Now if a fair deck of cards were shuffled and dealt out in four hands trillions and trillions of times mathematicians would expect to find four royal flushes once and a while. And since this outcome is expected occasionally, there is certainly no reason not to find such an outcome on the first deal. Unexpected but not impossible.

Science is not satisfied with this thinking, it seems, and wants to make the random shuffle of the elements work out to where our world with intelligent life is expected. There are two ways to do this.

One way is to conceive of the Big Bang as a boomerang phenomenon where the particles expand, slow down and then finally reverse and return to a single point for another Big Bang. This would be like considering the shuffle and deal in our analogy as one of trillions of shuffles and deals and so where this rare four royal flush deal would be expected. However this will not work for our known Big Bang because instead of slowing down and preparing for a return, the elements and worlds are expanding apart at an accelerating rate.

The only remaining way for our Big Bang to be expected is for there to be trillions and trillions of Big Bangs going on in separate, parallel universes simultaneously. And this then would be like having trillions of separate gaming rooms, in each of which a single honest shuffle and deal is taking place. Then again a shuffle and outcome of four royal flushes would be expected with a few of those deals.

This, as I understand the matter, is the justification for the multi-verse theory of modern physics. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest any such thing, but only a desire on the part of science to come up with the expected rather than the unexpected with regard to our actual universe. It is not a need of science, but only a desire.

The only actual fact is this single Big Bang (or, by analogy, a one-time shuffle and deal). Thus based entirely and solely on what we know and have actual evidence for,* the scientist will have to accept our universe and existence as an exceedingly unexpected, random outcome. “It just happened to work out that in this unique and thoroughly honest shuffle and deal we have four royal flushes.”

[* Which excludes the multi-verse theory as just that, a theory and not a fact.]

The alternative is the hypothesis that the Big Bang or the four royal flushes is the result of a stacked deck. Science cannot accept any such hypothesis, for although there is just as much evidence for the stacked deck as for the honest and random shuffle, i.e., no evidence in either case, and just as little means of testing either, a stacked deck will not fit into the overall Weltanschauung of science.

In the end then it is only certain that a single shuffle and deal has been made with the four royal flush outcome (the present Big Bang). As an observer the theoretical scientist would respond, “This is no proof of a stacked deck,” while that same scientist as a player would say, “I certainly don’t intend to play at that dealer’s table.”

So theoretically the outcome is fine, but practically speaking (regarding any betting) the honest deck and deal are highly suspect.

In a word: there is no scientific evidence or possibility of such evidence for the existence of God, and so science rejects the existence of God; and there is no scientific evidence or possibility of such evidence for the existence of the multi-verses, and yet science accepts the multi-verses.*

[* Kant would remind us that this is the proper conclusion, for if science were  to accept the existence of God it would cut off further scientific inquiry. And besides, he would add, the existence of God is sufficiently established through out knowledge of the moral law.]

I guess the final question is this: upon observing such a hand of four royal flushes, are we facing an honest dealer, or is it a magician who can just make things happen and come out in a particular way?

So how does this Jesus start off? He, curiously, always obeys his mother such that she never had any need to say no more than once. That was his peculiarity, his willful determination to do as he was told. To be a slave, I guess you might say. So he grows up in an environment which was unique in one respect, fear never entered into the little boy. He did not know what fear was. He was in total peace with his life. His mother told him that he had powers beyond the imagination, but he was never to utilize these until he had been told to by his daddy, Abba. His mother would guide now, and later the father, Abba, will step in and tell him what he is to do.*

[* According to this theory therefore, we could conceive of Jesus as just like any other person in the world, but with this unique talent, this capacity for always being obedient, first to his mother and then to the moral law.]

And so he will have developed in an environment of love, but then also in a comparison with his friends and neighbors, and he will have wondered that they were not happy as he. His mother (who, for the sake of the “naturalist” take on Jesus, was hit by an hallucination like that of Joan of Arc and like Joan went along with it) would have told him that people were blind to the reality of his father Abba and didn’t realize that things could be different, and so just get stuck in their misery.

[Musing. In the equations for the multi-verse system we need also to include the random factor of original obedience, that sooner or later a world will include a self correcting element, where a child happens to be reared by a lunatic (in the eyes of science) and which brings a moral compass into the world which points to a universal hope and anticipation and activity and puts the world on a different trajectory. Our universe includes that element, a chance occurrence (from the [rightly] skeptical scientific standpoint) of an extraordinarily rare, perfect obedience in a living being. A strange creature when you look at the common sort (like comparing left handers with the majority right handers, or like Kasper Hauser in a way). Maybe this is the “miracle factor” that has to be included to the equations of science. How many then of these multi-verses will have a self-correction element with regard to the moral? one in a thousand trillion to the thousand trillionth power?]

Jesus would be thinking: if they would just do as Abba tells them they would be as happy as I am. [I think of Jesus weeping before Jerusalem.]

Jesus now thinking to himself. Now I can tell them this and can show how their problems can vanish, just like magic (for this is the nature of the world with the obedience element included, but always awaiting the presence of the Righteous One, who was obedient from the word go, which is required and which is very rare among humans*). But they don’t believe me. They believe I am good and I am powerful, but they don’t believe me that they don’t need to do anything else than just simply now instantaneously start living right without fear, for then they would see the happiness that is there to be tapped. They are impressed with what they take for my miracles (not knowing the unification of the Kingdom of Nature and the Kingdom of Morals, as Kant will later tell them about), but they do not believe my words. Not even my disciples believe. They love me but they don’t get it that what they need to do is to give up Self and take up Community, i.e., love each other. But they won’t or simply can’t believe me.

[* According to my new theory (and partly suggested by Kant), there is a connection between the World of Nature and the World of Morals such that the World of Nature conforms to the will of a Righteous One, one who is ever obedient to the moral law from the word go (a notion suggested by Kant in his critique of practical reason) and to whom nature is attuned by its very make up and formation within this universe. The nearest approximation to a perfectly obedient and righteous person would be starting to be righteous as of now, but which does not have the same effect relative to the laws of nature as continuing righteous from the beginning of life. For an analogy, the conformity of nature and morals is like the freezing of water, and which cannot be anticipated by reviewing water at different temperatures above freezing.]

