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Karma: real or ridiculous?

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Poki

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Karma is real and if you have to say..."I am a nice person" its probably karma from stupidity that got you
 

Polaris

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sprinkles said:
It's not about reward or punishment. Read the thread.
I'm inclined to think that Wikipedia is more of an authority on karma than this thread is, and Wikipedia more than once states that reward and punishment are aspects of karma. They're not exactly the main theme of karma, but I never said they were.
 

sprinkles

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I'm inclined to think that Wikipedia is more of an authority on karma than this thread is, and Wikipedia more than once states that reward and punishment are aspects of karma. They're not exactly the main theme of karma, but I never said they were.

Well since we're using Wikipedia:

Karma and ethicization

The second theme common to karma theories is ethicization. This begins with the premise that every action has a consequence,[6] which will come to fruition in either this or a future life; thus morally good acts will have positive consequences, whereas bad acts will produce negative results. An individual's present situation is thereby explained by reference to actions in his present or in previous lifetimes. Karma is not itself "reward and punishment", but the law producing consequence.[33] Halbfass notes, good karma is considered as dharma and leads to punya (merit), while bad karma is considered adharma and leads to pāp (demerit, sin).[34]

The theories of karma are an ethical theory, suggests Reichenbach.[26] This is so because the ancient scholars of India linked intent and actual action to the merit, reward, demerit and punishment. A theory without ethical premise would be a pure causal relation; the merit or reward or demerit or punishment would be same regardless of the actor's intent. In ethics, one's intentions, attitudes and desires matter in the evaluation of one's action. Where the outcome is unintended, suggests Reichenbach, the moral responsibility for it is less on the actor, even though causal responsibility may be the same regardless.[26] A karma theory considers not only the action, but also actor's intentions, attitude and desires before and during the action. The karma concept thus encourages each person to seek and live a moral life, as well as avoid an immoral life. The meaning and significance of karma is thus as a building block of an ethical theory.[35]

I would look at it this way. If you're careless and accidentally burn down your house, that's not a punishment, that's a result of physical laws.

The difference between a punishment and a necessary consequence is that the necessary consequence does not happen as a result of arbitration. There is no judge which says "Oh, you've been bad. We need to set this up for your punishment." and without a judge you cannot have a punishment even when you have negative consequences.
 
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So my Nitrox class (Scuba stuff) the other night was taught by a Green Beret.

One of those older guys (55ish) that seems to have the boundless energy of a child.

It took him a while to say it, but did mention he and his other buddy figured it out, and he had personally spent 170+ DAYS underwater. His dives were in the thousands, to explain this he said he was in the Special Forces.

Later, I asked why he dove with regular Oxygen, and he said when he needed to go 200 feet or deeper (Nitrox, you can only go about 130 feet safely which is pretty fucking deep).

I asked, "Why that deep so often?" and he said "Because we went to ugly depths to do ugly things and came up to do more ugly things, then got back in."

"uuuummm, like what do you mean exactly?" (I had a pretty good idea)

"Wellll, you know it usually involved a group of men getting out of the water killing 10 or 20 people and going back in"

Then he said "You know what a Green Beret is?" and pointed to the top of his head. Haha, it was pretty funny. But then he quickly changed the subject, wasn't anything he was proud of.

My point is this guy seemed pretty damned jolly, and was obviously very active and although I'm sure he's killed many people, he was able to handle the consequences.

Untrained or psychologically unprepared men, or even soldiers may not be so lucky to sleep at night. A few acquaintances/friends have told me so first hand. One, an ex-marine sniper turned mercenary said he couldn't sleep at night but a few hours. And then there's the scores of men with post-war PTSD.

That's a consequence, and some trained killers, even the good guys, can handle it better than others, it seems.
 

sprinkles

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So my Nitrox class (Scuba stuff) the other night was taught by a Green Beret.

One of those older guys (55ish) that seems to have the boundless energy of a child.

It took him a while to say it, but did mention he and his other buddy figured it out, and he had personally spent 170+ DAYS underwater. His dives were in the thousands, to explain this he said he was in the Special Forces.

Later, I asked why he dove with regular Oxygen, and he said when he needed to go 200 feet or deeper (Nitrox, you can only go about 130 feet safely which is pretty fucking deep).

I asked, "Why that deep so often?" and he said "Because we went to ugly depths to do ugly things and came up to do more ugly things, then got back in."

"uuuummm, like what do you mean exactly?" (I had a pretty good idea)

"Wellll, you know it usually involved a group of men getting out of the water killing 10 or 20 people and going back in"

Then he said "You know what a Green Beret is?" and pointed to the top of his head. Haha, it was pretty funny. But then he quickly changed the subject, wasn't anything he was proud of.

My point is this guy seemed pretty damned jolly, and was obviously very active and although I'm sure he's killed many people, he was able to handle the consequences.

