your mind, have you made an argument for why you think God (or religion, including Buddhism) is all about our ethics or are you ignoring my question? — praxis

No, this is just the introduction. The reason why God is essentially an ethical account is because God was conceived in a response to the ethical indeterminacy of human existence. A difficult matter to discuss briefly, or at all, for one has to take a hard look at value-in-the-world. There is some length to deal with.

First, it has to be acknowledged that the meaning of human existence refers us to two kinds of meaning. There is conceptual meaning that defers ideas to other ideas, as when the response to the question, what is a bank teller? is other definitional terms, like money and economics, savings accounts, and so on. These can and do, of course, defer to other terms for their meanings, and this is an endless game of questions and answers (Derrida's "Differance" is about this). The other kind of meaning has to do with value, as in, This strawberry is so good! or, I love Julian! this kind of thing is NOT something that defers to something else for an account of what it is, and this is an argument of critical importance in metaethical analysis: The "good" to the strawberry, what is this? This is a kind of good that refers directly to the good experience of the taste and the satisfaction it brings. It does not refer us (defer) to definitional meanings that circle (hermeneutically) around. It is a "given" of the world. On the radical negative side of this, the lighted match on your finger gives pain, and pain is not analytically reducible. And as Witt would say, givenness is not factual, meaning we cannot talk abou it, and that which cannot be talked about "should be passed over in silence."

So we can't really talk about value as such, and more than we can talk about analytic's qualia. It is a phenomenological irreducible.Now we can turn to God and the world. If we lived in a world of Wittgensein's facts, like in that big book he talks about in his Lecture on Ethics, there would be no ethics, for ethics has this, call it a non natural property, like G E Moore does, and what is this? This is the ethical bad and good. Consider: the lighted match applied to your finger, there is more here than the fact can say, for this is in the world, and propositions are only as good as far as the world shows itself, and the "badness" really does not "show" itself. It is an odd thing to try to wrap your mind around, this elusive "value" property, for it is neither rational apriori nor is it empirical, and yet it is the most salient feature of our existence. the argument cannot really proceed until Wittgenstein's point is clear: When he says talk about value is nonsense, he means it is not a idea of "parts" that defers one to something else to explain it. It is, as Kierkegaard would put it, its own presupposition, a "thereness' that is both in the world AND apodictic, and just as one can't explain logic (why does modus ponens "work"?), nor can one explain this.

Any thoughts so far? We all know that logic is apriori, that is, validity depends on logical form only and tautological relations are absolute (though we are not going into post modern objections to this kind of thing here). But to say something in the world is also apriori is impossible. The world itself would have to possess something intuitively absolute, like logic, only REAL.

There is, of course, more.

Any thoughts so far? — Constance

I'm being patient. :smile:

I'm being patient. :smile: — praxis

Okay. On the table is value, as I say, the weirdest thing in the universe, by far, this "badness' of a scorched finger. It deserves to be released from the contexts we like to give things, for these knowledge claims contexts bring the world to heel, and it gives us the illusion that we understand it. But it is clear that when it comes to the primordiality of what is "given" we are of our depths, (and I really should add that the essential inspirations I am dealing with in all of this were conceived in the minds of others, whom mention only in passing from time to time. E.g, Jean luc Marion's Givenness an Revelation had a profound influence. Alas, I am not just making all of this up myself. I do, as do all, carry my reading into my own thoughts). Value is a term that encompasses the affective side of every experience we have and it is ubiquitous in life, for everything moment of lived life is a value-moment, as with the interest in play as I write these words. When I wake in the morning, value i always already there, in the mood, the recollection of before and the anticipation of the day. It is not an analysis of our theories and the cognitive events of our lives that make for the important discoveries in the, if you will, foundational meaning of life. It is the AFFECTIVE part of all this, and this cannot be emphasized enough: We, in this grand dramatic narrative of life are not seeking some propositional satisfaction, the error analytic philosophy makes (close to early Wittgenstein on this); we are seeking deeper, more profound VALUE in life, which is why I take Buddhism and nirvana so seriously. And this is God: the embodiment of absolute bliss, the affective response to the value indeterminacy (and thus, the ethical determinacy; see below) and value desperation of our lives.

