Isn't Karma extrapolation?

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Alfredo wrote: I want to know if your Buddhist practice is really motivated by naked self-interest, and if some dubious metaphysics is all that restrains you from rapine and bloody murder.
Don't worry. That's already been taken care of.
But, to answer your question, neither one of the options you suggest.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by undefineable »

Alfredo wrote:In that world, maybe there is "anti-karma"--i.e., good deeds are punished after you die, while bad deeds are rewarded. Wouldn't that count as causality?

Anyway, for all we know, maybe we live in that world. The major argument against it is...authoritative testimony, which Buddhists apparently reject as a valid pramana
Alfredo wrote: _ _ anti-karma is true. In that case, would the correct Buddhist response be to deliberately commit evil, since this is what leads us to liberation?
Under analysis, negative actions that bring tangible rewards are necessarily actions that remove any obstacles to outcomes beneficial to oneself. Any apparent rewards are indirect, and depend on the 'actor' being adapted (to the environment) sufficiently to manipulate a situation to his or her credit and another's debit. In other words, benefiting from a negative act depends on the reversal of the natural results of that act by the force of the actor's store of positive karma-vipaka. If the effect of this course of action is for the 'store' (of positive karma) to be reduced both by its actualisation and by its being corrupted (by contrasted mental negativity), then the picture is Sisyphean at best.
Alfredo wrote:I want to know if your Buddhist practice is really motivated by naked self-interest, and if some dubious metaphysics is all that restrains you from rapine and bloody murder.
Buddhist practice is typically motivated by an understanding that self-interest not only fails to bring ultimate benefit, but is also the only thing that makes suffering "suffering" rather than neutral experience. Any taste for 'rapine and bloody murder' that a being may or may not have developed as a means of satisfiying that self-interest :twisted: is of course covered by this.
Alfredo wrote:So if torturing babies could reduce your karma (and you knew it would reduce your karma), you'd torture babies? Or better yet, in that case, you'd consider torturing babies to be fine Buddhist practice?
If karma is defined as action motivated by self-grasping, then how would torturing babies be a karma-free action that a karma-free being would choose to perform?
futerko wrote:The point is to reduce karma, not judge what is good or bad.
That sounds more promising :popcorn:

Given all the above, Alfredo, can you think of any rationale or evidence for your 'like begets unlike' model of karma? :pig: :guns:
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Alfredo »

Given all the above, Alfredo, can you think of any rationale or evidence for your 'like begets unlike' model of karma?
Only the authoritative testimony of Devadatta, Udayin, Langdarma, and other endarkened masters. I would have described them as suspiciously mustachioed / goateed, but so is Guru Rinpoche in OTL!

Don't forget that we need to distinguish "real-world" causality with religiously-postulated claims of supernatural causality lasting from life to life.

(Speaking of suspicious moustaches:) Nietzsche is...hard to interpret, partly because although he is read primarily by philosophers, he wasn't really writing as a philosopher. (He was a classical philologist by training, and a ranter by inclination!) His usual impulse is to rail against whatever values of the then-dominant cultural and political class caught his ire, and consistency be damned. But there is another, more visionary aspect of Nietzsche as well (Zarathustra apparently really appeared to him in some sense) which aims not only at particular critiques, but at a more general impulse toward transcendence. Although he praises Buddhism (albeit in very 19th-century terms), I often wonder whether the religion is capable of this degree of self-criticism and self-transcendence.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by futerko »

I think the idea of karma is an idea about what you choose to create.

Fair enough, gunning down children in macdonalds maybe seen as a response, protest, or reaction to something, but viewed in terms of what you create it is simply terror.

So, seen in those terms, the question is - who rules your world? - Engaging in some kind of protest assumes that someone else has defined the terms and you are just reacting to them.

The idea of karma is about creation in the here and now - what you choose from hereon in - so the idea of acting on a level that is personal, local, national, global, or beyond, is kind of arbitrary because your actions create that universe, not only for yourself, but also for every living being.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

I want to know if your Buddhist practice is really motivated by naked self-interest, and if some dubious metaphysics is all that restrains you from rapine and bloody murder.
I have on occasion modified my behavior due to what I imagine the consequences would be in my next life, but not always.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Grigoris »

Somehow I find it hard to believe that dubious metaphysics would be enough to assuage a murderous impulse. Anyway, personally, it's not like one day I was killing children and the next day I discovered karma. I do believe that are a few more factors to take into account than just a reliance on dubious metaphysics.

