Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Karma is an
endless feedback
loop of
Cause & Effect

   Post 79. April 12, 2019

  Karma or Fate or Freewill?

   Are we responsible for our deeds?

 Karma seems to be a popular concept among the spiritual-but-not-religious crowd. It’s a form of cause & effect Fatalism1, but with more of a sense of personal control & ultimate Justice, rather than the arbitrariness & hopelessness of the belief in predestination. The plebeians of ancient Greece, among many other cultures, were supposed to accept that their lives were scripted, so their only option was to play their assigned role with dignity and artistry. The divine scriptwriters of their fate were indifferent bureaucrats, who didn’t know or care whose lives were affected by their intricate plotlines. However, the notion that humans are pawns of the gods worked well for those fated for power & glory in this life. They could expect the lower castes to accept their misfortune submissively. Serfs & slaves were easier to manipulate if they believed that “you can’t fight fate”. But philosophers were not as docile as the common people. So they produced arguments to show that the logic of Fatalism was false2. Thus, other explanations for the inequities and injustices of reality were devised to modify or replace the feeling of futility among the masses.

One of those alternative theories was tied into the widespread belief in reincarnation, which provided some hope for a do-over in the next life. If the soul is immortal, and inhabits a variety of bodies over the eons, then maybe your choices in this life can have effects in the afterlife3. If you were downtrodden as a low caste person, you could, by meekly accepting your fate in the here & now, and by following a few moral rules, gain merit in the cosmic lottery to improve your lot in your second chance at life. On the other hand, if you violate those laws of ethics, you may escape punishment temporarily, but eventually your sins will come back to haunt you. Yet, as a means to ensure an ethical culture in the here & now, it doesn’t matter if there is a karmic computer, automatically calculating cosmic justice, as long as most people believe in the principle of reciprocity.

As the apostle James warned though, “faith without works is dead”. In Hinduism and Buddhism, Karma means “works” or “deeds”, and it refers to the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as positive or negative values to decide their fate in future existences. However, some uncowed “cheaters” may observe that “just rewards” are rare in complex societies, and try to “game the system” for their own selfish advantage4. They may cynically assume that postponing justice until after you’re dead, is a crude but effective cover for those at the top of the social pyramid to placate the naive masses with faith in “things not seen”, even as their leaders exploit the imbalance of status.

Constant reminders of inevitable Fate or Karma or divine retribution wouldn’t be necessary, if it wasn’t so obvious that some people “get away with” violating the Golden Rule. Those who play by the rules open themselves up to unfair treatment by those who follow the “me first” dictum. Which is why N. N. Taleb recommends the negative Silver Rule : “do not do to others what you don’t want them to do to you”. Apparently, the positive precept requires you to make assumptions about the preferences and intentions of other people, which could leave you exposed to being victimized as a sucker by those who can take advantage of your good will.

Post 79 continued . . . click Next

1. Fatalism :
   Both Karma and Fate were viewed as forces of nature, that were even more fundamental than the gods. They were almost like impersonal computer programs, recording deeds, assigning a value, and computing the appropriate reward or punishment. The Greeks seemed to be less optimistic about ultimate justice, though.
   Fate was a linear concept with one d*mn thing following inevitably from another. But Karma was a circular form, in the sense that “what goes around, comes around”. Either way, future effects are the product of past causes, in an unbroken chain of events, leaving no room for novelty or improvisation..
   The Christian form of Fatalism was called Predestination, based on the assumption that an omni-scient deity would know all future events before they happen, plus some scriptural interpretations that imply that some people are born damned.  

2. Fallacy of Fatalism :
   The logic of cause & effect fatalism seemed reasonable to most people in the days before Democracy became a practical idea. But it has been criticized as circular reasoning, based on either/or bivalence, instead of the more modern notion of statistical uncertainty preceding each new event. Without that element of unpredictability, freewill would be impossible.
   Of course, a farmer who sows wheat can expect to reap wheat. But ethics is not agriculture. So there are always a few who reap in fields where they did not sow, and get away with it.

3. Transmigration of Souls
   Presumably your past & future soul vessels could be any animated form, from insects to elephants, from untouchables to rajahs. In modern worldviews, maybe even aliens from other worlds have roaming souls.
   Before we could detect their response to being eaten, living & sensing but mostly inanimate, vegetation was not believed to be ensouled, so you didn’t have to worry about what it feels like to be a rutabaga. But some plants and microbes are now known to be animated, even though they are not held to be moral beings.
   Apparently the Great Chain of Being is hier-archical, and each level has a positive or negative value to serve as just reward or punishment for past sins and virtues. In that pecking order, plants & bacteria don’t count for much. However, ethical experts still argue about exactly where to draw the line of dignity. Is a fetus a person at conception, or at quickening, or at birth?

4. Game the System :
   Fortune was viewed as more random than Fate, being based on gambler’s Luck instead of divine script-Ing. Risk averse people would stick to tried & true conventions to avoid the odds of negative outcomes. But bolder types might “take their chances”, in hopes that the dice will roll their way.
   Unfortunately, the Gambler’s Fallacy is the mistaken belief in “runs of luck” or the “hot hand”, that defy the odds, in favor of those who are “due”. But, statistically, new events are not caused by prior events, yet occasional runs of “good luck” can occur, and then vanish in mid-run. Luck is a fickle lady.