What I am doing here is an attempt to penetrate into what God is really all about, certainly not some pointless exposition of what people, believers, atheists, traditions and history say, moving along wn the usual circles. Since God is not here to be examined, we have to go on what is there, in the world that gave rise to the conception in the first place. This brief talk about value tries to make clear that the issue that God is a response to, not a deficit in the understanding as a knowledge deficit, though this is not apart from the matter, but to the horror and miseries of the world, as well as its blisses and indulgences, this uncanny value-nature of our being here.

As to the ethics: If God is an embodiment of, call it a value perfection: god is love, many say, and what is love but happiness? And what is happiness: the summum bonum; then how is there a connection between God and the world, for God is an absolute, a metaphysical entity, and there is no apparent metaphysics in the world, because if there were, it would be metaphysics, would it? This is the last part of the argument.

Are there issues in any of this thus far?

… value desperation … — Constance

To be as succinct as I can, desperation is reckless in nature, leading to rash and extreme behavior. Such behavior is quite often less than exemplary in good moral character.

Desperate people are easy to lead though, the more desperate the better.

To be as succinct as I can, desperation is reckless in nature, leading to rash and extreme behavior. Such behavior is quite often less than exemplary in good moral character.

Desperate people are easy to lead though, the more desperate the better. — praxis

But here we are at a "second order" of inquiry. First order inquiry can be talk about our relations, moral character, and ethical behavior, but a second order of inquiry asks questions about first order presuppositions. So, what is exemplary moral character about? It has to do with right choices, motivations and intentions, but intention to do what? Treat others as one should. Why is this a concern at all? Because all people are vulnerable to suffering. If a person cannot be hurt at all, then this is not a person for whom others can have a moral obligation. Then what is suffering that is generates moral possibilities? This is the question taken up here. It is a metaethical question, a question "about" morality. It is a question of the ontology of morality, a "what is it? question.

So, what is exemplary moral character about? It has to do with right choices, motivations and intentions, but intention to do what? Treat others as one should. Why is this a concern at all? Because all people are vulnerable to suffering. If a person cannot be hurt at all, then this is not a person for whom others can have a moral obligation. — Constance

The essence of morality is cooperation. You seem to be essentially claiming that it's avoidance of harm. Harm/care is only one dimension of morality. This is important because the aspects that you neglect are essential for religion to fulfill its purpose (it's not all about our ethics).

The essense of morality is cooperation and not avoidance of harm, if that's essentially what you're claiming. Harm/care is only one dimention of morality. This is important because the aspects that you neglect are essential for religion to fulfill its purpose (it's not all about ethics). — praxis

Cooperation? Cooperation for what purpose? Cooperation, principles or good conduct, a "good will", weighing consequences in terms of utility, and anything else you can talk about in ethics and the determination of what makes right and wrong actions what they are, beg the one question regarding the nature of what it is that is at stake, and this is value. Value is ubiquitous in our affairs, but, to use Witt's language, value is absent from the facts of the world. Take the color yellow. What is this? There is nothing to say. Obviously, you can talk about it, but this simply brings context into the definition, and all contexts get their meanings from their own contextual embeddedness. This is what is meant by contingency in language (and what Derrida had so much fun with; and essentially why Dennett denied qualia made any sense). What you cannot say is what the color yellow is apart from contexts, and this goes for everything, really. The interesting, impossible thing about value is that, unlike yellow, value "speaks" in a way. It carries the injunction to do or not to do something. this is where the argument is going: why should a person, as a default principle of moral action, not harm another? Talk about the contract one has implcitly with society, or the law, or rules and the like, do not penetrate to the core of this matter, for it defies analysis. One should not harm others because it hurts. What is this? What is that scorched finger feeling like? Talk is useless. Was this a result of evolutionary processes that favored pain and pleasure over their competitors in the struggle to survive and reproduce? Yes; and? It is beside the matter altogether.

The claim is not that a metavalue account of ethics is everything there is to ethical decision making. It is just that other questions are suspended here simply because they are not relevant to the inquiry.

Talk about God is why this metaethical line of inquiry is taken, and questioning about God is metaphysical inquiry.