So what is needed then (Jesus continues) is my own death and my resurrection to tell them that if they will just give up fear they will find happiness. I will violate the laws of nature regarding the Righteous One by willing my own death (stoking the anger of the Angel of Fear resident in the hearts of men to get them to show their true stuff, the destruction of a Righteous One for gain). Now here is how it will work. I have told them what to do in order to find peace and joy now (loving neighbor = all people) and how God forgives what they have already done, and I have told them that in forgiving their sin I take that sin upon myself and I will now take the road of a sinner rightly condemned under the law (breaking the Sabbath) and will my own destruction in order for God to give the only sign* that will make you believe, my resurrection, for I will return to my friends and let them see–not to the world, for the world has rejected me–but to my friends and they then shall see that I told them the truth: that indeed all sins are forgiven, just as I said they were, for God has sent me back to you just as I promised you, and I am only sad for the suffering this meant for you, my most beloved mother and my friends, but that is over, though now the work begins, to tell the world that if they will simply give up sin and turn to the righteous way of universal, brotherly love they will find happiness, although, due to the sins of our brothers and sisters and ourselves, we will all have to carry a cross ourselves until that New Jerusalem is attained.

[* The idea then is this: Jesus forgives sins, and to show his authority to do so offers himself as the guilty one to pay for these sins. It is now up to God to ignore this by leaving him dead and thus rejecting his presumption, or else to validate Jesus’ audacity in forgiving the sins on behalf of God by raising Jesus from the dead.]

So this could be the thinking of Jesus as he finally decides what to do. It’s the only way to convince the disciples. If he can’t convince the disciples then whom is he going to convince? They loved him, but he could not convince them to give up fear and its sin and to love one another.

And so I guess he willed his own death and his own resurrection, although the latter would be the will of God (or else that’s the way the Nature is constructed, where a Righteous One can die by his own will, but cannot stay dead, and the delay in the case of Jesus’ resurrection will have been in deference to the peculiar culture from which this chance element of obedience were present, a day of rest (to give people a break)).

Now the interesting scene is in John 2 where Jesus disobeys his mother for the first time and takes command. The obedient one now becomes disobedient and denies his mother, and refuses to act as she had asked him. This is not the place, he is thinking. This is not the time. Not at a wedding; I am not to come out here. This is not right. There is to be a more formal or dramatic setting. Surely. And then his Abba speaks to him in a sign, and Jesus sees the fear which is in the faces of the servants and he realizes that it is the time, that this is the place. This was the time that Abba was setting him out on his own to take charge and bring this world back to him. It was to help the humble who may even have been the guilty. And so he told them there was nothing to fear at all, and to simply go give the guests water and it will become wine. They responded, maybe in awe of Mary who forced his hand regarding the servants.

Anyway, so we today are faced with having to raise disobedient children, for according to this theory the obedient element is highly unlikely. In a way it is like an extreme case of maybe only one person in the world being left handed, or maybe only one person being gay. It’s really like a miracle. An obedient element arose in the midst of disobedient human nature and changed the course of history and brings hope into the world. So we have to deal with the stuff we are given, our children, which is no different that the stuff given to our parents to deal with in us, and have to create an environment of fearlessness and where disobedience calls for a counterforce of some kind, and where then the story of Jesus can be presented to show what kind of people we are able to come by believing him and who are then encouraged to join that “happy band of brothers” called the band of Jesus and help him bring about the New Jerusalem for our children (and for us to, according to his promise).

And so I guess we can say that God is pleased with what this Jesus did on behalf of the world and that Jesus is exactly as God himself would be if God had happened to be a man. So there is God in the person of a father and in the person of a son, and so it is a short jump to God in the person of a Spirit which abides with and moves the members of the band of Jesus.

So that’s interesting, I think. Suppose the world itself blinked. We wouldn’t notice or pay any attention and simply assume we had blinked. But maybe we hadn’t blinked and what occurred was a disregard of time and space. And so maybe, for example, suddenly the whole world was put on another trajectory and it was done right before our eyes and we did not pay any attention, due to our experience with blinks (which are within us).

And so maybe there is another nature ahead. I am thinking now of this notion Kant brings up of the merging of the world of nature with the world of the moral law and freedom. Maybe there are these universal blinks which respond to a purpose.

Now I need to get that straight. Sciences give us the causation of nature. But here we are talking about purposes. And so I’m thinking that it could be possible say, by a free act, to actual take advantage of one of these transformations/shifts and actually influence it to take a certain trajectory.

And so maybe this is Kant’s idea, in a way, of how these two, nature and freedom and moral, are going to get united. So maybe these jolts in nature, like the particles going in and out of existence (or is it just out of sight? but which is all the same to the scientist in the brainarium). And by engaging in our moral acts we actually enter freedom in to the equation and in that way work toward the Highest Good.

So we look at this incredible gift of freedom, which we recognize thanks to the moral law of autonomy in legislation, “Every man shall be a king”. And so we can at least see the hint of a purpose to this very existence, namely we are free and we are on a quest, we are part of it, we are actually ourselves shaping the laws of nature into a rational nature, unification of cause and purpose.

This thesis then would suggest some sort of evidence for the Highest Good, a means of uniting these two worlds in order that we might indeed achieve to moral perfection, the promise of our nature, and that we would also be happy, and not just in the thought, but in the fact, i.e., something is going on and we are being called to make it happen by our own free will as human beings, and we are taking part.

I have a crazy idea that goes like this. The moral and the natural realms are so much merely one that if a Righteous Man should proclaim the sun to move it would happen, and upon of a thorough grasp of all data it would also be revealed then as to why that had to happen, according to equations which were fully equipped. And then it would be no marvel, for then we could see how it could be done, by becoming a Righteous One.

But this is impossible for the human, due to his very nature of refusing to take “no” for an answer, but only for cover. So it is merely a thesis and cannot be exemplified in any human example, and so is of no use of any kind to science.

So suddenly, in my mind, there pops up the marvelous idea of a human being raised by a gullible young girl who nature has produced to do by random chance that which a perfect mother would do, and she were given a child whose only virtue was submission. The one being who would freely choose to obey.

And so the nature now is so composed that it conforms and indeeds even anticipates (in its more informed status) what a Righteous One would freely command on his own. This, accordingly to hearsay, happened once, but in the rare case of someone who was righteous at birth, a totally absolutely determined submission to doing as he was told, and who was in the hands of someone sort of like Joan of Arc, who just seemed to know exactly what to do in any situation, like raising the Righteous One.

Now I don’t know exactly where this is headed, this ramble. This boy grows up totally submissive to his mother until suddenly one day out of the blue he disobeyed her and stands on his own as the Righteous One (it was at a wedding in a so-called Cana). So nature responds accordingly to its laws and supplies what the Righteous One commands, the one under perfect self control. He always was consciousness of his own self control. The first human ever able to control the self. [Adam and Eve could not control themselves.] [Why not? speaking of the story.]