Untrained or psychologically unprepared men, or even soldiers may not be so lucky to sleep at night. A few acquaintances/friends have told me so first hand. One, an ex-marine sniper turned mercenary said he couldn't sleep at night but a few hours. And then there's the scores of men with post-war PTSD.

That's a consequence, and some trained killers, even the good guys, can handle it better than others, it seems.

It's making you wonder isn't it? That is also a consequence. If nothing else it all led up to you telling this story right now. Whatever that guy did it stuck around enough for you to be talking about it.

This is exactly why karma as cause and effect makes sense. You do something, it is going to stick around one way or another. What that means depends on you, what you did, why you did it, and moreover who is around to react to it.

Punishment on the other hand makes no sense. Not everyone feels guilty. Not everyone is even fazed by being punished. Some people for example would rather die than go to prison while some times you get a person who just doesn't care at all. They may even continue to do crimes while in prison.

How you feel about things and react to things is all subjective and relative which is why one man kills and has nightmares while another kills and enjoys it. Moreover this is also why some would call one a hero and others would call him a murderer. I think it is quite obvious that the concept of cosmic checks and balances does not exist and was never what karma was meant to be.
 

Polaris

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sprinkles said:
Well since we're using Wikipedia:
I never said anything that disagrees with the passage you highlighted, so I'm not sure why you're emphasizing it.

sprinkles said:
I would look at it this way. If you're careless and accidentally burn down your house, that's not a punishment, that's a result of physical laws.

The difference between a punishment and a necessary consequence is that the necessary consequence does not happen as a result of arbitration. There is no judge which says "Oh, you've been bad. We need to set this up for your punishment." and without a judge you cannot have a punishment even when you have negative consequences.
Punishment can refer to any penalty that a person suffers as a consequence of their actions. This includes but is not limited to penalties inflicted by another individual. There are presumably many cases where a person's karmic punishment would arrive through other people's judgments, but I never said that this was the only form of karmic punishment.

Basically, I feel like you're criticizing a straw man caricature of my views on karma.
 
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It's making you wonder isn't it? That is also a consequence. If nothing else it all led up to you telling this story right now. Whatever that guy did it stuck around enough for you to be talking about it.

This is exactly why karma as cause and effect makes sense. You do something, it is going to stick around one way or another. What that means depends on you, what you did, why you did it, and moreover who is around to react to it.

Punishment on the other hand makes no sense. Not everyone feels guilty. Not everyone is even fazed by being punished. Some people for example would rather die than go to prison while some times you get a person who just doesn't care at all. They may even continue to do crimes while in prison.

How you feel about things and react to things is all subjective and relative which is why one man kills and has nightmares while another kills and enjoys it. Moreover this is also why some would call one a hero and others would call him a murderer. I think it is quite obvious that the concept of cosmic checks and balances does not exist and was never what karma was meant to be.

Yeah, I agree that punishment is not a central idea in the standard definition, but it's still in there and is more of a potential by product of doing bad actions.

A karma theory considers not only the action, but also actor's intentions, attitude and desires before and during the action.

And this jibes with me. "Punishment," I also agree, is not handed down by some ultimate judge, it is self inflicted, or inflicted by the ethical standards of whatever society you are living in. And if it is self-inflicted, then it very much has to do with the quote above, the doer's intentions, attitude, etc.

But it's really just a possible by-product of consequences. And a word that perhaps has too much emphasis in most people's definition of Karma.

A vegetarian that believes it's wrong to kill animals has a WHOLE other internalized belief about ethics, and that, in turn, affects how they see the meat eating population/industry. A meat eater, that thinks it's perfectly natural for humans to eat meat, sees it another way.

But you must admit that the word and idea of "Karma" has been co-opted by a lot of mainstream culture to mean "crime and punishment." "Karma's a bitch," memes, and other cultural artifacts and phrases. I don't think this is a bad thing, per se, but it does stray from the original source.
 

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karma is a perspective we take that informs us of how deeper, more intangible levels of past experience can be seen to have conditioned the present. it is a useful concept when it helps us use our stories more reflexively and allows us to mythologize ourselves so that we can speak through the layers of the unconscious, collective unconscious, etc, or however else we like to define levels of less and less direct effect (but that still matter and inform us and help us disambiguate our hypotheses that orient our perceptions of ourselves and others).

it's to bring together the effects of the linear perspective with that of the circular one, so that you can see both the simple and complex together. its use is that it helps us take ownership of more complex things so that we can work with it directly and move the fuck on, even if the only way to access it is ultimately mythological, poetic, oneiric, etc.

a couple of examples are past lives therapy or jodorowsky's metagenealogical analysis.
 

sprinkles

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I never said anything that disagrees with the passage you highlighted, so I'm not sure why you're emphasizing it.

Punishment can refer to any penalty that a person suffers as a consequence of their actions. This includes but is not limited to penalties inflicted by another individual. There are presumably many cases where a person's karmic punishment would arrive through other people's judgments, but I never said that this was the only form of karmic punishment.