Is it so far fetched, though? After all, God is more than just an anthropomorphic image constructed out of the imaginations of a people. It has this solid basis in the world upon which fictional thinking rests. Keeping in mind that, speaking of the anthropomorphisms of religions, all we ever see is anthropomorphic, meaning what we call perceptually "out there" cannot be removed from "in here". To do so just yields an abstraction.
God is all about our ethics and the great question that haunts our world: why are we born to suffer and die? The what-to-do questions presuppose this ethical primordiality of our existence. Buddhism, in it analysis, I think addresses both — Constance

Very true Constance. I agree. "As above so below" (hermeticism). In other words what is out there reflects what is within. We perceive reality based on what we hold within. If we are pessimistic - full of doubt, negativity and a feeling of general pointlessness, we shall only see that negative side of the external world. If we are hopeful, optimistic and bright we will likely see that side to daily life beyond ourselves.

We don't need to anthropomorphise reality to bring it down to our level. In fact, we can alternatively see ourselves as but a fraction of the whole..

The great question: why are we born to suffer and die? Can be answered with "to suffer is to understand what is not right with the world, to be born is to participate in that great battle, to exert influence on the outcome. To live is to have the opportunity to circumvent suffering not just for yourself but for your loved ones. Your ability to tackle suffering with knowledge and empathy extends well beyond the self. That is the godly approach to ethics.

We have choices to make. Those choices impact ourselves and others. The pursuit of knowledge, of awareness - of self and other simultaneously, is to take full control of yourself and be responsible for your actions. Only when we know ourselves and control our actions can we truly influence others in a beneficial way - all things considered.

Whether you believe in God or karma (Buddhism) - No one can deny you have authority over yourself. And that authority can both ruin others lives or fulfill them through action. The choice is always yours. For better or for worse

The claim is not that a metavalue account of ethics is everything there is to ethical decision making. It is just that other questions are suspended here simply because they are not relevant to the inquiry.

Talk about God is why this metaethical line of inquiry is taken, and questioning about God is metaphysical inquiry. — Constance

You haven't talked about metanarratives yet, which is curious.

The great question: why are we born to suffer and die? Can be answered with "to suffer is to understand what is not right with the world, to be born is to participate in that great battle, to exert influence on the outcome. To live is to have the opportunity to circumvent suffering not just for yourself but for your loved ones. Your ability to tackle suffering with knowledge and empathy extends well beyond the self. That is the godly approach to ethics. — Benj96

I think you have something there, and it has crossed my mind more than once. I have some thoughts:
We suffer and delight in the world because this teaches us what these are, so what are they? Take an example: drive a spear through my kidney and what you get is an intuitive disclosure, to put it formally, of an injunction NOT to do this to yourself or others. Why? Here, again with some jargon, the moral precept is its own presupposition! Meaning, to witness the pain IS the precept! This, as you say, is the "Godly (I add the capital letter) approach to ethics." I think this right! But how is it Godly?

God is a metaphysical issue, and can't be observed, but only be acknowledged in a recognized deficit of some kind, and in human epistemology, everything has this. Everything. For all knowledge claims are dubious at the basic level. Take space: If I say I am in a room, but cannot say at all where the room is, then clearly, I don't where I am beyond being in a room, but note: we have in the background of the question Where are you? a whole body of meaningful possibilities, and the judgment that I do not know where I am plays against these possibilities. I mean, to know where the room is has to refer to some building, street, a town, a state...the world, and so on; so being in a room really presupposes the room is somewhere of a body of possibilities everyone knows about. Eventually metaphysics steps in, for beyond the world and the universe, your intuitions take you out until meaningful talk disappears....but the world-in-eternity does not disappear. I can't say what eternity is, but there is this very weird deficit in the boundlessness of space, which we simply ignore, after all, what can be said? Clearly, space as such just doesn't matter; it is not really an issue. But intuition insists that space beyond what we can say, is not nonsense; it is a palpable insistence that space is eternal, whatever that means. I think space is a good introduction to the interface between the infinite and finitude.

Now take God and ethics: God was produced by culture to address a profound deficit, and the term we have for this is moral nihilism, just what Wittgenstein had in mind when he said value had no value, and if it did, it would have no value. But very plainly, the pain of the pierced kidney and the joy of being in love, these are absolutes, and as such they belong to metaphysics (hence, unspeakable). How is this so? This is the line of thought that leads to what I would dangerously call metaphysical affirmation.