So, following this story, it is impossible for a Righteous Man to die according to the laws of nature (when fully known to man), and so he would have to command it anyway and he would do this out of love for all human beings whosoever (and the tactic would be to make the world angry with him and show its true colors). Now the purpose of this self destruction would be to show humans what they, as unrighteous ones, must do in order to change the world by the implementation of their own free will, i.e., they must die to self. This is the only way that you humans can be helped. Believe me (speaking as Jesus). It is so. This is why I must now command my own destruction in the face of your cries, and go to Calvary, in order to go first on your behalf and as your lead. This is what you have to do. Believe me. This is the only hope. And if you do as I have told you, i.e., dying to sin and self, you will come to see the fact of the salvation itself, that the earth has been redeemed and set on a course that will end up being the New Jerusalem, a gift of God to those fellow humans whom he loves so much. Now tremble through the Sabbath (for the sake of the patriarchs) with me and see what God will do to show you, my beloved friends and beloved John and my beloved mother, so that you might yourselves, as you die to sin (speaking to humans), realize that you will rise immediately in eternal life and a whole new dimension to existence. And, if you live long enough, you will yourself experience this new nature that you will be born to.

So we have to assume there is a purpose to the moral law, for otherwise, even though it would always still command us, it wouldn’t make any sense. Being commanded to ignore my happiness and do something anyway? I don’t have to do it and do it anyway and it causes me pain?

So how to reconcile this? There can be only a single purpose for the moral law for the human race, namely the highest possible good where there is perfect morality and perfect and commensurate happiness. There has to be a purpose, and since the highest good is the only possible purpose, obviously it is the purpose. The highest good is the purpose and entire point of the moral law. That’s what the moral consciousness is directed toward and is aiming at, the marriage of moral perfection and commensurate perfection in happiness, i.e., the highest good.

And so what is the relationship between the moral consciousness and the highest good? The highest good is the morally necessary purpose of the moral law. It is necessary because without it the moral law would be inane; but we know it is not inane for we know that we are free., i.e., actually imposed upon by this law. Therefore, because the moral law is not inane, we know that it is aimed at the highest good in this world, that which we must use our freedom to achieve.

Thus: I will that there be the highest good in the world and with it the soul and God (as it necessary conditions), and I will that I be free. This then would become the consciousness of the moral act. I’m expressing the willed fact of the highest good via this very act. I am reflecting this highest good.

So we know we ought to be promoting the highest good in this world. Indeed we are morally obligated to assert and promote the highest good (and for the simple reason that without that very purpose, the moral law cannot be defended and would end up a quaint and incidental vanity).

In other words, it is only by virtue of the Idea of the highest good that the moral and prudence drives can be unified in a person and focused on a single object, where the moral act becomes also the most prudent act (regarding personal happiness). Without the highest good the moral act has to be considered as pointless. Therefore the highest good is the purpose of the moral act.

Kant hastens to note that the soul and God and freedom, while recognized now practically as actual objects, add nothing to theoretical or speculative reason. So this does not affect the sciences, but only the scientist, but then only as a practical and morally inclined person.

It is this. By din of God’s great wisdom and omnipotence the unity is finally and fully and ultimately realized and recognized.

It goes like this. In a world of perfect morality, the Righteous One has full control over the laws of nature which is so designed to bend by equation to the impulse of a Righteous Man. When he says, “O mountain, be moved” the science will reveal a coordination in natural laws that move that mountain. It will be the miracle of miracles. So of Leibniz-like, I guess.

The reason it has not been discovered is because there has been no evidence, scientifically acceptable, which has reveal the existence of any Righteous One, and so there has never been any reason, so far, to look for a possible connection, that this mountain actually shifted and we see exactly why in the realm of nature.

But shouldn’t there be some correlation with a very good person. You would think that a very good person should have some impact and do marvelous things? But it doesn’t work like that. Just as the King of Siam could not believe that elephants could walk on water (“not just humans, but elephants”) because he could see no solidifying as the water cooled above freezing, he was not able to accept a sudden change, a change just suddenly. He could reach freezing in Siam.

So it is with the theory of the Righteous One. Righteousness is total and absolute and no sin even in childhood. Nothing. Total perfection of a man. Only then can the unification of the world of morals be integrated into the world of nature and understood and exemplified in the great miracle of the correlated causalities: nature and freedom.

And so of course Jesus comes to mind. He was special in that he had a special mother who like Joan of Arc believed an hallucination and like Joan she accomplished a great deal, for she will have given us the Righteous One. By means of her upbringing and his willingness to take orders resulted in the fact of the Righteous One. And so we have these reports, but then unfortunately for science there is no way to replicate them and so we are left with evidence which is, scientifically speaking, hearsay, and we can hardly expect them to accept that.

There is empirical evidence, but which is only subjective valid for each individual, and that is the experience of a changed spirit. Yesterday I was ready for a “great composition” and then noticed that my glasses were missing. Formally I would have cursed and reluctantly gone after them. Now I noticed that I immediately smiled to myself, and told myself that I would get new inspirations as a result of the delay and also that I needed the exercise, and so I went off cheerfully instead of grumpily, and that cheerfulness is becoming my first reaction to so many things. And so in that regard I have some evidence which is compelling to me that there is a hand at play in this world that we are part of that hand.

So we Christians, it seems to me, are called to cooperation in the fashioning of a world in which children might be rightly reared. We are not going to make Righteous Ones from birth, because we did not hallucinate with Mary, but at least get them on the right track early, before it gets difficult.

Interesting about Mary in comparison with Eve. So Eve left too soon, before she had been instructed to raise children, and where it would have always been only Righteous Ones. So we have to dig ourselves out from where we are. So we have to produce it ourselves. At least we know the direction and at least we know the way out so that someday in deed and fact the New Jerusalem will arise on earth.

Now interesting thought from Kant and the CPrR. Suppose, he asked, that we had been able to prove the existence of God and his moral law just as well as we could prove that 7+5=12. Assuming everything else stayed the same with us and our nature, then of course the first thing we would do would be find our fun and happiness and we would of course obey the moral law, because the punishments and rewards are as clear as 7+5, we’re fools. In short we would obey the moral law out of fear, and some would obey out of hope, but none would obey out of duty. And so the one thing that we would never have ever been able to figure out is that we are free, we are free beings (which we know by the effect of the moral law upon us . . . as a duty).

So we are, I speculate, free beings who have ourselves put ourselves into our mess ourselves. This is the effect of our own personal use of our freedom. This mess. So God made us free and we have chosen this. The good news is, Kant quickly reminds us, is that since this is our choice, this choice for evil, we can choose differently.