Anyway, this is a Buddhist forum so if you don't like hanging with people that believe in dubious metaphysics then maybe this is not be the right place for you. Unless, of course, you are another self proclaimed Moses come to free us from ourselves. :thinking:
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

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The idea that 'rebirth is a religious dogma' underwrites practically all the opposition to the idea. Is it? I think there are grounds for at least remaining open to the notion of rebirth as a reality. As is well known and often mentioned on this board, there have been solid empirical studies done on children with past-life memories consisting of efforts to corroborate the stories they told with journalistic and other records of the ostensible past life. These are, as the investigators say, at least very suggestive of the possibility of rebirth. In Western culture this is doubly taboo - once because it refutes materialism, and again because it is also anathema to Western religions. Be that as it may, belief in it is ubiquitous in Eastern cultures, and there is at least some documented evidence that it occurs. furthermore the notion of rebirth is fundamental to that of samsara, which surely is basic to this form of spiritual culture. I think if you call that into question because 'its not scientific' then you really should examine whether Buddhist religious culture is an appropriate milieu for the kinds of ideas you wish to pursue.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by undefineable »

Alfredo wrote: the authoritative testimony of Devadatta, Udayin, Langdarma, and other endarkened masters.
I'd agree with your earlier implication that testimony counts for little in itself. 'Testing' the testimony of Buddhist masters in keeping the Kalama sutra means, by extension, that anti-Buddhist testimonies are tested as well.
Alfredo wrote:Don't forget that we need to distinguish "real-world" causality with religiously-postulated claims of supernatural causality lasting from life to life.
Buddhism is actually a naturalistic system, even though there's no scientific evidence of life-to-life causality - just as there was no scientific evidence for many of the laws that inform today's naturalistic worldview back at the time when science began to progress. Even if a phenomenon can't be tested or evidenced scientifically, it does not follow that it doesn't exist, despite the fact that this very theory does exist as an unproven philosophical dogma.
Alfredo wrote: Although he praises Buddhism (albeit in very 19th-century terms), I often wonder whether the religion is capable of this degree of self-criticism and self-transcendence.
There's a difference between self-criticism and the assumption that one's claims are wrong just because someone else presents that argument. As for self-transcendence, the term 'transcend' rules out a complete contradiction of the original subject matter, although many classical mahayana scriptures were already full of context-limited contradictions of slightly earlier teachings - Take, for example, the Heart sutra's denial of the existence of karma etc., or alternatively the well-known parable of the finger pointing at the moon as a metaphor for the Buddhist teachings.

At this point, you may point out that much Buddhist cosmology is simply incorrect. The obvious response to this is that the Buddha's aphorism "I teach only suffering and the end of suffering" suggests that ideas like Mount Meru are simply irrelevant -in a way that karma can't be- to Buddhism proper.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by undefineable »

jeeprs wrote:The idea that 'rebirth is a religious dogma' underwrites practically all the opposition to the idea. Is it? I think there are grounds for at least remaining open to the notion of rebirth as a reality. As is well known and often mentioned on this board, there have been solid empirical studies done on children with past-life memories consisting of efforts to corroborate the stories they told with journalistic and other records of the ostensible past life. These are, as the investigators say, at least very suggestive of the possibility of rebirth
I've yet to see past life memories cut the mustard in debates on rebirth, for obvious reasons concerning over-active childhood imaginations. Anyways, I thought the topic was karma :shrug:
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by invisiblediamond »

Panegalli wrote:I agree that Karma can have results in an somewhat immediate way, for exemple: if I treat person A badly, A might treat me badly as a result, or tell someone that I treat people badly, increasing my probability of me not to be treated so well by people that listened to A. But to say that this action can have a result somewhere far away in space and far posterior in time, where noone knows me or A, seems to me to be extrapolating, not that something bad will not eventually happen to me, but I can't understand how can that something can be a result of my actions towards A. This would only make sense if the consequences of Karma are in my mind, if this actions create habits that will contribute to the sort of immediate consequences that I described in the beginning of the post.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

I can speak for myself and for many others who have been buddhists for a long time and who do not base their practice on anything which they cannot prove in their own lifetime. While it may be a requirement in some religions to accept on faith alone that which cannot be experienced directly, Buddhism holds no such requirement.

This does not mean that we reject those "unprovables" outright, but, as I have suggested before, realize that their "unprovability" results from approaching them in a very limited way. If one assumes that cognition spontaneously emerges from non-cognitive elements alone (the prevailing scientific theory) then there is no reason to assume that notions of karma and rebirth hold any real meaning whatsoever.

But, if we begin from a different starting point, that in the universe there are basically two things happening: there is non-cognitive stuff, and there is awareness of non-cognitive stuff, then this redefines our understanding, and gives entirely different meaning (I think, the Buddhist meaning) to concepts of karma and rebirth.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Alfredo »

I agree with undefineable's evaluation of "past-life memories."
Even if a phenomenon can't be tested or evidenced scientifically, it does not follow that it doesn't exist
True. Karma, like various kinds of spirits, is not something that science can meaningfully evaluate--at least not yet. (It is conceivable that one day, science might prove the existence of some form of afterlife, as happens in a couple of Robert Sawyer's novels.