You haven't talked about metanarratives yet, which is curious. — praxis

To suggest that anything metaphysical is reducible to a metaphysical narrative, like Christian metaphysics. But this really doesn't get interesting until one turns away from the grand narratives to the micronarratives of everyday living. The question is, what is not a narrative? and the usual answer to this is science, but this idea of narration needs a little exposition: It is assumed that a story is a piece of fiction, but then, at the level of the most basic questions about the world, is it possible to remove "narrative" from even science? Rorty and others argued that knowledge itself is a pragmatic social function, and this does ring true when you think about the inter-relational nature of language, that language and logic formed out of communicative needs: a word belongs to speech and writing, and these reach beyond subjectivity, and it is argued that self's thought and the self itself is an intersubjective construct, an internalization of observed relations and the noises and gestures made to reach from one subjectivity to another. So, when I have a thought in my head, I am essentially "talking to" myself, treating myself as an "other" and the divisions in the world are reducible to just this language divide we created in the social matrix. A self IS a social matrix. Heidegger doesn't say things this way, but his dasein is very much an existential environment of social possibilities.

There really is something to this. Herbert Meade, I recall, thought like this and his argument was more conventional, referring to observations of animal behavior and the like. Is the self a walking micro-narrative, a part of a system of institutions laid out by culture and history, wrought out of social needs? Yes, I think so. But this doesn't address the issue at hand.

There are many ways to explain a human being. How about neurology? Or physics? Or genetics? Or evolution? These are "natural sciences", and they presuppose the givenness of the world; and they do not touch metaphysics, and God is metaphysics. One has to bring analytic discussion of this observable world into a "context" of metaphysics to talk about God. The obsolete grand narratives of the past are now in retreat, and this opens philosophy to either empirical science or phenomenology, and empirical science, regardless of how speculative extrapolation can carry its paradigms into meta paradigms, is metaphysically question begging, that is, ask a scientist about basic assumptions, and she won't know what you are talking about. Not really.

The way to make this connection between finitude and infinity, if you will, begins in two places. One is the Kantian need to discuss noumena, and other is ethics and metaethics. Painfully simply put, Kant insisted we had to talk about metaphysics, but cold know nothing at all about it, because there was nothing in t he sensuous medium a concept could bond with. But: how is it that he simply had to talk about it? There must be in the world something that intimates this, and this is the very essence of metaphysics: the deficit, the "nothing" that inquiry encounters; this is an existential nothing, meaning if it were not there, then world itself would be radically different, and this is arguable, of course. The movie Pleasantville comes to mind: Two kids are thrown magically into a world of black and white where no one can even imagine an "outside" to the town of Pleasantville. That is, not until their eyes open, and they begin to see color and conceive of a fuller sense of what is there already: something always already there, simply not acknowledged! So we live in a world in our everydayness much like this: metaphysics is always already there, but it needs a catalyst to bring it to discussion. Science is like this, surely, for science "discovers" the world. Here, it has to be admitted that metaphysics is discovered as a profound deficit in our understanding that is "there" in all things always already. This is the foundational indeterminacy of our existence: take any concept about the world, any at all knowledge claim, and it can be demonstrated readily that there is no "center" no "final vocabulary" no "metanarrative" no stone tablets or anything at all that will intimate what is truly and really what the world IS.

There is a LOT of philosophy in the above. But I can tell you the conversation phenomenologists have been having on the matter of metaphysics for the last two hundred years is fascinating.

The final premise lies with a phenomenological examination of the meta ethical dimension of our existence. Is this okay?

