We know from the sciences that equilibrium is a tendency of Nature — Benj96

Not equilibrium, but large enough systems eventually go into low-energy states. Equilibrium happens in mechanical systems when all forces cancel out, in thermodynamic systems when the temperature is overall the same.

Could Karma be the expression of basic physical laws of motion emerging/permeating into the sphere of sophisticated societal dynamics? — Benj96

No.

Could Karma be the expression of basic physical laws of motion emerging/permeating into the sphere of sophisticated societal dynamics? — Benj96

Sure.

good answer

I think karma is real in the sense that immoral deeds hurt the actor as well as the victim, and no good things can be obtained through immoral deeds.

Immorality therefore is like a hole one digs for themselves.

Furthermore, if one wishes to truly better themselves, they will have to atone for all the sins of the past - a painful process, if genuine.

I'll throw this into the mix. It's from Emerson's essay "Compensation." I'd like to believe it's true, but I'm not sure it is. Or rather, I'm sure it's true for me, but I don't know about others. Emerson was familiar with Hinduism and sources on the web indicate that what he called the laws of compensation is the same thing as Karma. I don't know if Emerson himself made that connection explicitly. Karma and Hinduism are not specifically discussed in the essay.

Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. {Oi chusoi Dios aei enpiptousi}, — The dice of God are always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If you see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs is there behind...

...All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me that is not good for him, my neighbour feels the wrong; he shrinks from me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.

All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. Fear is an instructer of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he hovers for, there is death somewhere... — Emerson - Compensation

The answer to the problem of evil is not to deny it and suggest that bad things can't happen to good people. Sometimes there are unjust results.

Beliefs in karma lead to caste based systems where we try to convince the oppressed that their lot in life is the fair result of past lives unjustly lived.

Sometimes life is unfair.

Not really. I mean, there is a kind of pragmatic approach which is that if you treat others well and do good things, people will tend to be nice in return. But that's just the way people tend to behave.

If it's some higher concept such as a kind of universal justice, no. I've seen great people go through some really brutally harsh situations and I've seen criminals live quite comfortable lives.

There's going to be exceptions to almost everything and even treating others well isn't a guarantee that they will be nice back, but only increases the odds that they may be nice back. But anything can happen.

I think the OP is written in the right way. In terms of held beliefs and norms, karma can seem like a thing that exists with respect to known known's.

However, some old guy sitting on a cloud writing what good and evil you have done and translating it into something that hasn't been seen or witnessed before seems a little outlandish.

Essentially, karma is a form of judgement on an act or deed in the positive or negative, so it seems that it can have an effect with respect to the observer or the environment one partakes in.

Karma is like our conscience, divine justice, or OCD. It’s self-fulfilling superstition butting against the contingencies of cause-and-effect.

:up: and it can have brutal effects upon people.

I see no demonstration of karma and it is of no use to me as a concept.

Could Karma be the expression of basic physical laws of motion emerging/permeating into the sphere of sophisticated societal dynamics? — Benj96

I don't think so. There used to be a lot of talk about Buddhism being a 'scientific religion' in the early 20th c based on the idea that karma was a kind of 'scientific law', but I think that is groundless. Nevertheless, I implicitly accept karma as the basis of my own ethical outlook, with the important caveat that it can easily lead to fatalism and finger-pointing. Karma should only ever be regarded as a regulative principle in my view.

If Karma applies to only intentional acts, the influence of non-intentional acts (acts from ignorance, compulsion, nature) make the concept muddy/incoherent.

All intentional acts rely on a vast array of non-intentional processes for which the agent is mostly ignorant of.

Suppose we're all perfect in our intentions but nature just seems to always interfere with the act to produce and multiply harmful results. Or we're all perfect in our moral intentions (from our collective point of view) and an asteroid comes down to block out the sun from its dust impact and we suffer a while until death... where is the karmic justice in that?

Maybe most of the harm/suffering in the universe, by karmic standards, is really unintentional and the outcome of either incident or ignorance.

Could Karma be the expression of basic physical laws of motion emerging/permeating into the sphere of sophisticated societal dynamics? — Benj96

I do not think so. If Karma is real, it's basis is not physical. It is not a Law imposed from the outside. Rather, if it is real, it stems from the observation (presumably in early Indus civilizations) of cause and effect, then superimposed onto mental activity.

I would say that if any karma-like mechanism exists, it is not a system of reward and punishment, but rather, as it turns out, the way things happen to humans, those creatures "operating" Mind.