And so, as my story develops, we are in a mess and God sends us Jesus and he shows us the way out of the mess.

Oh, I forgot. Obviously a Righteous One cannot die in this world unless he would agree to do so. But the connection between the two realms, nature and the moral, is such that that body would be reconstituted and made whole. In the stories of Jesus this is understood in terms of the cultural no-work day, i.e., no reconstitution of life on the sabbath, i.e., another unanticipated law of nature regarding the Righteous One. If he had been of another culture, this would be represented differently.

So this theory could possibly be tested, but not actually. So what kind of hypothesis could that be? possible but not actually? Is it like the hypothesis of the multi-verse? it is possible to be detected, but not by any person.

Enough.

[* To quickly grasp the notion of the brainarium, consider the sun illuminating a tree and some of the rays bounce off of the tree and enter your eye, and are converted into electrical impulses which travel to the brain and where then an image of that tree is projected. and you can say, "I see the tree". For more on the appearances in the brainarium read “Tips for the novice to Kantland”. See also the Key to Kant.]

To make the point, I consider the empirical character to be the object of experience and which is so conceived as to encompasses the very basis for actions by the human, and from which then all actions (as appearances) of this empirical character can be deduced. This is the object of experience regarding the human being. This empirical character as the object of experience is as much determined by laws of nature as are the stars in the sky and there is no difference.

Now at the same time, and purely for the sake of argument, I can conceive of the intelligible character which would belong to the human as a being on his own, independently of the brainarium, and I can conceive of it as being free of the laws of nature, a utterly free being, and from that I can then consider the empirical character as the representation of this intelligible character. In other words, where science looks back at a particular appearance of the empirical character and says, “See, he had to do this and he had to do that”, I can just as easily assert: “I know that it looks like it is necessary according to the laws of nature, but the fact is that this person, this intelligible character, freely chose to do as he did and he could have chosen differently.”*

[* For more on this matter of the two characters, see the antinomy.]

This argument cannot be refuted, and although it certainly does not present us with even the first glimpse of actual freedom, it does show that such an assertion would not contradict the predications of science.

To make this clearer. In the realm of science we can and do speak of freedom to make choices, but that means only a choice between inclinations of happiness, A now versus B later, for example, and where B might be much more than A. Now this freedom is nothing but the capacity for delayed gratification, and is not at all what we mean with the transcendental freedom asserted of the intelligible character of man. This latter is totally free and can chose as he wishes to, and is not bound by the laws of nature (with regard to his intended objects of action).

So there is no contradiction to speak of man as an object of experience with an empirical character and totally and utterly controlled by laws of nature, and then also of man as an intelligible character who has freely chosen his empirical character and who is not subject to the laws of nature. One appears within the brainarium and the other is independent of any brainarium. Accordingly: there is no conflict between laws of nature and freedom.

Now we have considered what pure reason is able to accomplish with regard to theoretics and to speculation. We turn now to a like consideration of what pure reason is able to accomplish in the world of experience via free acts.

We will find that pure reason is able to come up not with just admonitions for finding happiness but rather also with a law, a moral law which requires that one act only in accordance with maxims (subjective principles of action) which can be universalized and made into a law of nature (objective principles of action). And furthermore it is by virtue of this law that we come to realize that we are indeed free to act in accordance with principles of our own choosing, and this moral law is pressed upon us such that we are obligated to act accordingly regarding any action in the world of the brainarium.

Pose to any man if he were able to achieve his greatest possible, indeed irresistible, delight only to be hanged to death immediately after, whether he might be able to resist after all and he will of course realize that a longer life is the wiser course. This is practical freedom as considered by the science. This restraint is a foregone conclusion.

But then ask him if he had to lie and send an innocent person to death to avoid being himself hanged; what would he do? How would he answer? This is not a foregone conclusion. And the only possible way for this not to be a foregone conclusion is if the man is a free being, for if he were not free, his choice for life would have been a foregone conclusion and would not require a pause to be considered more carefully.

So obviously we are free beings and we know it by virtue of this moral law which was fabricated by pure reason working on its own. And since this freedom is self evident to every human being (by virtue of his own pure reason), we lay claim to it as a fact. And we need only note in passing that since there is nothing in pure reason against freedom (only that it is unneeded by science), and since we have a need for it per this same pure reasoning in the practical realm, we lay claim to it and assert our own freedom in the face of, and over the laws of, nature. And we see they fit nicely together as if they had been designed to be one and the same reason (which indeed they are).

There is something else that we are in need of, and that is a purpose for the moral law and our freedom. What’s up with this moral law? What’s to be accomplished?

From a Darwinian point of view you could say that nothing was to be accomplished except perhaps keeping the human species more closely knitted together regarding confrontations with other species. But it is easy to see that if we take that tack we defeat the moral law, for then it will be discovered to be a vanity and not worth our worry. And so there is even a moral need for a purpose to this moral law.

Given the state of the human being as a needful being with inclinations for happiness, it follows that the only purpose to the moral law that can be meaningful for him is what can be called the Idea of the Highest Good, namely a state of moral perfection which is connected with a commensurate degree of happiness. To expect the human being to follow a moral law simply in order to be prepared for possible enemy aliens on the part of future descents of the present generation, and realizing that everyone is thinking the same way, that is an exercise of dreamland.

And so we are required by practical reason itself to postulate the Highest Good as the practical purpose and intention of the moral law. The purpose of this law for each individual is the achievement of moral perfection and enjoyment of a commensurate happiness.

Obviously such moral perfection cannot be expected during the lifetime of any individual and so it follows that there is now a need for an immortality (in order to pursue this purpose of moral perfection in the Highest Good) and a need for a God (in order to discern the worthiness to happiness and for supplying the commensurate happiness, an omnipotent and all knowing moral judge).

Accordingly we have a moral need for freedom and for God and for immortality, and since speculative pure reason has nothing against these objects (though also no use for them) we claim and assert them in a practical sense, i.e., there exists freedom, immortality and God. But in no way does this supply science with any insight into these three and which then are quite rightly to be ignored by science.*

[*Science is not to presume any limit to its knowledge. And to present God as a scientific fact would cut off further exploration. But presenting God as a practical fact plays no role in the science at all, but only in the individual scientist as a person.]

According to Kant then the individual scientist would speak about so: “Of course there is a God, etc., because there has to be. Why else the moral law? But don’t ask me anything about this God in my science, for it plays no part in the equations of the brainarium world.”

