Technology Rig Some days you wish had never started, then along comes one you hope will never end. Anything can happen in a day.

In 1916 Wittgenstein read Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov so often that he knew whole passages of it by heart, particularly the speeches of the elder Zossima, who represented for him a powerful Christian ideal, a holy man "who could see directly into the souls of other people". In his 1914-1916 Notebooks, Wittgenstein wrote:

What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.
That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
That life is the world.
That my will penetrates the world.
That my will is good or evil.
Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.
The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.
To pray is to think about the meaning of life. p. 72

To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning. p. 73

Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God. p. 75

The diaries that Wittgenstein kept during the war reveal that he often prayed, not that he should be spared from death, but that he should meet it without cowardice and without losing control of himself.

How will I behave when it comes to shooting? I am not afraid of being shot but of not doing my duty properly. God give me strength! Amen!

In "Personal Recollections by Rhees, Wittgenstein Wrote:

Now I should have the chance to be a decent human being, for I'm standing eye to eye with death. May the spirit bring me light.

Be in peace within yourself. But how do you find this peace in yourself? Only if i live in a way pleasing to god"

In his legendary Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), he wrote:

6.4 All propositions are of equal value. 

6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world.
6.4312 The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.

6.432 How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.
6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.

6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem.(Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been unable to say what constituted that sense?).

6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.

So a meaning of life must lie outside the world, outside space and time, we call it God and it is source of value in our world and to our ethics.

Russell said:

He returned from the war a changed man, one with a deeply mystical and ascetic attitude.
He used to come to see me every evening at midnight, and pace up and down the room like a wild beast for three hours in agitated silence. Once I said to him: 'Are you thinking about logic, or about your sins?' 'Both', he replied, and continued his pacing. I did not like to suggest it was time for bed, for it seemed probable both to him and to me that on leaving me he would commit suicide.

In 1929 Wittgenstein wrote which latter appeared in Culture and Value:

If something is good it is also divine. In a strange way this sums up my ethics. Only the supernatural can express the Supernatural

I cannot kneel to pray because it’s as though my knees are stiff. I am afraid of disintegration , if I became soft

Wisdom is passionless. In contrast faith is what Kierkegaard calls a passion.

In a ‘Lecture on ethics’ that Wittgenstein gave in Cambridge in 1929, he spoke of an experience of his which he described as ‘feeling absolutely safe. I mean the state of mind in which one is inclined to say, I am safe, nothing can injure me whatever happens’. He also spoke of another experience he sometimes had, which could be described by the words, ‘I wonder at the existence of the world.’ He thought that this experience lay behind the idea that God created the world; that it was the experience of ‘seeing the world as a miracle’. He also thought that ‘the experience of absolute safety’ was connected with the idea of ‘feeling safe in the hands of God’.

On February 22nd 1937 he writes:

Now I often tell myself in doubtful times: “There is no one here.” and look around. Would that this not become something base in me!

I think I should tell myself: “Don’t be servile in your religion!” Or try not to be! For that is in the direction of superstition.

A human being lives his ordinary life with the illumination of a light of which he is not aware until it is extinguished. Once it is extinguished, life is suddenly deprived of all value, meaning, or whatever one wants to say. One suddenly becomes aware that mere existence—as one would like to say—is in itself still completely empty, bleak. It is as if the sheen was wiped away from all things, everything is dead.

In 1937, latter appeared in Culture and Value:

Christianity is not a doctrine; I mean, not a theory about what has happened and will happen with the human soul, but a description of an actual occurrence in human life. For ‘consciousness of sin’ is an actual occurrence, and so are despair and salvation through faith. Those who speak of these things (like Bunyan) are simply describing what has happened to them, whatever anyone may want to say about it.

The spring which flows quietly and transparently through the Gospels seems to have foam on it in Paul’s Epistles. Or, that is how it seems to me. Perhaps it is just my own impurity which sees cloudiness in it; for why shouldn’t this impurity be able to pollute what is clear? But to me it’s as if I saw human passion here, something like pride or anger, which does not agree with the humility of the Gospels. As if there were here an emphasis on his own person, and even as a religious act, which is foreign to the Gospel…. In the Gospels—so it seems to me—everything is less pretentious, humbler, simpler. There are huts; with Paul a church. There all men are equal and God himself is a man; with Paul there is already something like a hierarchy; honours and offices. —That is, as it were, what my nose tells me.