Karma is the name given to the displacement of true nature with the illusory constructions and projections of Mind. Presumably our "spiritual" "goal" is to uncloud our true being from the constructions and projections; and to make way for being to return to its natural aware-ing.

Attachment to the constructions and projections, moral or immoral, good or bad, accumulates "karma" making the realization of true being impossible.

Awareness and detachment, allow for the dust of karma to lift, and such realization possible.

As a general matter doing the right thing pays off, which might be why it's the right thing, but there are just too many variables in life to assume that doing the same things will always lead to the same result.

Generally speaking, we can assume that if I work hard, I'll do better than those who don't, but there's always the possibility I'll get hit by a train and all that hard work will amount to a crushed leg, thigh, torso, head, and eyeglasses.

Pity refers to what we feel when someone gets unjustly injured. Indignation refers to what we feel when someone gets unjustly rewarded.

Knowing society is fundamentally based on biology and subject to the influence of scientific phenomena observed in ecosystems and complex living systems as a whole, albeit far more convoluted and nuanced in regard to interpersonal relationships, is there grounds to justify the existence of some form of Karma? — Benj96

Maybe, maybe not. One may not need to call it Karma, but the idea is the same. We have the Confucian and Tao Te Ching teachings, for example.

Could Karma be one of those phenomena created by society itself to self-regulate? — Benj96

No. That's not Karma. Society created the "social contract" for cooperation to achieve the desired goals. As you know, there are lazy, uncooperative people who aren't given their desert.

Karma is a societal concept of innate justice or equalisation not neccessarily requiring direct and immediate counter-reaction/rebuttal in order to come about. — Benj96

Again, no. There is no "equalization". Maybe you want satisfaction? Then you are probably talking about revenge or punishment.

The best way to look at the unfairness in life, whether a bad luck or witnessing a bad person gets away with things is to detach yourself from emotional responses. Rather, adapt your habits to the new crappy situation until you find a way out. The focus is yourself -- not what's happening to others.

Do not let others see you sweat. Or perturbed. You are fighting a battle no one else sees. In the end, you create your own (good) Karma.

Easier said than done, you say? Practice.

It’s worth mentioning the origin of the term ‘karma’. It is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘kr-‘ which is ‘to do’ or ‘to make’, As a kind of common-sense heuristic it simply implies that ‘all actions have consequences’. It has its echoes in Western cultural history, notably the Biblical maxim ‘As you sow, so too shall you reap’ and also ‘actions becomes habits which form character, and character determines your fate’ which is associated with Aristotelian ethics. Interestingly the Sanskrit term ‘bhavana’ which is sometimes translated as ‘meditation’, actually means ‘becoming’, the implication being that meditation is the cultivation of mental states and virtues which lead to positive outcomes.

Of course in the Indian context, one has the horizon of future lives in this or other planes of being, in which the consequences of karma come to fruition (for good or for ill) whereas in today’s world, as there is no such conception, the classical concept of karma is meaningless. This is why from the perspective of classical Indian culture, modern culture is by and large nihilist.

Karma is the name given to the displacement of true nature with the illusory constructions and projections of Mind. — ENOAH

I don't know what you mean by "displacement of true nature". However, I think you are right in the sense that notions of karma are intimately tied up with our social primate tendency to project onto the world in terms of deservedness:



It seems to me, that the notion of karma arises from an attempt to rationalize, our instinctive (and substantially emotional) tendency to judge deservedess, as a matter of objective fact about the world.
(As opposed to recognizing the inherent subjectivity of judgements of deservedness.)

Does this fit at all with what you are thinking?

I don't disagree with your depiction. To serve it back, in case I misunderstand:
Karma presents to us in History as a socio-cultural phenomenon, an "answer" for deservedness (that has its acknowledged flaws: I.e., bad things to good people).
Karma also manifests in individuals, as a defence mechanism in psychoanalytic theory.

But what I'm suggesting is that--even preceding the defence mechanism giving rise to a law of moral cause and effect--Karma is a mechanism in the process of human experience (the proper subject of metaphysics). This is what it's "authors" observed but given their place in human history, described in ways giving rise to the socio-psycholigical and/or religious/moral explanation.

Here's how; and what I'm trying to say with displacement. Very briefly, so details don't Cloud.

We suffer mentally.
Physical pain is clear, but why mental?
Our experiences including suffering all originate in this recycling of ideas.
These ideas have accumulated to the point of displacing our reality with their mediation.
But we can't avoid them.
Yet those who find silence from these ideas can at least navigate and discriminate with clarity.
Detachment then, from these ideas good and bad ones, will ultimately reduce the heavy weight/clouding dirt from these ideas and allow us to once again "see" nature clearly.

Karma is the name given to the accumulation of attachment to ideas and actions relating to ideas. The goal being to neither attach to good deeds or bad, positive images, or negative; but to just do/be without attachment.

equilibrium is a tendency of Nature, something it strives to ultimately achieve. — Benj96

Except, in the case of so called Karma equilibrium is not a measured balance between, say, good and bad. Rather, it is in detachment from judgements constructing good and bad; action without attachment to the "fruits".

Do animals deliberate and choose courses of action? Are there malevolent or evil monkeys or lions or wolverines? I'm inclined to doubt that. Which is one of the issues I have with 'karma theory'. According to Buddhist lore, one might be reborn in the animal realm as a consequence of animal behaviour (which is surely not hard to imagine, at least.) But once one is born into the animal realm, how does one 'generate merit' to warrant re-birth in the human realm?

According to the literature, there are various ways:

Natural Virtue and Innocence: Some Buddhist texts suggest that even animals can perform meritorious actions through their natural behavior. For example, acts of loyalty, protection, and nurturing by animals may generate positive karma. The inherent innocence and lack of malicious intent in many animals can also be seen as a form of merit.

Influence of Past Karma: Animals might still be influenced by the remnants of their past positive karma. This residual karma can sometimes lead to experiences or actions that accumulate merit. For instance, an animal might form a bond with a human who treats it kindly, thereby generating positive karma through that relationship.

Spiritual Interactions: In some stories, animals come into contact with enlightened beings which can lead to the generation of merit. For example, an animal that shows devotion to a Buddha or a Bodhisattva can accumulate merit through that act of devotion.

Bodhisattva Vows and Acts: Certain advanced practitioners (Bodhisattvas) take vows to liberate all sentient beings, including animals. Their compassionate actions towards animals can help uplift the animals' karmic conditions.

So while the notion of animals generating merit may seem unlikely given their perceived limitations, Buddhist teachings suggest pathways through which animals can improve their karmic conditions. Through natural virtuous behavior, the influence of past positive karma, interactions with enlightened beings, and the compassionate acts of Bodhisattvas, animals can accumulate merit and potentially achieve rebirth in more favorable realms, including the human realm.

Another point from Buddhist lore, is the comparative rarity of attaining human birth - hence the expression, especially in Tibetan Buddhism, 'this precious human birth'. Being born in the human realm, and hearing of the Buddha, is an opportunity that is exceedingly rare in cosmic time-scales.

one of the issues I have with 'karma theory'. According to Buddhist lore, one might be reborn in the animal realm as a consequence of animal behaviour — Wayfarer

I agree with this as problematic. Do you think (as i recall being led to believe) that "sophisticated" Mahayana practitioners/thinkers sweep the reincarnation aspect of karma under the rug, ignore it? And yet, the Bodhisattva vow includes as you say all sentient beings, so how could they.

Do you think (as i recall being led to believe) that "sophisticated" Mahayana practitioners/thinkers sweep the reincarnation aspect of karma under the rug, ignore it? And yet, the Bodhisattva vow includes as you say all sentient beings, so how could they. — ENOAH

No, I don't. Many secular Buddhist followers reject it outright and regard re-birth as something that occurs moment-to-moment (which is true in one sense) but not life-to-life. But in my view, saṃsāra is intrinsic to Buddhism, it makes no sense without it. See Facing the Great Divide, Bhikkhu Bodhi.

I think you're right. Western ethnocentrism wanting to call the shots.

EDIT: Not to deflect my own culpability, which includes the above plus wishful thinking.

Western ethnocentrism wanting to call the shots. — ENOAH

It’s more that seeing through our own cultural conditioning is very difficult. That goes for Buddhists too.

You're right

Part of the problem which I see with the idea of karma is when it is thought of as 'punishment' or 'reward'. This was a basis for justifying the caste system.

Really, the idea of karma means cause and effect, 'As you reap, so shall you show. ' in its esoteric sense, it involves cause and effect being complex, beyond physicality. This involves aspects of the depths of the subconscious. For example, I often do feel that I get bad consequences if I feel that I have acted in a way which I should not have done. Sometimes, it seems to be 'instant karma', like the John Lennon song. Nevertheless, my karma is probably connected to my subconscious and conscious awareness of mistakes.

FWIW, my intepretive sketch from a 2022 thread Perspective on Karma ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/730691