In a word, Kant will have us duty bound to promote the Highest Good as a practical goal and to seek to implement that Highest Good in this present world to the extent possible for us.

From here Kant will take us to the Christian faith and recommend that we tidy this faith up a bit and to utilize it for the establishment of the Highest Good as a universal endeavor on the part of mankind.

[* I'm thinking that the angels will not be able to understand what love means, and so of all the creation only humanity is capable of that and so only humanity is capable of loving God, but humanity can only do this once it knows that God loves humanity, à la Wesley.]

So this is sort of synthetic arrangement. A creation fear and hate (where we don’t understand God), a creation subject to that, and a world from that, arising naturally by interaction with human free will, which will figure out that there is a God and that that he loves them individually as precious and meaningful treasures, and by virtue of coming to know that (very, very Wesleyan) they will turn and be unable to bow down like the angels, for they will love God as their Father, as their Daddy, the person they love above all else. Instead they will flock to him and cover him with their love.

And so, I guess, the word to get out is this: God is saying. Look, you want to be free of fear. Ok, then do this: love one another. And two things are promised to happen, namely the world will be happy and you will get happy also. Once that happens you will be able to fathom how much I love you (God speaking).

Accordingly, as I  muse about this, the Christian is to believe that he is actually in process of constructing the New Jerusalem on earth, that such a fearless world is a practical and attainable goal, and so where the Christian is obligated to do his best in bringing that about, even if he is not sure of his own capacity to that, i.e., he is to work at it as though it were entirely up to him and possible according to his own effort, and he is to be without fear in the certainty that all things (Muslim example can help here, I think) are in the hands of a loving God who is utterly capable of this task that he has set before himself via them.

So God creates an absolutely free being, as free as God himself. The crown of the masterpiece (someone to love him as he wants to love). An totally free being. And here Kant has already opened the door through the solution of the Third Antinomy. And the result is the chaos of human existence. These are free beings and they are going to prove that by virtue of making there own decisions and not taking external dictation, i.e., the whole idea of autonomy (“every man shall be a king” Les Miz). And so God speaks out and commands love of neighbor and we simply ignore him and go instead by our own self-based nature. And what does the self spirit do when opportunity arises, but opt for the self.

Thinking suddenly about judgement and how God is going to deal with his children who did not do as he told them. The only possible judgement is in terms of their understanding. For example, when I, about 7 o r 8 years old, was “caught” breaking out windows in a junk yard, and explained myself by saying, “but junk is stuff that is worthless and is to be thrown away”, my Daddy did not punish me, but simply informed me that “junk” is a relative term and actually the windows in these wrecks and discards were valuable. So certainly we know in advance (by virtue of this conception) that God will judge us according to our own understanding, and nothing more (Romans 14:4). He speaks and we, due to circumstances, understand it in this way and that. So Don Quixote, most certainly, would be admonished by God and told “those were only windmills and the ‘giant’ was like a face in a cloud, just your enfevered mind” and presumably would be hugged by God for his selfless willingness to risk his own live for the sake of passer-bys, whom Quixote did not even know.

So I wonder how this might tie in with Jesus? As Kant’s “revolutionary” he brings us the message of God clearly so that there is no misunderstanding. “This is what I mean with love one another.” This is Jesus, the authentic representation of the Trinity of Love. So don’t be afraid. Start loving one another just as Jesus is doing and you will find happiness for you and for all who will open themselves up to it.

And so perhaps in the great Garden of the Lord we will be there before God and the angels, all humans together, and while many are bewildered and perhaps even frightened, some are so besides themselves with this identity of God and Jesus, God the Father and the Son, that they are doing cartwheels and composing and performing symphonies. And those who are bewildered will not know what to think and like the Thenardiera couple of Les Miz, will be just looking around if to see if there is any opportunity for the enrichment of Self. So perhaps indeed Self will be there and will be so focused on Self that he will never see the truth, another dimension where the rule is Togetherness, and so maybe where he will be happy in his own selfish way, but in ways when viewed from the perspectives of the band of Jesus at the Party will seem like the love of a puppy dog in receiving scraps from the banquet table.

And so it seems the Christians will be the happiest of all, for when they meet Jesus (of the Trinity) as their elder brother, who refused to let go of them when they needed it most, and so made it happen that they might be able to rejoice in their own afflictions for his sake, they will be delirious, and slapping each other on the back and saying like Tolkien’s Ring fellowship, “we did it together, Frodo did it, but we all did it with him. We did it as a team. The band of Jesus.”

This harkens back to St. Francis and the idea that all enjoy God to the extent of their capacity, e.g., the animal at one level and the human at another and the angel even at another.

I wonder now. The first step toward conversion would be the recognition of the plausibility of the historical man Jesus with respect to his character as revealed in the sacred histories. The reason, according to Kant, is clear: because each one of us ourselves is called upon to be just such a person. And so we have no basis to deny the reality of such a person. Not so much that he rose from the dead, but that he persevered to the death and died a Righteous Person. A Righteous Person had lived and died in the annals of time. At least this should be established and acknowledged as plausible.

Then we can turn to a consideration of what he had to say to the humans, his fellow humans. “Look, you have no reason to be afraid. I promise you there is enough for all. All you have to do is to start loving one another, and that means all others, even your enemies.  The result will be a world which is happy and which is fit for children to be raised in. I weep before Jerusalem because such happiness is so close, but due to your fear and your selfishness, you reject that happiness and follow the path of fear and which leads to hell. Here is what I am going to do. I am going to die before your eyes, and I permit this my death (speaking with the absolute authority of the Righteous One) and I am going to rise again from the dead and I am going to do this in order that you might realize how much God does in fact love each of you and only wants to bring you home to him. And in order that you be thoroughly convinced in your heart that this is true and that happiness is yours and all like you is that I am going to rise from the dead.”

“What you don’t know”, he continued (as we dream on), “is that it is a violation of the law of nature for a Righteous Man to die against his will. This will be a surprise, for you have no data available that would suggest such a sudden totally unexpected state of being, like the gradual reduction in the temperature of water to freezing (where ‘something suddenly happens’). I die willingly, in order to show you how much God loves you, that he sends me to die for you in order to show you this love, which cannot be expressed and understood in any other way, and then to give you the additional happiness of knowing that this is not vain, and that you will indeed achieve to moral perfection and with it come to love God as he loves you and find happiness beyond happiness.” This is sort of a Kantian take: Jesus dies as elder brother to show his followers what they must also do to become new creatures, i.e., die to sin (which is also very painful), and (but no longer kantian) then promises them that they will be successful by means of his resurrection.