Of course our decision whether or not to torture babies is informed not only by our fear of punishment (or hope of reward) in the afterlife, but also by our status as social animals, inhibited by various cultural and psychological influences. Still, one can easily imagine a situation in which infants are sacrificed to religious aims. (If certain revolutionary Tibetan museums are to be believed, lamas used to do this back before the Liberation!)
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by undefineable »

Alfredo wrote:Of course our decision whether or not to torture babies is informed not only by our fear of punishment (or hope of reward) in the afterlife, but also by our status as social animals, inhibited by various cultural and psychological influences.
Beyond this, simple lack of desire to perform such a pointless act 'informs' this "decision" _ Anyway, :focus: :
Alfredo wrote:Karma, like various kinds of spirits
It's not even spiritual, let alone a spirit. Hope that makes sense :)
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Alfredo wrote: It is conceivable that one day, science might prove the existence of some form of afterlife
Considering the fact that every part of the baby body you were born in is dead,
and yet you would claim to be here today,
Please give us your meaning of "afterlife".

If you assert that a permanent self ('alfredo') exists and has continued to exist
even though that previous body (as a baby) is dead,
and now a different one exists,
then how can you say there is no rebirth?

If you assert , as Buddhism does, that there is no permanent being ('alfredo')
then tell us what is to prevent the appearance of alfredo
from occurring , conditionally, as a continuously replicating experience
directly informed by the previous experience (in other words, "karma")
---since your own awareness of such an occurrence ("alfredo") obviously proves that it does?
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Wayfarer »

Undefineable wrote:'ve yet to see past life memories cut the mustard in debates on rebirth, for obvious reasons concerning over-active childhood imaginations.
You know, Ian Stevenson, the researcher best known for collating that data actually thought of that. He had very strict protocols for excluding doubtful and fraudulent cases and consequently rejected many more cases than he proceeded with. Really, if I thought Stevenson's cases were all based on projection and imagination, I would have no hesitation in saying it, and furthermore, I am not relying on such data to arrive at my own views about the question. But it is germane, because it is data of the same kind, and comparable quality, to that which is used to inform policy decisions in areas such as health research, and so on. In other words, if the degree of correlation in some other data set was as high as that found by Stevenson, others would have on compunction in drawing conclusions on the basis of the data. It's just that here, as I said, it concerns a subject which is frankly taboo to many people, and that grossly affects their response to it.

Incidentally Thanissaro Bikkhu published a lengthy article on Access to Insight in 2012 on The Truth of Rebirth and Why it Matters.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

PadmaVonSamba wrote:I can speak for myself and for many others who have been buddhists for a long time and who do not base their practice on anything which they cannot prove in their own lifetime. While it may be a requirement in some religions to accept on faith alone that which cannot be experienced directly, Buddhism holds no such requirement.

This does not mean that we reject those "unprovables" outright, but, as I have suggested before, realize that their "unprovability" results from approaching them in a very limited way. If one assumes that cognition spontaneously emerges from non-cognitive elements alone (the prevailing scientific theory) then there is no reason to assume that notions of karma and rebirth hold any real meaning whatsoever.

But, if we begin from a different starting point, that in the universe there are basically two things happening: there is non-cognitive stuff, and there is awareness of non-cognitive stuff, then this redefines our understanding, and gives entirely different meaning (I think, the Buddhist meaning) to concepts of karma and rebirth.
I had to read that several times to realize that I basically agree with it. If I did understand it correctly I'd like to add something along the same lines.

It is my own personal perspective, unsubstantiated by any authoritative source, that Dharma is designed to "wake us up" by starting with what we can see around us, such as suffering, impermanence and death. That then leads to further investigation which correctly extrapolates (to borrow a term from the title of this thread) beyond what we can see. But since the extrapolation is based on what we can see, it is more plausible and credible than being presented with a basket of things to be taken on faith. But that's just my idea right now. I could change it by the next time I post.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Discussing extrapolation in Buddhism reminds me of a method used in the astronomical sciences, for detecting the existence of planets that are not immediately observable. There is something called a wobble effect. Basically, when a star can be observed to "wobble", one has to assume that the wobbling has a cause, and that cause is the gravitational pull of a planet (which may itself escape direct observation) that is orbiting that star. Look at the animation on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_spectroscopy

If you think about having a bucket full of rocks, and a rope tied to the handle of that bucket, and you try to stand in one place, turning, spinning that bucket of rocks around you, you cannot stand perfectly straight up, because of the pull of the bucket, you will wobble as you spin around. That is essentially a replication of the wobble effect. The point is, given enough observable information, a reasonable assumption can be made about the true nature of what cannot be directly observed.

Likewise, In studying Dharma theory, one can look at the conditions of things as being the results of previous things, and can then extrapolate, eliminating various factors that don't quite add up, and without adding any made-up factors, arrive at a very sound method of reasoning.

Nagarjuna (ca. 150–250 CE) is probably best known Budddhist theoretician when it comes to logical inferences, especially ones he was able to come up with regarding the nature of cognition. And after all, when we are talking about karma and rebirth, we are talking about sequential moments of cognition (of being aware) or at least the sequential occurrence of the causes of cognition.

So, yes, there is a good deal of extrapolation (making projections or assumptions based on known information) with regard to karma. In Buddhist theory, "known information" includes assertions based on logical inferences made by observation (as with the case of assuming a planet which cannot be detected exists, based on the fact that a star is wobbling).

We can support the theory of karma because:
1. ordinary cause and effect is observable in every day situations, so it is at least feasible that cause and effect occur in situations which are not immediately observable.
2. while cognition as we know it relies on the physical properties of the brain, there is nothing to suggest that the materials of the brain cognitively witness their own activity (you may think "I have an idea", but your brain does not identify itself as a "self being" having an idea). In other words, while an electrically charged mass of water and fat may be needed for thought (and different areas of thought can be mapped out in the brain), it cannot be show to actually produce thought.
4. Therefore, while the experience of awareness requires a brain and sensory organs, the causes of awareness are not dependent on physical conditions.

Everything in the universe can be put into two categories:
awareness, and objects of awareness.

(and by the way, the fact of being aware can also be an object of awareness)
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Alfredo »

PadmaVonSamba wrote:
If you assert , as Buddhism does, that there is no permanent being ('alfredo')
then tell us what is to prevent the appearance of alfredo
from occurring , conditionally, as a continuously replicating experience
directly informed by the previous experience (in other words, "karma")
---since your own awareness of such an occurrence ("alfredo") obviously proves that it does?
I admit to feeling the impression of a certain experiential and spatio-temporal continuity with my "previous" (as you say) self, even though I am aware that the boundaries between "me" and "not-me" are a bit arbitrary. (It's very useful, though--it keeps me from bumping into things, however logically inconsistent it may be to care about that!) However, my observation and inference leads me to believe that this appearance will NOT continuously replicate, as you say, but come to an abrupt end at some point in the not-so-distant future. I have been told of invisible...somethings...that enable this process to continue after death, but this is supported neither by observation nor inference, and there is good reason to suppose it to be a culture-bound belief.

There is causality, to be sure, but causes and effects do not stay bundled into the mass that is "me," but break off into all directions. For example, we influence various people around us, have children perhaps, and otherwise affect the world. If an afterlife exists, then perhaps we can be said to affect our "future counterparts" as well. Note that absent a self, the connection between "you" and your "previous incarnation" becomes quite tenuous--something more akin to these other forms of influence that I mentioned.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Alfredo wrote: my observation and inference leads me to believe that this appearance will NOT continuously replicate, as you say, but come to an abrupt end at some point in the not-so-distant future. I have been told of invisible...somethings...that enable this process to continue after death, but this is supported neither by observation nor inference, and there is good reason to suppose it to be a culture-bound belief.
You are correct in may ways.
Unless otherwise you construct things otherwise, the experience of a self that you have in this lifetime will not replicate.
Your cognition will cease
but not the causes of cognition, which is self-less awareness.

But there are no invisible powers at work.
There is no process that will continue after death
that isn't happening now.
But it is happening now and that base of awareness is not limited by the coming or going of the body.
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Re: Isn't Karma extrapolation?

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Note that absent a self, the connection between "you" and your "previous incarnation" becomes quite tenuous--something more akin to these other forms of influence that I mentioned.
Only if you believe that your personality is the basis for your being here and now, which is what is being denied by the teachings on no-self. The Buddha achieved egolessness. He didn't evaporate when he did so. He continued on for another 40 years or so. Whatever remained continuous for Sakyamuni from day to day after his enlightenment is; 1. the same thing that went from life to life before his enlightenment, and 2. exactly the same thing that in continuous for us, both between lives and from day to day.

All forms of Buddhism that I know about all agree that your personality is not the basis of our being. We are all born experiencing life that way, but it is incorrect. Obviously something is continuous about us, otherwise we would have no memories of the past. Simply because the past life was a different personality does not mean it is a different mind stream.
There is no process that will continue after death that isn't happening now.
But it is happening now and that base of awareness is not limited by the coming or going of the body.
Yeah, that's what I meant. I tend to get overly comlicated and wordy.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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