Monday, December 17, 2012

What Is Law…?


What Is Law…?

Scientific Method:

"Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency.

Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency." Abu Ali al-hasan ibn al-hasan ibn al-Haytham_11th century

Hi, name’s Law. Thought I’d pay you a visit. You’re probably thinking, “Who is this entity calling herself the Law?” Well, I am what I am, but, it’s really quite a deep story__a very deep story. I’ve written thousands of books, built courthouses, libraries, law archives and hired judges and lawyers, tried millions of cases, jailed many criminals, built countless institutions to teach you, and you still ask the question, “What is Law?” I must be quite a mystery to you, when you have to sit down and truly figure out what I really am. Let me see if I can help you out.

One thing I know is, just by you still asking what I am, certainly tells me you do not really know what I am. You seem to be as perplexed as ol’ Socrates was, especially after the Oracle had pronounced him “Wiser than the Gods”, and someone asked him “What is Law?”, and he was completely perplexed. It wasn’t because Socrates didn’t know what the written law was, because he certainly did, but the question was asked in the wider context of its deeper meaning, “What is Law?” How do we completely define Law? What makes law, Law? Why do Chiefs, Kings, dictators, monarchs, church fathers or any other figures of governments, or authority have the power to pass laws for and against the wishes of the people? Oh, I full well know there are good laws, but there are also many bad laws people don’t agree with, when such laws limit the freedoms they feel they have the full free-will right to exorcise. So, what’s up? How can we have a good society, when bad laws, to certain groups, are also needed? Or are bad laws even necessary? We certainly know we do have bad laws, as well as many good laws. Is this necessary? It seems quite contradictory.

If I ask you the question, “What comes first to your mind?” And, I mean absolutely fundamentally first, that very first presentation. “What do you see?” Don’t tell me Law, because I’ll know you are lying. When you first awake in the morning, “What exactly comes to mind?” Is it words, images, pictures, ideas, sentences, propositions or what? Think about it, but don’t think too deeply or you’ll go right past what I’m asking. Let me give you a hint. “Isn’t it a presentation of pure awareness, of that ol’ global or universal general image or movie, you’ve been carrying with you since childhood?” Don’t tell me it’s not there anymore, because it’s been replaced by all the ideas and education you’ve been bombarded with all your adult life__that’s just a cop-out. Relax, let your mind drift to its pure awareness state. And, no you don’t need any Buddha, yoga or meditation to see the pure awareness state__it’s right there behind all the noise you listen to. And no, don’t block it out, just relax and let your initial image come to you, in its largest possible sense. It’s the most huge image-state you ever experience__It’s pure experience__pure awareness, and it’s beautiful. That’s part of what I am. No, it’s not Law, but it’s the similar territory Law covers, as it’s the highest state of universal generality of perception. You can’t see me until you can see you. Don’t kid yourself, you’re there, hidden behind all that excess noise.

Now, I can try to describe this initial awareness presentation to you, but it loses all meaning when too much description is added, as it’s not a logical, psychological, propositional, syllogistic or any kind of normal description, other than pure 1st state direct perception, of all inner and outer experience__metaphysics, theism, ontology, materialism, capitalism, Marxism, Democracy, epistemology, rationalism, idealism, nominalism, or any other form of axiology or teleology, etc., except it’s simply the pre-position view of all these states, as a totally conflated ‘oneness of parts’, completely as presented by the natural neuro-biological functioning of the mind, in its purest state, before you tamper with it with words, thoughts or feelings__simply put, it’s “The Soul of the Everything State of You.” Nothing is more beautiful than seeing this initial state of nature, in its purest naturally given form, as that 1st initial vision. Now, you may ask, “But, what’s this got to do with law?” Simply put, that’s just how huge the definition of Law truly is. There is no possible way for you to see the Law until you can see this 1st initial natural image of the presented whole of all the parts, lil’ ol’ nature naturally gives you. The general aspects of this image, or movie to some, and its contents are generally the same, in the fact we all will be presented with the real world of known objects_trees, lakes, frogs, etc., and basic feelings and instincts, about what we see in the raw, of this 1st innate state of mental projection. “How do I know this?” I know nature is ‘gazillions of times’ more vast than any of us, and she puts that ‘gazillions of times’ more vast picture of herself, in all of us, by simple independence of our meager choices, without one speck of aid from us, other than opening our eyes and ears. Nature works the wonders of perception and memory, totally independent of us measly beings, all by herself, and this makes up our most fundamental auto-logical background system, lying right there in memory, of the 1st law assists of Myself__Law. She’s Law, because she’s absolutely auto-logically independent of our personal actions, but she’s only a general normative influence on us, with her much weaker “Normative Generality”, than our “Social Esthetic Normative Generality.”

You say, “There’s no such auto-logical entity in my mind.” Oh no?, then please explain to me where all those real world perceptual images and sounds go to, if not into your memory, as long as your eyes are pointed at them, and the sounds are loud enough for you to hear them, as per say, music? And further, please explain to me how the world of nature and even the universe of real world objects and actions is not a rational existence and action system creating this auto-logicality I speak of, except of course for our meager meddling, with feelings and personal counter-rationalisms. You can’t, because there’s simply no exit from the effects of real world objects and actions upon us. You are trapped in the 1st laws of Law, within the universal law systems, and I’m trapped inside your self-created law systems, due to the fact that you can’t, not only see what I am, you can’t even fully see what you and nature truly are. Now, “Ain’t that quite a pickle we’re both in?” You, trapped in ignorance, and me, trapped in your ignorance, but, “I’m Law, and I want out of your ignorance.” “Please, help me to escape this legal stew.” “I don’t like it any better than you do.”

If you allow me to look deep inside you, as you look deep inside of me, I think we can both help each other out of this smelly stew. “What do you say?” Here’s how we’ll go about it. We’ll start from that “Highest Normative Esthetic State Vision” of “Nature’s Pure Image”, or our “Soul as The Same Vision”, deduce a few laws, ideologies and basic instincts and desires from it, rework a few pre-suppositional ideologies and dogmas, build a few virtual systems of comparative Law, talk a bit about which entities have the most power at dynamic, normative, natural, common and positive Law__and see just what we can come up with. It’s gonna’ be a bumpy ride, but I’ll run the air in the tires as low as possible, to soften it a bit. First, “What basic element do you think is the most formative of Law?” Is it The positive Law? The natural Law? The common Law? The Laws of Nature? Political Law? Contract Law? Social Law? Economic Law? Social Contract Law? Constitutional Law? Mickey Mouse Law? Goofy Law? Or, “What Law takes precedence over any of the above?” Or, Is it even any one, or a mixture of all?, the old “One and The Many” problem. See what I mean about them thar’ bumps? Now, add in all them thar’ pesky ol’ ideologies, dogmas, skepticisms, criminals, greedy Grinches, thieves and what-not, and we start to get a picture, quite different than that 1st pure initial image. “Why don’t the two match?” “Could it be you humans ain’t paying enough attention to the 1st initial vision?” “Do you suppose, you may be just a tad incompetent?” Just a tad?

In that last paragraph, I asked, “What basic element do you think is the most formative of Law?” That’s Me, in case you didn’t notice. “How about considering your-self, or really all of humanity, and their basic instincts, emotions, wants and desires as the most formative element of the Law?” You’re probably saying, “How can that be, with all the a priori rationality, a posteriori empiricism, a fortiori debate and all the institutional intelligence, and you say it’s fundamentally basic innate common sense?” My answer is simply, “What to hell do you think is the foundation of all your ‘iori-ism-ology’ nonsense?” “Wake-up, it’s basic common sense.” Though it is basic common sense, nothing could be more complicated than when all these ‘ioris-isms-ologies’ get involved in Law, never such a cross purpose set of common sense motives you’ve ever seen__hundreds of cultural cross-purposes feeding into the formation of the Law systems, over history, multiplied by millions of varying degrees of legal ideas, wishes and desires within the citizenry. Nothing imaginable could be more complicated__Nothing. At first, kinda’ even makes me a bit teary-eyed, to think about it. No fret, I’ll straighten you out. Just follow the yellow brick road__That’s some lotta’ gold there, ya know.

You may ask, “Why do I need all this noise to understand Law?” Well, that’s not my fault. It’s you humans who wouldn’t believe the first great men who told you the truth about Law, so now you’ve got so many varying degree arguments involved, it’s no wonder the average yokel can’t even begin to see the light of day. Let’s see, if you can simply first realize you are going to need a new vehicle to get from a, to b, to c, to d, and not e__just maybe we can come to a mutually beneficial understanding. Most of the vehicles you humans threw away millennia ago were and are what you truly need to get from a, to b, to c, to d, and not e, due to all the arguments seeming to have logical validity enough, so’s you’ve ended up with cultures of nothing but useless nominalism and cultural relativity. Each of the foolish negative arguments against sound ideas have made the sound thinkers think they don’t think right any more, but in fact, they do__but they simply know of no new mental-vehicle to get from a, to b, to c, to d, and not e, as it’s simply been lost to history’s massive schools of negative arguments. Those vehicles are “The Methodological Sciences” and “The Normative Sciences.” Culture has simply lost track of the fact that all those ‘-isms and -ologies’ I mentioned in paragraph #4 all started out as “Methodological Sciences” and “Normative Sciences”__Yet, modern society has completely gutted their real meanings, in favor of some cultural relativisms, extreme rationalisms, extreme natural rights experientialisms and even more extreme nominalisms, if not even worse absolute skepticisms and solipsisms. We’ve gotta’ shine those old vehicles up again.