Suddenly I wonder further: maybe the angel Satan decides to force God’s hand and institutes a Joker effect by telling lies. Satan is forcing God to produce his creation in the face of the lie. Not only are people free, but there is a believable lie, and a good reason to be alert and thinking about Self and to be worried about things.

And so, just continuing for a moment in this vein, Satan lies about the fruit, and the free humans buy into that and end up then going their own way in a world in which there is the Lie floating about. And so Satan introduces the lie and God says, so be it, and proceeds to point out to the angels the direction that things are taking as his creation is unfolded to them. The lie then is this: there is reason to be afraid, and so look out for your self first, for you will be better off that way. The truth is: there is no reason to be afraid, and look out first for each other.

Kant could be good here. God created Adam and Eve as absolutely free beings and they could have chosen differently and the happy world would always have continued. But that they not. They deliberately chose the way of the lie and as a result the journey to this happy end, i.e., the completion of the happiness stage of humanity (the New Jerusalem as the culmination and purpose of the creation), will be all the more painful. It was a chance that God took when creating the humans. It could have gone either way, and it went this way. God’s will will rule, and sadly for God and for us we have to go the way ordained for us by Adam and Eve. And we can’t blame them any more or less than ourselves, for we have also freely chosen to do the wrong at times.  So, I guess, the suggestion would be that this disobedience can occur at any and all times and by any. So, perhaps, this means a commitment to the law of love at an early age so that disobedience is no longer a factor. So that it doesn’t occur to us.

So how do you discipline children for their own good, but without instilling any fear such that a lie might be seen as advantageous in avoid some discomfort on some occasion? How do you “civilize” children without at the same time killing spontaneity of thought and expression? I don’t know.

Then Kant introduces the intelligible character. If there is an aspect of a sensitive being which cannot be conveyed via the brainarium, i.e., cannot be an appearance, then that is called intelligible.

And so the transcendental object = myself as a soul, an intelligible object, that aspect of the object of sense which cannot be sighted. And so in this wise I take the empirical character and make it into an appearance of my intelligible character. And the only thing that we have done is this: we can declare this intelligible character to be free, if we wish to, and so where the empirical character (expressed in the appearances) is itself an appearance and represents this intelligible character.

And so at this stage (the Third Antinomy) we just stand there and shake our heads while science explains how some person had to choose as he did, following the laws of nature, and we say: “look, one thing is certain. He knew that was wrong and he did it anyway. In other words, he chose to do wrong and he did not have to, and he deserves punishment. I don’t care what you say in science, this guy did not have to do as he did, and so he chose to do so and now he is responsible for the consequences of that choice.”

This is now understandable as simply an assertion of a event which always accords with the facts of science but which is of a different causality, namely freedom, i.e., not just an event, but the effect of a free act. At this stage this is no more meaningful than asserting the existence of light, invisible unicorns prancing about.

Now later in Practical Reason we will come upon the “factum” of pure reason, namely that we are subject to the moral law whether we like it or not. And since the condition of this fact of pure reason is freedom, then obviously we are free, and can combine this with the teachings of science as we saw above in the consideration of the Third Antinomy.

What is the justification for this intelligible character? In dealing with the appearances we come to conceive of the transcendental object, the thing on its own, the super reality beyond the appearances, and in order to make it connect in space and time we conceive of the laws of nature and apply them to the appearances in the guise of objects of experience. And so first we conceive of the thing on its own and then we conceive of the object of experience to represent that thing on its own as affecting a brainarium (our own). But this leaves the thing on its own, as a concept, open to add anything we wish, as long as we do not contradict science, which speaks only of the appearances of this thing within the brainarium, i.e., how it looks.

And so in Third Antinomy we confuse ourselves by trying to speak of the object of experience and the thing on its own as identical, as one and the same. They’re not. In science we speak only of the object of experience. And so if someone then also speaks in terms of the thing on its own, without reference to any object of experience (or any other envisagement/take/Anschauung), then he needs only to be self consistent and then also not to contradict the facts of science. “You say he had to do what he did. I say he chose to do what he did and he did not have to do it. And so he is guilty.” That’s a so-called “compatibility”. And so it seems way out, but it works. And then later it is called upon in order to show that practical reasoning is not kidding about the fact of our freedom.

O God, I reach out to you. Catch me, and never let me fall. Promise me, O God, that you will never let me fall. You’ll send your son Jesus, my elder brother, to make sure that I am ok. I have the help of Jesus to make sure this is not a nightmare, but a life with a happy end, a dream of me and everyone just leaping forth on your promise and daring to add a consciousness to the hologram* being played out.

[* It just occurred to me that we might all be in a great auditorium in Never-Never Land and are watching the hologram renditions of these beings and perhaps we are providing the consciousness to one of these holograms.]

So (as I dream here) it seems that my entire life from start to finish is a hologram of a person. And I, as an apperception, can sit by in the audience of the saints and angels and just enjoy the show as a spectator, or else I can volunteer to take a role in that presentation by assuming the identity of that hologram. I can either watch, but I choose to take part by living the consciousness of that hologram.

And so it is a done deal, and I have volunteered to actually inhabit and live that hologram as its awareness, as its personhood, as its identity, as its “thing”.

That’s interesting, for indeed it makes a hologram of all that exists in time and space, and history is its machinations through space and time. And the only realize is the apperception who takes the the body and make up of the person portrayed in the hologram.

And so I wonder. Is it then by means of the identity of self that I can count myself as an enduring self? I don’t think so. And so once again we come back to the simple fact that it is a need for the sake of rationality as our only hope together, namely we need the soul in order to present a reality which exists independently of the hologram.

Kant’s right, I think, that we know nothing of our being except that we are a consciousness, a self consciousness, an apperception.

Now, concerning spontaneity. This, I am increasingly convinced, is the key to our joint and mutual and universal happiness, the Gandhi/Jesus notion of no need for fear. We are not to be afraid. We are simply not to be afraid. God has already given us the way to utter happiness, some information to each,* as a loving Father might do with his kids, so that in order for the family to succeed we all need to work together under the direction of God. So we possess the key to all our problems, only we don’t know it and we can’t believe it, even though Jesus kept saying “fear not”. Fear is out. When fear is out then spontaneity will lead, though gradually, as we return to the state of Adam and Eve, i.e., from scratch. We can do this because we are creators ourselves, and so even as God created us even so we can create lives and with his direction (universal and unrestrained and spontaneous sharing) these lives (our children) will be happy lives.

[* According to Gandhi, God has already given to the humans all the answers to all the problems which might ever beset us, but in a fragmented way, where every person has part of the answer, and so what is required is that we all share with each other.