This is the foundational indeterminacy of our existence: take any concept about the world, any at all knowledge claim, and it can be demonstrated readily that there is no "center" no "final vocabulary" no "metanarrative" no stone tablets or anything at all that will intimate what is truly and really what the world IS. — Constance

It sounds like you've determined indeterminacy. Nicely done. :up:

You mention God several times and do you use to to refer to a being undisclosed? Humanity lives in time even if its spirit does not. I have several objections to a being who is father if humanity in the divine sense. This being, according to classical logic, will have never suffered like its sons, loves necessarily and yet somehow (?) freely, and is the active cuase and lives within every crime, ugliness, and humiliation thar there has ever been. Something about the idea seems absurd to me and I genuinely doubt it exists

Buddhist seem to think like I, the world being being and Nothingness, a yin and yang of opposites. For how can an untainted God sustain the being of what is ugly and offensive to all rational creatures? How can courage to expressed by a God that already has it all thanks to what he just is? How can he brag to Job? How can he live and sustain a child's cancer, asking it to accept the pain because when it gains the power of reason it can learn from the pain. And a pain this God knows nothing of first hand. None of this sounds right

It sounds like you've determined indeterminacy. — praxis

You did put your finger on this. Nicely done yourself! Because this is where the argument lies, in the determinate world where things are usually clear as a bell and the intimations in this world of imcompleteness. Metaphysics is a term that has its existence "discovered" at threshold of knowledge, but not where science meets its anomalies (as Thomas Kuhn put it way), rather, where epistemic inquiry meets a wall of "impossible" knowledge: non propositional "knowledge". Such knowledge is found in the ethical dimension of our world. Any example will do: place your hand in a fire, and ask what is this pain? It is not a construct of language; it is the world itself "speaking" so to speak. It says, don't do this, to yourself, anyone, just keep this out of existence.
Of course, in the entanglements of our affairs, things get rerouted, and ethics gets messy and complex and full of conflicting obligations. But the primordial meaning is as clear as anything can be, and as such, is apodictic and indefeasible. Note how this kind of language is easy to recognize in logic's apriority; but here, this is not logic, but is the palpable Real. It carries the weight of a deity.

Any example will do: place your hand in a fire, and ask what is this pain? It is not a construct of language; it is the world itself "speaking" so to speak. It says, don't do this, to yourself, anyone, just keep this out of existence. — Constance

It's not the world speaking, it's you speaking. You are saying "don't do this," not the world.

It's not the world speaking, it's you speaking. You are saying "don't do this," not the world. — praxis

Quite right. And this is just a manner of speaking, and it is why Witt refused to talk about it. It cannot be said. But consider the usual examples of so called qualia, being-appeared-to-redly, say. Qualia is an attempt to reduce things to their sheer givenness, apart from the ways contexts generate meaning. Compare this to the "qualia" of pain. Pain out of context is more than the context could bring into the making of meaning. This is a very big point: When the attempt is made to remove pain from its contextual settings, there is what you could call an existential residuum, a value meaning that is transcendental, that is, exceeds language's ability to say what it is, for to "say" is to contextualize, and contexts are suspended.

The obvious objection is just fascinating: the moment you entertain the argument's reference to qualia, you are already in a context, that is, to think at all is inherently contextual, so each utterance of "existential residua" is itself conferring context, if I can put it like that. But then, Kierkegaard haunts this issue, for actuality is clearly not language. That burning sensation is not a language experience, and there is nothing in language, it can be argued, that really sets those existential delimitations on meaning. Value-in-the-world does "speak" just not in words. Does that burn "say" with undeniable clarity, "don't do that"?

Does that burn "say" with undeniable clarity, "don't do that"? — Constance

Of course it doesn't. People say such things. Burning sensations to not "say" things. Sensations are not independent minds that make recomendations or whatever.

If someone needed to cauterize a wound, for instance, they may think positively about a burning sensation and basically think "do that." The sensation itself doesn't care what you do.

You mention God several times and do you use to to refer to a being undisclosed? Humanity lives in time even if its spirit does not. I have several objections to a being who is father if humanity in the divine sense. This being, according to classical logic, will have never suffered like its sons, loves necessarily and yet somehow (?) freely, and is the active cuase and lives within every crime, ugliness, and humiliation thar there has ever been. Something about the idea seems absurd to me and I genuinely doubt it exists — Gregory

But this is a long history of metaphysics talking, specifically, Christian metaphysics. Father? the author of all things? A creator? Why is this associated with God? To conceive in a way that puts the concept of God outside of the prejudices of narratives, of history and its groundless meta-thinking, requires a step beyond these. This is both difficult and easy: difficult because one has to step out of something firmly fixed in our culture; easy because the solution lies with the Buddhists, which a kind of apophatic existential approach, a "simple" dropping of the illusions of knowledge suppositions by practical negation: ignoring desires and attachments. The most fundamental attachment is knowledge of the world.

