Embodiment of transcendental truth

Would Jesus Now be Prosecuted by US? (Part #5)

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"Higher" truth: Christians would claim that the statements of Jesus were interpreted by the Sanhedrin as blasphemy because they related to a "higher" truth -- inadequately embodied in the Jewish articulation, which he was understood to be explicitly calling into question. From this perspective, Jesus was called to account because he broke a mold which prevented access to that higher truth. Islam would tend to see its relationship to Christianity in similar terms. Roman Catholicism was later exposed to a similar process in the case of the Galileo Affair. The same pattern is potentially to be seen with respect to current challenges to global strategy by alternative perspectives (despite reference to TINA). The process has been the subject of debate regarding the nature of "scientific revolutions", through which the paradigms of the past are called into question.

In all such cases the pattern is indicative of protection of "intellectual property" by those claiming ownership of it -- against threats thereto by those indicating more transcendental or fundamental truths neglected in such formulations. For any formalized belief system, there can necessarily be no higher truth -- it constitutes the highest truth, by definition (hence Margaret Thatcher's TINA). In the case of religion, the claim to ownership may be interpreted as uniquely sanctioned by God through some special dispensation. The pattern is evident in the USA through the understandings of Manifest Destiny.

There is a profound irony to the pattern whereby Jesus was effectively pre-judged and condemned in the light of "higher" principles embodied in religious law -- before the case was reframed for consideration by secular authority. Traces of this pre-judgment are now evident in the roles of various authorities whose business-as-usual would be disrupted by taking into consideration "higher" principles and values transcending their habitual frameworks. The irony is compounded by the fact that reference is made to such "higher" principles in the constitutional documents in which issues of "justice" are susceptible of subtler interpretation -- when it is convenient to bask in the implications that they are being upheld. The current internal scandals of the Vatican, as faced by the newly elected Pope, ironically offer a further illustration.

A comparison might be usefully made between the Sanhedrin phase of the trial and modern trial in the "court of public opinion" -- namely the media. Chat show hosts, with the support of evangelical commentators, frame opinion in anticipation of any formal legal proceedings (discreetly aided and abetted by government propaganda). The case is thus effectively reframed to increase chances of prosecution -- as in the second phase of the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate. With respect to the fate of truth within such contexts, supreme irony is provided by the US National Rifle Association in accusing the media:

You don't care about the truth, and the truth is the national news media in this country is a national disgrace, and you all know it." (NRA official accuses media of creating controversy over Travyon Martin case, The Guardian, 15 April 2012)

"Existence" of transcendental truth: The core question is how to recognize a transcendental truth from within a framework of definitions insensitive to its existential reality but purporting, through those definitions, to encompass it (possibly sanctioned by unquestionable revelation and the significance attributed to sacred scripture). This question relates to any system of beliefs (spiritual, scientific, financial, political, etc) for which protective measures for "sacred cows" are considered vital.

The philosophical issue might be reviewed in the light of apophatic theology or of Gödel's incompleteness theorems relating to the inherent limitations in mathematical logic of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems. This challenge was highlighted by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the famous phrase: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must pass over in silence (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922).

The question is ironically highlighted by comparison of the underlying "idea" animating the Tea Party and Al Qaida, as separately discussed (Cultivating Global strategic Fantasies of Choice: learnings from Islamic Al-Qaida and the Republican Tea Party movement, 2010). In both cases the concern from any conventional perspective is the extent to which either "exists" -- as might otherwise be defined in legal terms and required by legal provisions.

The matter may be explored in the contrast between "law" and "lore", and the understanding of whether any associated "order" is singular or plural (Law and Order vs. Lore and Orders? Imagining otherwise the forceful engagement of singularity with plurality, 2013). "Lore" may well be assumed to embody transcendental truth more meaningfully than "law" -- with the consequence that it effectively sustains an ecology of "orders" as the embodiment of a more transcendental "order" (otherwise inaccessible to comprehension).

Implications of existence in physics: The cognitive implications are a continuing feature of debate regarding "existence" with respect to emerging understandings of fundamental physics. As noted by sascha Vongehr (The self-referential start of Fundamental Description: toward a Theory of Everything via serious "postmodern" physics, Science 2.0, 1 July 2013):

What can be logically prior, what must be assumed, what is the a priori starting point?... "Fundamental" physics today needs a "Kantian" approach enlightened throughLudwig Wittgenstein. This is not "philosophy"; this is exact sciences, "fundamental" rather than merely empirical, but physics nonetheless. Language is crucial! Niels Bohrand for exampleJohn Archibald Wheelerunderstood thatfundamental physics is about what we can say, but they still succumbed to the urge to add "notabout what is", much like the early Wittgenstein. The later Wittgenstein grasped much better the importance of the inevitable implicit re-defining of "what is".

Vongehr illustrates the current dilemma regarding any received truth in continuing:

Idesireto refuse academic inflation of verification transcendent distinctions about what is "ontological versus epistemic in metaphysics" for example. Idesireto refuse the alternative naïve-scientistic engineering mindset about whether, for example, probability and time "really exist", spastic self-destructions of terminology often claimed to be elevated over "mere philosophizing" on grounds of being uttered by established physicists. However, all a serious 'postmodern' approach can do is to supply an alternative, because meaningless words cannot be targeted properly without giving them meaning while doing so, thus one usually ends up being wrong when refusing something as wrong. Theindescribable is precisely that - indescribable, period!

Existence of transcendental "values": If Jesus were to be understood as speaking in some such mode, it would be clear why his words were understood as blasphemous in relation to the received truth as embodied in sacred scriptures conventionally and literally interpreted. The question is whether Manning-Assange-Snowden are effectively operating from such a modality -- through their appeal to values ineffectively embodied in law. This is clearly offensive to the pattern of official secrecy and its protection by a body of law -- the "letter of the law". The transcendent reality -- the values and principles in terms of which they might be assumed to have acted -- is necessarily "invisible" to those whose reality is solely defined by a body of conventional laws and regulations.

There is however some irony to the fact that US authorities have a tendency to defend their actions using phrases such as "American values" and "security" which themselves imply dimensions which are a matter of interpretation. Both those authorities and Manning-Assange-Snowden would justify their actions in terms of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness as articulated in the United States Declaration of Independence. These are considered to be "unalienable rights" which the Declaration claims all human beings have been given by their Creator and for the protection of which they institute governments. Such rights are otherwise framed as "non-negotiable". That other cultures may have a distinct understanding of "non-negotiable" rights is inadequately appreciated -- other than through the assumption that they must necessarily be "wrong" by comparison.

Liberation of truth? Curiously truth itself, especially the manner in which it is currently reproduced, is increasingly difficult to distinguish from intellectual property. If it is "worth" anything, somebody is liable to claim ownership of it -- even exclusive ownership of it, as separately discussed (Future Coping strategies: beyond the constraints of proprietary metaphors, 1992). This is most evident in the case of the "classified information" of the Manning-Assange-Snowden cases. As related to "concrete proof', this can also be seen in instances of tampering with the evidence in support of it -- and the virtual impossibility of now demonstrating that this has not been done (given the resources that can be devoted to doing so, if it is "worth" it).

Rather than seeking to "liberate" territories subject to some form of colonialism, foreign occupation or property ownership -- as with "terrorists" of the past -- Manning-Assange-Snowden are effectively seeking to "liberate" property in knowledge space. The classic response by Margaret Thatcher, when accused by Harold Macmillan of excessive privatisation of state owned enterprises (as "selling the family silver"), might even apply: But I am selling it back to the family. Although, in the case of Manning-Assange-Snowden, it is a gift freely offered to the family.

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