So spontaneity is the key. The market provides a great brake on spontaneity, for there the first thought that comes concerning the expression of this sudden insight on the part of the individual is of market evaluation. “Hey, it’s ok to express it. We need it in fact. But look it is of great value right? so. doesn’t justice say that we should get a bigger share. Right? So let’s think things through economically before we blurt out with this idea.”

Interesting idea. How do we maintain and further spontaneity while at the same time making social life possible (where we don’t just automatically screw beyond control, and even without shame, like the other animals we would be)? It has to do with the clothes, I think. For reasons that will be made clearer later, you (speaking to a child) are now an adult and must start hiding your feelings and your urges, and to develop a private world, where only you can look in.

Clothes represent our dignity as not-animals, for we can deal with each other as free and equal since we can hide our weaknesses from the view of those who might use them against us.

And so it (clothing) is phony and it is also a necessity it seems, that spontaneity cannot take a step back and become animal again. We have to go from here.

You can see where this is going. To the marriage. There again I see this unity of the human being, someone who is able to be totally naked (open) all the time with another person by mutual vow (no divorce).

Thanks be to God.

So the marriage is an absolutely necessary condition for the individual human being to be able to be both free (naked at home) and social (interacting with others), i.e., a complete and total human being. So it’s like it is necessary. But it is not slavery as with some marriages, where several women might be wedded to a single husband, but rather where they are all wedded to each other, for the sake of perfect spontaneity of all (a necessary condition of the marriage).*

[* While marriages of more than 2 seem conceivable and theoretically acceptable, I don't think they should be allowed by law until such time as we have first learned how to get two people to live in a life-long relationship, and even then maybe not at all.]

So its like the marriage is the unification of the two sexes into a third thing, a single person with two tones of voice and authority. So there has to be true unity as with the Trinity itself where all are perfect representations of mutual Love. So the this trinity called each of the two gives us formal personhood.

Now there is, I think, a tie in here with homosexuality and the possibility of a miraculous solution to the problems of the humans, the bisexual, the guy or gal who is willing to decide for himself which way heshe will go.*

[* If many were bisexual, it is possible that we could by natural means come to a matching of people in marriage such that the population would also be a rational size.]

It seems we are speaking of the total equality of male and female before the law and which is not based on our gender but upon our personhood, as persons and not as sexes or things. And so total equality. Well, that is exemplified in the homosexual marriage, for obviously there is equality (with respect to the sexes), and so this, the homosexual marriage, actually explicates the conception of the relationship between the two sexes, i.e., as individuals they are persons. Again: speaking here of the law.

So somehow the person is given by the marriage (as the goal for all), and now we are speaking of the expression of total liberty from all restraints to spontaneity whatsoever and yet still as to another person.  Sort of like the push-pull of matter, I think, where an object resists being compressed and resists being pull apart, the human cannot be fully himherself without being with another and yet also as totally free and spontaneous.

So the unmarried are of course persons, but they are not yet exposed to the liberty and happiness that can belong to a person, to any person.

It’s sort of like the marriage is the promise of God, that by loving each other we catch a glimpse of the love of God for each of us.

But anyway, the solution to be implemented is how to be able to encourage and release spontaneously the keys to the solution of our problems (contained in part in all of us), while at the same time making it possible for that  effective sharing to continue by placing certain social restraints which, I guess, only the artist is allowed to overstep.

That’s the thought I guess. We must come to a society at large where there will a spontaneity equal to that of the bedroom with our other person (making together one), and enabled by the wearing of clothes and restraining ourselves in a self imposed harness for the sake of a more orderly and effective expression of that spontaneity.

So we need shops in the schools and various ways of being productive in our joint venture (for me the American nation of freedom lovers), and all sorts of ways to uncover our hidden creative secrets by sharing them with each other without regard to personal profit, sort of like a Christian schools where fear was not a factor, and thus no inhibition to spontaneity, just learning gently how to be polite to get along best with others, and which can be given up in the spontaneity of the marriage, two equals, equal dignity and sovereignty.

We need exposure to the many trades so that people can discover their passion and pursue that for the common good.

For me there is no question but that the way forward will lead us into some sort of communism and which I think could be provided by the Christian conceptions

Now I need to enter into a different mode to recognize the existence of an evil realm. Jesus warns us that there are two realms in existence, the good and the evil. The evil is that which encircles spontaneity with greed. It is capitalism (for a market requires only two competing teams, both of which would be aiming for the love of God). It is selfishness and me-above-all.

There are some who see existence as continuing beyond the present sighting within our brainarium world and where there is a competition going on and where it is important and rational to make plans to have the upper hand in that realm, and so to go about practicing getting ahead of all others, and putting oneself as the sole arbiter of what oe will do to get ahead. So a continuation of evolutionary struggle in another dimension and where the moral law has no place and it is dog-eat-dog and oneself against all and where intelligence and guile are prime assets to be utilized for one’s chances at being the top dog. This is also called hell. And maybe Jesus meant that so many people had already chosen hell and were even now living in that hell and would continue in that hell in the next dimension beyond time and would not be able to escape. The time to escape is now. The only time is now.

So that was his warning. Look within and you will see what you are and what you have already chosen, the realm of Self. You have already chosen Self above All. Wake up, for you will inherit this existence for eternity and it will be your very character, and (sadly for you) the character of all others around you.

Wake up and join me, Jesus is saying, for this is the realm of the happy, of those who are happy in the happiness of others, happy in company, a totally spontaneous expression of God, and where the spontaneity of the marriage will be universal of all, and where greater happiness shall befall us than can be imagined in space and time. A communion of the spirits. An identity of different albeit kindred spirits. This communion is called heaven.

And so evangelism is critical for the Christian, for love is universal. And then at the same time the work must go on in fashioning a world in which it fit for happy children to be raised in. That’s the two fold effort of the Christian: wake people up as to what is going on (the two realms) and then to enlist them in the effort in fashioning the New Jerusalem for our own children as best we can.

Thought. I think the various Christian churches should open themselves up to the membership of Free Christians, those who do not accept the creeds, but who will repeat them in the spirit of solidarity, and who are looking for other people of the spirit of Jesus to help them grow in that spirit and who generally want to cooperate in making the world a fit place to raise children, and who want to awaken all people to the need to choose the realm they want for the remainder of their existence: which is either to be on their own in a competitive realm without restrain of the moral law, or else to be in a joint venture with others in pursuit of mutual and communal and enduring happiness.

