Nor are they like rules of ordinary calculation. If you would divide four by two, you do this. If you do not do this, you have not divided four by two. Law is not pretending. It is not imitating.
Law is for real.
If-then rules come into consideration only if one wants to proceed. There is an element of voluntary invocation in cooking, or a game, that is not part of facing the law. In life you must go on, you must proceed, into the new where imitation, repetition, is not enough. And there are the questions of law when you do, with you and against you and around you. Moreover, in life your object is not fixed.