Since the anti-realists and anti-intelligence groups have destroyed most all connections from values to rationality, new bridges must be built for our shiny new vehicles to drive over. The shiniest vehicles needed are “Normative Esthetics” and “Real Scientific Respect” as relates to fundamental meanings. “Why do I say Esthetics?” “Is there any other known vehicle to be both instinctual emotional sourced and intellectually rationalizable, at the same time?” “None that I know of.” Well you may say, “Just why is this vehicle needed to bridge the gap between values and intelligence?” “Ahhh, didn’t I just mention above about the empty-headed critics destroying all possible bridges of communication from a, to b, to c, to d, and not e?” Since they’ve blown up all the bridges, we done gotta’ build em’ anew, once again. You see, Esthetics is sourced in emotions through its infinite side of beauty, idealism and perfection, and also sourced in real world objects through its finite side of form, function and action, thus allowing the intellect to intellectualize instinct and values, fully valid and compatible with rationality and the hard sciences, which it at present is not able to do, as the critics have built contradictory cross-purpose schools of thought against sensible uses of such pragmatic values, experience and common sense of “Normal Experience and Rationality.” “This is why we need the shiny new vehicles and bridges, of “Normative Esthetics” and “Scientific Methodologies of Thought”, to reach the yellow brick road of real truth and wisdom, once again.” The most basic foundation of Law__“Me”__is Esthetics and Science, as it takes Esthetics and Will to intellectually import values into ethics, and it takes the Scientific Method to fully understand, communicate and institute the Law of such values, because feelings and values can’t talk sensibly about feelings and values, to Law, without becoming thoroughly lost in feelings and values, due to its required circular reasoning within its own naked self__that’s just a fact of the nature of private personal language, lacking the Esthetic go-between vehicle. Sorry__but, The ‘Big-Shot’ a priorists defeat the minimalist experientialists, at intellectual contest, almost every time, otherwise.

Ok, back to “What is Law?” Let me take a new route to more deeply explaining law to Law. Law can only be thoroughly explicated by an “Analytical Scientific Method”, as all other methods fail, by not being dynamic enough. By dynamic, I here mean changing over time, which the Analytic Scientific Method allows, as Science readily admits its subject, “Method”, is always evolving, and never complete, as culture adds new material and actions every day. Of what has been mentioned above about ‘ioris-isms-ologies’, etc., and possible bridges of communication from a, to b, to c, to d, and not e, let’s set up a few virtual models of Law Systems to see if we can begin to put the story straight, in our minds.

A comparative analysis of any of the present pre-suppositional ‘ioris-isms-ologies’, etc., will quickly reveal their strengths and weaknesses. Let’s take the “Common Law” first, as it’s the most studied of all the “Law Systems” from Cicero onward, if not earlier, but the earlier and some later periods are more dominated by the “A Priori Rational Systems.” The “Common Law’s” strength is in its highest plurality of citizens’ considerations and actions involved, compared to any other system. The “Common Law” is the second deepest sourced system, being that of most of the populations’ wishes, desires habits and actions__even though not all the citizens directly participate in this Law’s enactment, they all are indirectly involved through the social function of personal and community values’ “Normativity.” Now, of course right here, the “A Priorists, A Posteriorists and A Fortiorists of Law” will stand up and scream, “Sir, you are absolutely wrong; The rational and experiential instinct of intellect is by far the most controlling aspect of all laws passed. Who do you think the Legislators and Justices, passing all the laws, have studied most?” Well, they have a point, but, only at the great expense of ignoring “The Deepest Natural Law”, “The Common Law” and “The Normative Law” as well, and concentrating solely on “The A Priori, A Posteriori and A Fortiori” nature of the laws and Law. They completely block out the “Descriptive” and “Prescriptive” “Normative Functions” of “The Natural Law” and “The Common Law”, to hoist their “Naked A Priori” or “Naked A Posteriori” or “Naked A Fortiori” upon the feelings and intellect of the culture, at least as much as they can get away with, and believe me, that’s quite a reasonable sum, especially when they mix “Natural Law” in, to strengthen their own positions, but totally deny they are doing so. They fail to realize “Natural Law” is the pre-suppositional state__visible or invisible, admitted or not__of just about everybody, at the core of fundamental thought and action.

By doing this, the “A Priorists” “A Posteriorists” and “A Fortiorists” are missing one of the most important aspects of the Law, which is “The Normative Law’s” actual street to legal functions; all the people’s traditions, habits, mores, ideals and histories, as are so aptly pointed out by such notables as Cicero, Grotius, our Founding Fathers, Holmes, Hand and Griffith, just to mention a few who dealt with the “Norming Functions” of History’s “Natural and Common Laws.” But; What of the weaknesses of the “Natural and Common Laws?” And, here again we see the problem of ignoring the other side’s “A Priori” “A Posteriori” and “A Fortiori” views, by not analyzing the full and true depths, breadths and effects of the others’ “Law Systems” which in actuality do have the same but different degrees of “Norming Affects” on society, to produce the “Legal Effects” of its cultural habits’ coercions and enforcements upon culture’s “Final Legal Product.” So both sides of these “Legal Ideologies and Dogmas of Law”, and I’m only taking a few here to not be too long winded, are ignoring the “Greater” part of “The Law”; the “Normative Sciences” and “True Actions of Law”, not to mention, the “Real World Effects” of “All Systems’ Cultural Normative Forms and Functions”__Which almost entirely are lost to the “Historical Stew of Thoughts and Ideas’ Collisions.”

For just a short and trivial note about most all the other confusing ‘ioris-isms-ologies’, etc., being impossible and possible bridges of communication blocks from a, to b, to c, to d, and not e, which prevents the good of the other systems not being, or being, generated, due to the fact, most of them are confusing and conflating most of the “Legal Points” addressed in the previous few paragraphs. Just take “Skeptics”, “Nominalists”, “Relativists” and “Solipsists for a few examples; of them filling the “Mental and Legal Gaps” being missed; mainly “Social Normativity”, and one quickly sees what gives these false and pseudo-systems their seeming room to operate, and heavy weight, that they can’t cross the new bridges “I, Law”, am trying to build for the shiny new vehicles to travel across, to true knowledge, best liberty states and possible wisdom, unless they themselves hitch a ride in the new vehicles. Most all these other ‘ioris-isms-ologies’ simply block the necessary mental paths, roads and bridges our proper communication and understanding must follow, to rise to the “Truth of Law.”

Finally, maybe I can get to that, all this time waited for, definition of, “What is Law?” Law is the interactions of everything mentioned in this paper about human motives and habits; that is as far as the social Law created by all our self-controlled human actions and interactions __ psychological, theistic or logical, etc. Of course, self-controlled human actions and interactions involve all the varying degrees of emotional motives, desires and values of all humans in competition with all the opposing varying degrees of others’ emotional motives, desires and values__through the free-wills of all involved. This action and interaction also involves all the cross-purpose and cross-motives of all these minds’ rational intelligences as well as the personal motives, habits and actions, also in competition, through free-wills, of all opposing and compromising actions and interactions. This all comes down to simply personally thinking out all the feelings, habits, motives, experiential and intellectual potential of all the people’s actions, especially including one’s own, being applied to Law, from and to all the disparate sources, where a realization of governmental restraint’s necessity begins to seem natural to be the core arbiter of all these differences, through its necessary governments and courts, due to frail humanity’s lack of enough “Esthetic Virtue” to do without such governments and courts. Law is the complex dynamic organization of being the high “Normatizing/Normalizing Overseer Power Arbiter” of all social change over history, showing itself in much the same vision of that natural 1st state vision of pure nature, except it’s, at bottom, a purely human, mostly self-controlled creation of Law, where, Law’s purpose is to “Normatively” reign in the evils of human nature, thus creating the good. Law is fundamentally, “A Normative Scientific Form and Function” upon all cultures__Being individually and collectively or group self-imposed upon all modern highly developed cultures, by all upon all, if only all were to choose to participate, so they’d realize their part. Whether they participate or not, “Law” is still a “Normative Scientific Function” upon all cultures__Self-imposed upon all modern developed cultures, by an “All Upon All” “Cultural Effect and Action Process”, as long as they have some form of participatory governance, as even the least participate at some level, even if it’s only no more than executing a seeming invisible contract to buy a hot-dog. That’s still a real “Norming Effect” upon society, as the hot-dog purchaser sees the habitual actions of other hot-dog buyers acting either civilly or uncivilly, and due to “Normativity”, chooses to follow suit, or not.

Hi… “Law” here; Kick the tires a few times, to see if the shiny new vehicles are sound.

Good night all,

“The Law”

P.s. “Normativity”__or “Liberty” and “Morality” as symmetrically the same__is also a “General Universal Idea and Ideal”, but is real world measurable through history’s court records’ and libraries’ largest “Scopes of Evidence”, possible to recover and measure, in all forms of Law.

Morality requires a “Scientific Vehicle” to transport Morality into Science. That Vehicle is “Esthetic Normativity.”

You are a “General Normative Moral Soul” if you choose to be__It’s your ground__That’s it…

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