Jesus speaking: This life is a fork in our existence and our future will be determined by how we choose. And you (the world) have already chosen for the evil realm of Self and will be then destined forever to dwell there with others of the realm of Self. Wake up and choose now rather the good realm of All (which includes both the moral and the holy [God]) and work with me for the New Jerusalem (especially for our children) and spread the good news of salvation to the ends of the earth.

And then he seems to say (via Paul) don’t worry about your own sinful make up because I am dying especially for you, for you who sees himself as sinful and unworthy, and then I rise from the dead to assure you that you will become worthy and you will obtain the success and the happiness.

In the evil realm people will trade. In the good realm people will share. In the evil realm people will buy and sell. In the good realm people will give and take.

Reflection: I really think the Chinese under the leadership of such as Mr Lin could pull this off. They could divide the world into the good and the evil, into communism and capitalism and show how they are working toward the good and want to become an example to the world. All they need to do is to convert to something like the commune of First Jerusalem, except to keep up the excitement by the use of teams. That should be the goal of Chinese Communism, to provide two opposing teams for every commodity and to encourage them by means of Christianity and the Realm of the Good/All. And then to be the stronghold and champion of the Good over the capitalism.

Now in the practical reasoning (CPrR) we begin with principles of actions and discover them to be of two sorts, i.e., in pursuit of morality and in pursuit of happiness, and that the former are a categorical imperative, i.e., absolute and unconditioned, and the latter a hypothetical imperative, i.e., assuming that the matter is relevant to the individual.* So we start out here with a priori knowledge as to what the nature of any object of practical reason can prove to me, namely good or evil. So it is by means of the principle (the universalization of all maxims) that I can know what is good and evil and so can be on the look out for them in the objects of practical reason. An object of practical reason is an effect arising from an action which is possible to me. And so good would be that action as it reflects universal reasoning, i.e., would either be a moral good, and thus mandatory or an empirical good which would be a means to some happiness.

[* For example it would be good advise to save up when you are young in order to be prepared for old age. But this advise would be meaningless to a youth who, let us say, knows that he or she will die very soon.]

So we have the laws of practical reason, i.e., the moral law, and we have the recommendations of practical reason, namely leading toward our happiness (not that the act is happiness, but it leads to and is intended toward our happiness). Laws and counsels. Categorical imperatives and also hypothetical imperatives.

Now we want to get clearer in our expression. That which is determined by a practical law is good absolutely and without qualification. That which is determined by a counsel is good as leading to happiness, but is qualified as a hypothetical imperative by the assumption of the good is desired. This qualification is absent with the moral, categorical imperative.

The moral determines the good and the evil. The happiness determines what is smart and dumb. So practical reason teaches us with regard to the good and the evil and also the smart and the dumb. And so when we hear regarding Kant’s Object of Practical Reason, we are to think in composite way. The sole objects of practical reason are the good and the evil, and where the good and the evil can also be understood as the smart and the dumb, the one leading to happiness and the dumb leading to unhappiness.

Eventually in the Dialectic Kant will unify these via the Highest Good and where the moral act comes out to be also the smartest act, i.e., the one which leads (eventually) to personal happiness. This comes from seeking and achieving moral perfection and finding a happiness commensurate to that perfection.

Now after we have identified the objects of practical reason we discover also the means for recognizing them in the appearances. [This connection is not yet clear to me.] By means of the principles we are able to recognize the objects of practical reason. And then when we consider how we relate to these objects we find within our sensitive make up a capacity called the moral feeling and which subjectively speaking is human morality itself. Objectively morality is the moral law, but subjectively (concerning what moves us) morality is the moral feeling that can only be produced via an idea as a conception of pure reason.

And so these feelings don’t just represent morality, subjectively they are the morality.

We know that pure reason can determine the practical in the moral law of universalized maxims, but the reason we are moved to acknowledge the validity of this creature of pure reason on ourselves is by means of the moral feeling. The moral feeling is made out in advance of any experience, merely upon the conception of the moral law and its disregard of personal happiness and self revulsion at the lack of compliance, i.e.,  the actor can never again be proud of anything if he is less than morally perfect.

So theoretical and practical reason cover the same dimension, i.e., sensitivity, objects and principles, but do so from different directions.

The interesting overlap is in the Third Antinomy. Here we see that it is one thing to talk about the object of experience, and another thing to speak of the thing on its own, they not being the same thing, although almost always taken for the same thing in common and scientific discourse.

We see that the object of experience is a product of an assumption made about the thing on its own, namely that it is expressed to us in terms of laws of nature in space and time. But we could also make an assumption, if we wanted to, that people, at least, were things on their own and independent of all that could ever appear to us in a brainarium, and that as things on their own they were free of the laws of nature and capable of acting in accordance with principles and laws of freedom. This was easy to do when we think of the second assumption (freedom) as a fiction, like a phony legal case just to prove a point. And the point is that it is conceivable, but certainly not recognizable, that a leaf on a tree does not have to fall at the time of its falling, but rather chooses to do so independently of all laws of nature, or that a human being is totally free of laws of nature (touching on actions related to the moral law) and has chosen his acts at the time of a decision and was not determined by laws of nature in that instant at all.

Now this leaves the student as an agnostic with regard to free will, and no one would suggest freedom as an academic study. It just wouldn’t make any sense, for here it is only assumed as a fiction.

But then in practical reason we come to actually recognize the validity of the moral law and it is a factum of reason and by means of that moral code we also recognize our freedom, i.e., we have to accept it as a fact, for it is only in that way that a moral code could have any meaning, i.e., by us being free beings. And so this validates the earlier (CPR) assumption of freedom, for now it is needed by reason to explain a fact of our existence, our consciousness of the moral law. And so what was merely permitted in pure reason is now claimed and utilized in practical reason.

The most difficult part of the CPR, I think, is the realization that time and space are merely the ways that we look at and consider things, and that since all our looking is necessarily a product of the brainarium, then all things we can ever appear to us appear in the space and time of our looking, and so it is like the refrigerator light which seems to be on all the time, whether you are looking inside or not.

What things may be on their own independently of space and time we cannot imagine. But we can conceive of a different way of looking which is not conditioned by space and time, a so-called intelligible look at things, and then what appears to us as a necessitated event in the tramp of nature would be recognized as a free act. It is in that sense that we speak of the intelligible character of a person, i.e., that person on his own and beyond the purview of our brainarium.

There is no here and there in the brainarium projection except as it is associated with a looking. The same with now and before. It is absolutely impossible for anything suggesting “before” to ever enter into the brainarium as an object, for it is entirely in the way that we look at the states of the brainarium in their relationship to each other.