Buddhist seem to think like I, the world being being and Nothingness, a yin and yang of opposites. For how can an untainted God sustain the being of what is ugly and offensive to all rational creatures? How can courage to expressed by a God that already has it all thanks to what he just is? How can he brag to Job? How can he live and sustain a child's cancer, asking it to accept the pain because when it gains the power of reason it can learn from the pain. And a pain this God knows nothing of first hand. None of this sounds right — Gregory

God was never this. This is the talk of a historical busy-ness of filling the concept with bad metaphysics. thinking of God, why am I committed to listening to anything that has not understood the one thing Kant really got right: Noumena is not discussable. Only what is before us can be talked about, and here there are things extraordinary, miraculous. Time and space: intuitively impossible, but there they are, embedded in eternity, so what is eternity? It is exactly what one faces when one puts aside all the knowledge claims implicit in our default understanding of the world. What is Being? it is exactly what one faces when one puts aside all the knowledge claims implicit in our default understanding of the world. This "putting aside" is not new to philosophy in the west. It is Husserl's epoche.

You said that attachment to the world is illusion yet you want us to take the world as it is presented to us. Is this not a paradox?

Of course it doesn't. People say such things. Burning sensations to not say things. — praxis

No, not literally. But the burn: I know what it is as well as anyone. It is not a "mere" fact of the world, this is clear. Facts are affairs that sit comfortable on the grid of logic: the sun is farther from the earth than the moon; the color green is of a higher frequency than red, and so on. There are an infinite number of facts. With value, there is something else, once the facts are exhausted for their content. there is the "non natural" property of good and bad. This finds its justification in the pain or joy itself--these serve as their own presupposition, as I have said. They are not things that defer to other things for their meaning; but the meaning is stand alone; the injunction, e.g., not to torture another person is found in the stand alone evidence of the torture experience itself, so when we do give this expression in language, the the expressed principle issues from the world, not just some arbitrarily conceived bit of pragmatic systematizing of our affairs called jurisprudence.

You said that attachment to the world is illusion yet you want us to take the world as it is presented to us. Is this not a paradox? — Gregory

I am not going to take responsibility for the way the world is. I don't think the world is an illusion, as when I break a bone or slip a disk; but then, what we say about this pain when we interpret what it is is compromised by conflicting contingencies. And when we talk theoretically about pain, we have many contextual settings which qualify the pain in such a way that what is said is really about the value-arbitrary facts in which things are embedded, as when a patient at a hospital complains about some misery and this is instantly interpreted into medical jargon, and THIS displaces the pain itself, treating the pain as a subjective counterpart to the explanatory account. THIS is illusion. When I rise through the ranks at the office and make it all the way to manager, this is an illusion. The institutions of this world, an institution being something instituted, established, taken for a new reality, like the conferring of a name on a person, this is illusion. And the world we live in is a body of institutions. Language is mostly a pragmatic, intersubjective exchange of institutional knowledge.

What do they mean in the East when they talk about illusion? They are talking about interpretation, and interpretation is not just this pulling away from something to say what it is. It is, rather, affectively and cognitively qualifying as to the way a thing or a set of affairs is experienced. It is important to see that concepts are not simply what Kant thought, these principles of a synthetic function of the mind. As Kant conceived this, he conceived of an abstraction; not that he was wrong about synthetic functions, but that this is by no means all of what a concept is. A concept seizes hold of the world existentially, and is a powerful dynamic in normal perceptual experiences, always, already there in the simplest of apprehensions as an affective presence. The Buddhist idea of attachments is usually conceived as a kind of affective binding of the self to things, and this is of course right; but beneath this is the world-taken-AS, and I borrow this from Heidegger, who says when we encounter the world, we take the world AS the way we encounter it. he held that there is no way to a-conceptually or a-linguistically understand anything. I think he is wrong about this. I think when the Buddhist "goes under" and suspends consciousness's categories of taking the world AS (AS a tree, AS a cloud, or a mathematical formula, etc.) there is a radical departure from "the world", or there can be if things go right.