What inclines even me to believe in Christ’s Resurrection? It is as though I play with the thought. —If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like any other man. He is dead and decomposed. In that case he is a teacher like any other and can no longer help; and once more we are orphaned and alone. And must content ourselves with wisdom and speculation. We are as it were in a hell, where we can only dream, and are as it were cut off from heaven by a roof. But if I am to be really saved—then I need certainty—not wisdom, dreams, spec-ulation—and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what my heart, my soul needs, not my speculative intelligence. For it is my soul, with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, that must be saved, not my abstract mind.

From The Selected Writings of Maurice O’Connor Drury:

WITTGENSTEIN: [My favourite Gospel] is St. Matthew’s. Matthew seems to me to contain everything. Now, I can’t understand the Fourth Gospel. When I read those long discourses, it seems to me as if a different person is speaking than in the synoptic Gospels. The only incident that reminds me of the others is the story of the woman taken in adultery.

 In a letter to Norman Malcolm in 1940, he wrote:

May I not prove too much of a skunk when I shall be tried.

Norman explains this saying:

To quote from my Memoir: Wittgenstein did once say that he thought he could understand the conception of God, in so far as it is involved in one’s awareness of one’s own sin and guilt. He added that he could not understand the conception of a Creator. I think the ideas of Divine judgment, forgiveness, and redemption had some intel-ligibility for him, as being related in his mind to an intense desire for purity, and a sense of the helplessness of human beings to make themselves better. 

In 1948 he wrote:

Religious faith and superstition are entirely different. One of them springs from fear and is a kind of false science. The other is a trusting.

In 1950 he wrote:

A proof of God’s existence should really be something by which one could convince oneself of God’s existence. But I think that believers who have provided such proofs, have wanted to give their ‘belief’ an intellectual analysis and foundation, although they themselves would never have come to believe through such proofs. Perhaps one could ‘convince someone of God’s existence’ through a certain kind of upbringing, by shaping his life in such and such a way. Life can educate one to a belief in God. And also experiences can do this; but not visions and other forms of sense experience which show us the ‘existence of this being’ —but, e.g. sufferings of various kinds. These neither show us God in the way a sense impression shows us an object, nor do they give rise to conjectures about him. Experiences, thoughts, —life can force this concept on us.

When Wittgenstein was working on the latter part of the Philosophical Investigations, he said to his former student and close friend Drury:

I am not a religious man but I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.

He and his friend Drury were comparing the Gospels and Wittgenstein said that his favourite was the Gospel according to St Matthew. He added that he found it difficult to understand the Fourth Gospel, as contrasted with the Synoptic Gospels. And in letters to Drury later in his life, he wrote:

The symbolisms of Catholicism are wonderful beyond words. But any attempt to make it into a philosophical system is offensive.

It would make nonsense of everything else.  If what we do now is to make no difference in the end, then all the seriousness of life is done away with. Your religious ideas have always seemed to me more Greek than biblical.  Whereas my thoughts are one hundred per cent Hebraic.

But remember that Christianity is not a matter of saying a lot of prayers; in fact we are told not to do that. If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn’t be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.

For all you and I can tell, the religion of the future will be without any priests or ministers. I think one of the things you and I have to learn is that we have to live without the consolation of belonging to a church.

You didn’t make a mistake because there was nothing at the time you knew or ought to have known that you overlooked. Only this one could have called making a mistake: and even if you had made a mistake in this sense, this would now have to be regarded as a datum as all the other circumstances inside and outside which you can’t alter (control). As to religious thoughts I do not think the craving for placidity is religious: I think a religious person regards placidity or peace as a gift from heaven, not as something one ought to hunt after. Look at your patients more closely as human beings in trouble and enjoy more the opportunity you have to say ‘good night’ to so many people. This alone is a gift from heaven which many people would envy you. And this sort of thing ought to heal your frayed soul, I believe. It won’t rest it; but when you are healthily tired you can just take a rest. I think in some sense you don’t look at people’s faces closely enough. In conversations with me don’t so much try to have the conversations which you think would taste well (though you will never get that anyway) but try to have the conversations which will have the pleasantest after-taste. It is most important that we should not one day have to tell ourselves that we had wasted the time we were allowed to spend together.