Basically, I feel like you're criticizing a straw man caricature of my views on karma.

Punishment doesn't just happen. It is caused by an agent. It IS limited to penalties inflicted by another individual (or individuals).

That's not a straw man, that's an actual problem with your position.
 
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Punishment doesn't just happen. It is caused by an agent. It IS limited to penalties inflicted by another individual (or individuals).

That's not a straw man, that's an actual problem with your position.

There's also self punishment. Remorse, regret, guilt, etc.
 

sprinkles

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There's also self punishment. Remorse, regret, guilt, etc.

That's true but besides the point. It still results from an agent having a perception of the offence and sanctioning a penalty. Same difference - it doesn't matter if it's ACTUALLY somebody else or not because that bit is irrelevant to my point.

Edit: moreover, remorse is not actually a punishment.
 

Polaris

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sprinkles said:
Punishment doesn't just happen. It is caused by an agent. It IS limited to penalties inflicted by another individual (or individuals).
I'm sure you've heard phrases like "the punishing rays of the sun." People who write such things are not under the impression that the sun is a person. They understand that the word "punishment" can refer to acts performed by non-thinking entities, as do many dictionary authors. It should be clear by now what I meant by the word "punishment," even if I was using the word in a non-standard fashion. By continuing to criticize a usage of the word that I was not, in fact, employing and which I never gave reason to think I was employing, you're turning this into a semantic debate and attacking a viewpoint that I don't possess.

sprinkles said:
That's not a straw man, that's an actual problem with your position.
How can it be a problem with my position when it isn't part of my position? You don't know what my view of karma is. The only thing I've said about my view of karma is that karma involves a reward and punishment mechanism of some kind. Most people agree with me. If you don't think karma involves positive consequences for good acts and negative consequences for bad acts, you may consider that I wasn't addressing your view of karma.

Beyond that, I think this is a pointless line of discussion.
 

sprinkles

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I'm sure you've heard phrases like "the punishing rays of the sun." People who write such things are not under the impression that the sun is a person. They understand that the word "punishment" can refer to acts performed by non-thinking entities, as do many dictionary authors. It should be clear by now what I meant by the word "punishment," even if I was using the word in a non-standard fashion. By continuing to criticize a usage of the word that I was not, in fact, employing and which I never gave reason to think I was employing, you're turning this into a semantic debate and attacking a viewpoint that I don't possess.
That's called a metaphor. Has no place in logical arguments.

If it did, when somebody said "Knock em dead" they'd be guilty of conspiring to commit murder. Surely you know the difference and why it is important.

How can it be a problem with my position when it isn't part of my position? You don't know what my view of karma is. The only thing I've said about my view of karma is that karma involves a reward and punishment mechanism of some kind. Most people agree with me. If you don't think karma involves positive consequences for good acts and negative consequences for bad acts, you may consider that I wasn't addressing your view of karma.

Beyond that, I think this is a pointless line of discussion.

Do we want to nail down this question and give it an answer or do we want to play games of "me too my opinion"

Edit:
Also I would like to remind you that you were the one who pushed me on the issue. I said hardly anything to you and you started defending an argument which we never actually had.
 

sprinkles

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[MENTION=6689]Polaris[/MENTION]

Also I would argue it is pretty important to have semantics and not use metaphors when we're trying to figure out the actual nature of something without confusion. In discussions like this I expect that people use strict definitions. Because you never know what somebody is intending to say.

What do you do if somebody tries to argue that the sun is a god and does punish people? They'd be using a strict definition but if you just go and assume that they're using a metaphor then you've gone and totally misunderstood what they're saying.

We don't get anywhere playing around with ambiguous meanings.
 

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Karma is real and it should be known as natural vengeance. I say this because vengeance is basically getting back at someone for doing something to someone or tp you. Karma is also called natural justice. There will alwaus be justice in some shape or form to someone despite how corrupt the justice system.
 

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Karma could work with quantum theory, honestly. If all energy in the universe is in fact a web of energy, all interconnected, then it has nowhere to go but to ripple through.
 

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Believe in it. Life is too interconnected for me to dismiss it. Although it might not necessarily be a direct point to point a to b connection, what happens probably equates out constantly.

What that guy said, (Newton?), for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Not sure whether this directly affects every aspect of every measure. Maybe the physical aspects eventually stack up and influence the emotional ones. So in that way even that is interconnected to karma, layered upon it. Buddhists base a large part of their religious ideas upon the idea of karma I believe, actually all religions sort of do... A divine punishment or reward.

But more directly, though it probably won't be as direct as you pat someones back and they pat yours, the build up behind direct action probably influences indirect action behind it.
 
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It's real folks, don't doubt it or else you'll be writing a check you're not mentally, emotionally or physically capable of paying back.
 

Opal

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It's real folks, don't doubt it or else you'll be writing a check you're not mentally, emotionally or physically capable of paying back.

Uh oh. What rules govern Karma?
 
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