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

Fate is a
fake excuse
for failure

   Post 79. April 12, 2019

  Karma or Fate or Freewill?

   Karma Chameleon

 Some form of moral accountability is a practical necessity for any functional human culture. Since manifest Nature seems to be random & impersonal & implacable, human societies were forced to invent invisible supernatural beings that are predictable & personal & placable5. The concept of a higher power serves as a warning to cheaters & abusers that eventually their bad deeds will be punished – if not now by human authorities, then later by superhuman deities. Karma functions like the “all-seeing eye” in Judeo-Christian-Masonic traditions, in that it remembers everything you do, and holds you accountable. It allows people to believe in the possibility of ideal Justice, which can correct the real injustices that evade civil policing. As a pragmatic cultural construct, it is intended to advocate Altruism, and to restrain Selfish behavior. It’s a moral principle like the Golden Rule, teaching people the concept of reciprocity in social interactions. But some folks take the metaphor of omniscient accounting literally, as-if a god, or a cosmic computer, was keeping score in the eternal struggle between Good & Evil.    

Again, such naive faith in supernatural supervision is useful to mundane leaders, because it allows them to “pass the buck” for devising more effective government systems to promote public & private virtue. Philosophers have argued for millennia about how morality does or should work. But we can’t expect non-philosophers to analyze such arcane subtleties. So, priests typically assume that, without faith in divine reward & punish-ment, the masses would lapse into vulgar & immoral lifestyles, following their animal lusts instead of virtuous ethical principles6. However, a few cunning cynics can exploit the fact that, at least in the present lifetime, justice is slow & uncertain. So, they either lose faith in gods, or assume that the gods are slack in their execution of moral rules. The most successful con-artists are Karma Chameleons, who camouflage themselves as good-guys even as they abuse the trust of others, who are too timid to risk the penalty for breaking the rules of civil codes.

Naturalistic Determinism is an atheistic form of Fatalism, which assumes that every event in evolution is the inevitable result, not of divine destiny, but of a web of prior events that could, in theory, be traced back to a First Cause (e.g. The Big Bang). Like Fatalism, but unlike Karma, it leaves no room for unforced choices, hence no freewill. Like Predestination, it means that humans are essentially robots programmed by powers beyond their control, hence not morally responsible for their actions. However, it could allow for some local control, in the sense that human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are effective causes in the great chain of Cause & Effect. So, although our deeds are ultimately pre-determined, for all practical purposes, they are products of freewill choices. And that is also how the Enformationism thesis finds support for a fraction of freewill, if only as the executive ability to veto proposed behaviors, subconsciously motivated in the form of needs, urges and desires. See the links to Freewill Posts at right for more on the distinctions between fatalistic dead-ends or karmic spin-cycles, and the realistic confidence that your deliberate choices make a difference in your personal future.  

End of Post 79

5. Intentional Nature :
   The notion of dueling supernatural forces allows us to assign merit and blame for otherwise random events. When good things happen, we praise the gods for their blessings. And when things don’t go our way, we have evil forces to curse.
   The duality of divinity is convenient for two-value moral accounting, but it lacks the assurance of ultimate justice provided by a supreme power who is good-ness personified. As in any competitive sport, the eternal struggle between Good & Evil leaves the final outcome in question. You can only hope that your “team” will win in the end.
   Enformationism resolves the dual deity dilemma by assuming, as an axiom, that the First Cause and Ententional Author of our finite, temporal & plural world is infinite, eternal, & unitary. Hence G*D is the author of both Good and Evil. But those are merely abstract metaphors for the ups & downs of an evolving, maturing cosmos. There are no Evil people or beings in reality, only good or bad actions & events.
   We have no reliable information about pre-life or after-life, and no knowledge of divine providence beyond what we experience in our limited lifetimes. So, we have no reason to expect personal or natural injustices to be balanced in some future state of being. For practical purposes, the only justice we can expect is a product of the imperfect ethical systems of human culture.

6. Moral Enforcer :
  Morality without religion cannot threaten eternal punishment for temporal crimes against absolute laws. Secular systems must get by with mundane retribution established by conditional civil laws. They rely on a majority of law-abiding citizens who hold pro-social sentiments, and only have to deal with a minority of anti-social deviants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_morality

Moral Causation :
  “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
___Galatians 6:7-9

  “And here they say that a person consists of desires, and as is his desire, so is his will;
and as is his will, so is his deed;
and whatever deed he does, that he will reap.”
___ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

  “Lord, I knew you that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter.”
___Matthew 25: 24

Links to Freewill Posts

Post 17.
Deist Divine Justice :
http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page60.html

Post 35.
Consciousness & Freewill
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page32.html

Post 46.
Free Will or Free Won’t :
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page63.html