His last words on his death bed were:

Tell them I've had a wonderful life.

Wittgenstein's experience during the war made him as Russell said "one with a deeply mystical and ascetic attitude" , He began to wonder about the meaning of life and God. He wrote i his notebooks "To pray is to think about the meaning of life. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning", and that "Conscience is the voice of God".

In the Tractatus, he argued that the metaphysical propositions lack a meaning in the Wittgensteinian sense as they do not refer to verifiable in-the-world facts. So a meaning of life must lie outside the world, outside space and time, we call it God and it is source of value in our world and to our ethics.

In a ‘Lecture on ethics’ that Wittgenstein gave in Cambridge in 1929, he spoke of an experience of his which he described as ‘feeling absolutely safe. I mean the state of mind in which one is inclined to say, I am safe, nothing can injure me whatever happens’. He also spoke of another experience he sometimes had, which could be described by the words, ‘I wonder at the existence of the world.’ He thought that this experience lay behind the idea that God created the world; that it was the experience of ‘seeing the world as a miracle’. He also thought that ‘the experience of absolute safety’ was connected with the idea of ‘feeling safe in the hands of God’.

Later in his life, he wrote "Christianity is not a doctrine", "The symbolism of Catholicism are wonderful beyond words. But any attempt to make it into a philosophical system is offensive". He Criticized Paul in the same way as Nietzsche did; "In the Gospels—so it seems to me—everything is less pretentious, humbler, simpler. There are huts; with Paul a church. There all men are equal and God himself is a man; with Paul there is already something like a hierarchy; honours and offices", "For all you and I can tell, the religion of the future will be without any priests or ministers. I think one of the things you and I have to learn is that we have to live without the consolation of belonging to a church".

He was always afraid of judgment, in a letter he wrote; "May I not prove too much of a skunk when I shall be tried".  Wittgenstein did once say that he thought he could understand the conception of God, in so far as it is involved in one’s awareness of one’s own sin and guilt. He added that he could not understand the conception of a Creator. I think the ideas of Divine judgment, forgiveness, and redemption had some intelligibility for him, as being related in his mind to an intense desire for purity, and a sense of the helplessness of human beings to make themselves better.

In 1950, His view was that none of the famous philosophical proofs of the existence of God could bring anyone to believe in God. "But if I am to be really saved—then I need certainty—not wisdom, dreams, speculation—and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what my heart, my soul needs, not my speculative intelligence. For it is my soul, with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, that must be saved, not my abstract mind". Either to believe in it and believe that there is no way to verify it or just not to believe in it. A Wittgensteinian may be a theist, deist, pantheist or agnostic, but certainly no atheist.

He and his friend Drury were comparing the Gospels and Wittgenstein said that his favorite was the Gospel according to St Matthew. He added that he found it difficult to understand the Fourth Gospel, as contrasted with the Synoptic Gospels. And in letters to Drury later in his life, he wrote: "But remember that Christianity is not a matter of saying a lot of prayers; in fact we are told not to do that. If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God". 

Hume discusses the distinction between impressions and ideas. By "impressions", he means sensations, while by "ideas", he means memories and imaginings. According to Hume, the difference between the two is that ideas are less vivacious than impressions. For example, the idea of the taste of an orange is far inferior to the impression (or sensation) of actually eating one. Writing within the tradition of empiricism, he argues that impressions are the source of all ideas. Hume's empiricism consisted in the idea that it is our knowledge, and not our ability to conceive, that is restricted to what can be experienced. He also explains that the difference between belief and fiction is that the former produces a certain feeling of confidence which the latter doesn't.

When we reason a priori, and consider merely any object or cause, as it appears to the mind, independent of all observation, it never could suggest to us the notion of any distinct object, such as its effect; much less, show us the inseparable and inviolable connexion between them. A man must be very sagacious who could discover by reasoning that crystal is the effect of heat, and ice of cold, without being previously acquainted with the operation of these qualities.

If we reason a priori, anything may appear able to produce anything. The falling of a pebble may, for aught we know, extinguish the sun; or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits. It is only experience, which teaches us the nature and bounds of cause and effect, and enables us to infer the existence of one object from that of another.

However, Hume admits that there is one objection to his account: the problem of "The Missing Shade of Blue". In this thought-experiment, he asks us to imagine a man who has experienced every shade of blue except for one. He predicts that this man will be able to divide the color of this particular shade of blue, despite the fact that he has never experienced it. This seems to pose a serious problem for the empirical account, though Hume brushes it aside as an exceptional case by stating that one may experience a novel idea that itself is derived from combinations of previous impressions.

Hume discusses how the objects of inquiry are either "relations of ideas" or "matters of fact", which is roughly the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. The former, he tells the reader, are proved by demonstration, while the latter are given through experience. But here arises a question,  why do we suppose that multiple repetitions of an experiment justify us in a necessary law? He shows how a satisfying argument for the validity of experience can be based neither on demonstration (since "it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change") nor experience (since that would be a circular argument). So there is no certainty of experience to ensure knowledge through cause and effect.

When it is asked, What is the nature of all our reasonings concerning matter of fact? the proper answer seems to be, that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. When again it is asked, What is the foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation? it may be replied in one word, experience. But if we still carry on our sifting humor, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? this implies a new question, which may be of more difficult solution and explication. 

All reasonings may be divided into two kinds, namely, demonstrative reasoning or that concerning relations of ideas, and moral reasoning, or that concerning matter of fact and existence. That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case seems evident; since it implies no contradiction that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly like those which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary effects. May I not clearly and distinctly conceive that a body, falling from the clouds, and which, in all other respects, resembles snow, has yet the taste of salt or feeling of fire? Is there any more intelligible proposition than to affirm, that all the trees will Sourish in December and January, and decay in May and June? Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning a priori.

If we be, therefore, engaged by arguments to put trust in past experience, and make it the standard of our future judgement, these arguments must be probable only, or such as regard matter of fact and real existence, according to the division above mentioned. But that there is no argument of this kind, must appear, if our explication of that species of reasoning be admitted as solid and satisfactory. We have said that all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect, that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience, and that all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of this last supposition by probable arguments, or arguments regarding existence, must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for granted, which is the very point in question. 

For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. 

For Hume, we assume that experience tells us something about the world because of habit or custom due to our imagination, the observation of constant conjunction of certain impressions across many instances. This is also, presumably, the "principle" that organizes the connections between ideas. And this principle can be changed any time because there is no logical reason or empirical justification for it to be necessary.

The first time a man saw the communication of motion by impulse, as by the shock of two billiard balls, he could not pronounce that the one event was connected: but only that it was conjoined with the other. After he has observed several instances of this nature, he then pronounces them to be connected. What alteration has happened to give rise to this new idea of connexion? Nothing but that he now feels these events to be connected in his imagination, and can readily foretell the existence of one from the appearance of the other. When we say, therefore, that one object is connected with another, we mean only that they have acquired a connexion in our thought, and give rise to this inference, by which they become proofs of each other's existence: A conclusion which is somewhat extraordinary, but which seems founded on sufficient evidence. Nor will its evidence be weakened by any general diffidence of the understanding, or sceptical suspicion concerning every conclusion which is new and extraordinary. No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.

It seems evident that, if all the scenes of nature were continually shifted in such a manner that no two events bore any resemblance to each other, but every object was entirely new, without any similitude to whatever had been seen before, we should never, in that case, have attained the least idea of necessity, or of a connexion among these objects. We might say, upon such a supposition, that one object or event has followed another; not that one was produced by the other. The relation of cause and effect must be utterly unknown to mankind. Inference and reasoning concerning the operations of nature would, from that moment, be at an end; and the memory and senses remain the only canals, by which the knowledge of any real existence could possibly have access to the mind. Our idea, therefore, of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity observable in the operations of nature, where similar objects are constantly conjoined together, and the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other. These two circumstances form the whole of that necessity, which we ascribe to matter. Beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity or connexion.

Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

On Miracles, is the last chapter in the Enquiry, Hume argues that as the evidence for a miracle is always limited, as miracles are single events, occurring at particular times and places, the evidence for the miracle will always be outweighed by the evidence against — the evidence for the law of which the miracle is supposed to be a transgression. There are, however, two ways in which this argument might be neutralised. First, if the number of witnesses of the miracle be greater than the number of witnesses of the operation of the law, and secondly, if a witness be 100% reliable (for then no amount of contrary testimony will be enough to outweigh that person's account). And both cases can't happen.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. In the sense that practical reason alone cannot give rise to moral motivation. Hume opposes the view that to act morally is have a rational grasp of moral truths. The role of reason is only to find out which means helps achieve a given goal. Reason (or the intellect) plays no part in determining the goals. Our goals are set exclusively by what Hume calls the passions and what today is most often called desires. Desires cannot be evaluated as true or false or as reasonable or unreasonable - they are "original existences" in our mind and arise from unknown natural causes. We cannot be criticized rationally for our desires. As Hume remarks, it is "not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger".

Professor Doi in his book "The anatomy of Independence" starts out by making a linguistic relativity hypothesis based observation that any word that exists in one language but cannot be expressed easily in others, refers to a phenomena which is culturally important in culture of the first language, but not so important in the culture of the others which lack a means of its expression. Quoting linguist Benjamin Whorf:

Every language is a vast pattern-system, different from others, in which are culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only communicates, but also analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of relationship and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness.

Amaeru is according to him is a word that cannot be directly translated into English. It means the need or desire to be loved. It denotes dependency needs.

Another word is Sumimasen or sumanai, which is according to him, a strange term as it encapsulates both gratitude and apology.  The derivation of sumimasen is to finish, to end, to be completed. In other words, the matter disputed is not ended because one has not done everything one should have done.  Thus it expresses a strong feeling of need to apologize for the other person.

The Japanese perspective on freedom comes in the word jiyuu. When the Japanese needed a word for the Western concept this is the one they choose.  Traditionally, Doi argues, this word has meant freedom in the sense of free to amaeru. It’s usage was within the context of the group.

In the Western sense, freedom has served as the basis for asserting individuality. In Japan, little value is attributed to the individual’s private realm as distinct from the group as a result you find the ambiguity and hesitation of self-expression is a common trait in the Japanese people. The reasons for a whole number of Japanese traits, mostly in terms of group harmony’ or a lack of individualism revolve around either a) rice agriculture being important in Japanese history or b) Japan’s geography forcing people to live close together.

Doi describes how the post-war removal of ideological restrictions (The introduction of American/Western concepts of freedom) didn't directly serve the cause of individualism, but by destroying the traditional channels of amae had contributed, if anything, to the spiritual and social confusion. Increasingly, young people are tempted to delay marriage – sometimes indefinitely – in order to enjoy the greater freedoms and higher disposable income associated with extended singlehood. This has led to some criticism of so-called parasite singles’, 20- and 30-somethings dedicated mainly to their own consumerist pleasures and vertical hierarchy.

Pre-marital sexual activity is the norm, and indeed many Japanese men and women seek extra-marital liaisons or relationships. Numerous telephone clubs’ exist, providing a means for men to contact available women, who may include high-school students or housewives: free tissue packets advertising these clubs are handed out to commuters at busy stations. A 1994 survey suggested that one in three teenage girls had contacted such clubs (McGregor,1996: 241). Compensated dating’, where a man provides money or gifts to a woman in exchange for dates or sexual favours, is relatively common. So called love hotels’, garish buildings renting rooms by the hour, are widespread throughout Japan, providing facilities for clandestine encounters.

Some thinkers such as Sartre, have held onto the idea of human freedom as the only absolute in the face of a superstructure in the process of collapse. He replies:

Yet where does this type of freedom lead?  Ultimately, it can only mean – if not the simple gratification of individual desires – solidarity with others through participation, in which the Western idea of freedom becomes ultimately something not so different from the Japanese.

Mono no aware is a Japanese term for "a gentle sadness toward the passing of things as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life". This feeling heightens appreciation of their beauty, and evokes a gentle sadness at their passing. The association of the cherry blossom with mono no aware dates back to 18th-century scholar Motoori Norinaga. The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality. The government even encouraged the people to believe that the souls of downed warriors were reincarnated in the blossoms. This term was coined in the 18th century by the Edo period Japanese cultural scholar Motoori Norinaga and was originally a concept used in his literary criticism of The Tale of Genji. Others have compared mono no aware to Virgils term lacrimae rerum in the Aeneid, Latin for "tears of things". The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart.