Karma is a logically scientific concept?

[Sprinter]

Karma is a sum of all that an individual has done and is currently doing. The effects of those deeds actively create present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life. In religions that incorporate reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well.

Do you think karma is a logically scientific concept and can be proven to be true?

 

[Pengwuino]

Well unless anyone has a clue as to what it is and how it actually works and methods of creation, no.

It's a pretty unscientific idea too. Everything in science is objective while hte idea of "responsibility" and "making someone happier" etc etc is completely subjective. It's like asking if the sun's light is less intense if your sad today. The light doesn't know or care, its a subjective idea and science doesn't seem to like subjectiveness.

 

[Serene_Chaos]

karma might be true, but i think it would have more to do with intentions than actual actions.sometimes actions with good intentions may have negative effects, what happens to your karma then?

 

[mrj]

Hi

You might be interested in the Buddhist forum www.e-sangha.com .
Although I'm not a believer myself, they do have a wide range of topics including some on karma.
mrj

 

[kuahji]

I believe Karma can be scientifically defined. I'll use an example to portray what I mean. If I go to a gas station & give the cleric a hard time for no reason, the cleric will most likely carry that over to the customer after me. So, the customer after myself then comes to my workplace later in the day & gives me an attitude. Or perhaps it'll give the customer road rage & cause an accident. See how my actions have caught up with myself? This is obiviously a crude explanation, but it's the general idea. Basically, if you go around & do "bad" things, it'll spread like an infectious disease, & vice versa with doing good deads. I like to view karma as cause & effect rather than some mystical force.

 

[fargoth]

there are so many people around you, the probability you'd do something that affects you is very low... its like thinking throwing a rock to a stormy sea would make it even more stormy...
when you're happy, look on the bright side of life, and help to others, good things happen because you notice them more then the bad things, and vice versa, that's my explanation to karma.
its a great feeling to be optimistic and happy, you don't need any scientific reason for it.
i love the feeling i get when i make others happy as myself, and i think life just gets better every moment.
and its pretty good right now too

 

[kuahji]

there are so many people around you, the probability you'd do something that affects you is very low... its like thinking throwing a rock to a stormy sea would make it even more stormy...
when you're happy, look on the bright side of life, and help to others, good things happen because you notice them more then the bad things, and vice versa, that's my explanation to karma.
its a great feeling to be optimistic and happy, you don't need any scientific reason for it.
i love the feeling i get when i make others happy as myself, and i think life just gets better every moment.
and its pretty good right now too

There are many people, but that's my point. Your action spreads to one person than to another. Now you got two upset people, we infect two more. Understand? It's obivious some people just brush it off, but I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten an irate customer at work & I've carried over my upset feelings to the next customer.

 

[fargoth]

the butterfly effect exists, but it doesn't mean that it affects you for the worse, even if bad actions are what made it happen in the first place.

 

[kuahji]

the butterfly effect exists, but it doesn't mean that it affects you for the worse, even if bad actions are what made it happen in the first place.

Which is why I stated it works vice versa.

 

[fargoth]

i think that people that believe in karma would even say that the butterfly effect would affect those with good karma for the better and thos with bad karma for the worse, it doesn't matter who created the first "wave" and with what action (i.e. "good" or "bad")
i don't think that the chaos theory would help this statement..

 

[sameandnot]

what about those with no karma?

 

[Sprinter]

So, can i conclude that karma only happens by chance?

 

[kuahji]

So, can i conclude that karma only happens by chance?

That's only my take on the subject. But yes, in that particular version it would be chance & chance alone.

 

[fargoth]

if youd give more weight to good thing that happen to you over bad things, youd notice them more often and be happier.
optimism is good karma in my view, and it doesn't happen by chance.
but karma in the more known form (i.e. the way it was introduced by sprinter in the top of this thread) isn't explained well by the butterfly effect because it happens only by chance if you want to explain it by the butterfly effect.

so the butterfly effect is not a good explanation, karma is supposed to be related to ones soul, rewarding people with good karma and punnishing those with bad karma, and that is not scientific (we can't see, or measure it in any way, so there's no way to know if you carry good/bad karma from previuos life). so scientifically you can't say anything about karma, it may or may not exist.
only when you finished your iterations on Earth and join the perfect souls, would you know if it was true or not.

 

[stev]

What is the difference between karma, and the explanation of disease and death used centuries ago - that it was caused by some kind of wrongdoing by the person with the misfortune.

I thought the very notion of medical science disprooves this?

 

[fargoth]

in the case of desease, the real cause has been found, thus disprooving the belief it was a punnishment from god or whatever they thought it was (some thought bad smell caused it).
but in the case of karma, there's no way to disproove its existence.
by the statement that the count is related to a soul, and that the soul can live many times, you can't really make any measurement.
and because this isn't an observable phenomena, you can't find any other "real" cause to replace karma.
this is why karma is not a scientific thing - it doesn't make any measureable predictions.

 

[matrixx333]

Buddha had an idea called the "chain of conditioned arising". In it, he described that for every thought, action, and word we speak, we are conditioning the next thought, action and word we will have in the future.

I believe that this ties in strongly with karma. I feel the only way that we can scientifically prove whether it is correct or incorrect, is to become the scientist of our own lives.

I know from experience that what Buddha is speaking of is true (to my own perception of reality). When I leave for work, and forget to close the curtains in my apartment, my apartment is hot when I get home. And because the apartment is hot, I am uncomfortable. The "lack of" thought in this case affected my karma. Also, the chain of conditioned arising has to do with habits. If you smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, and get lung cancer, don't you think that your habits affected your karma?

 

[fargoth]

you seem to connect karma with causality... but this is not the case, karma is carried over to next lives, and isn't the immidiate rewards\punnishments for your actions.
and because there's no way to track one's soul, there can be no experiment concerning karma.

 

[matrixx333]

Fargoth, thank you for correcting me. I see where I was connecting karma with causality. I also agree with the statement that karma is carried over to next lives.

I also agree that there can be no real "experiment" to prove whether karma exists, that is why I was suggesting observation (in our own lives). Similar to how cosmology studies the universe, using observations.

 

[kuahji]

you seem to connect karma with causality... but this is not the case, karma is carried over to next lives, and isn't the immidiate rewards\punnishments for your actions.
and because there's no way to track one's soul, there can be no experiment concerning karma.

In my point of view, it was speaking more for the scientific mind. Past & future lives can not be proved, we don't even know if there is an after life. However, cause & effect can be proved.

 

[fargoth]

In my point of view, it was speaking more for the scientific mind. Past & future lives can not be proved, we don't even know if there is an after life. However, cause & effect can be proved.

yes, but my point is that cause and effect is not relevant here, because people with good karma may get the "reward" in the next life.

 

[kuahji]

yes, but my point is that cause and effect is not relevant here, because people with good karma may get the "reward" in the next life.

I don't see why it wouldn't. Cause & effect "could" very well still take place. Take for example, if you're a warlord & you've killed many but somehow you die in the battles. What if you were reincarnated on the loosing side? Or for another example, if everyone pitched into help out & ebloshed world hunger, you simply can't be born into world hunger. The same would go for poverty, how could you been born into poverty if it doesn't exist? Cause & effect. Unless of course, you were reincarnated on a planet somewhere across the universe, then I'm not sure how this idea would hold true.

 

[matrixx333]

Karma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Karma or "Karm"(Sanskrit: कर्म from the root kri, "to do", meaning deed) or Kamma (Pali: meaning action, effect, destiny) is a term in several eastern religions that comprises the entire cycle of cause and effect. Karma is a sum of all that an individual has done and is currently doing. The effects of those deeds actively create present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life. In religions that incorporate reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well.

 

[fargoth]

"karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well."

and because of this it doesn't obey cause and effect in a way we can observe it, because we can see only one little fraction that is one life... and the effect of the cause can come in other life.

it may be that you directly suffer the effects of your deeds, I am not saying that can't happen, all I am saying is that it isn't necessarily so. and its even more probable that what happens to us in one lifetime is influenced more by past lives then by this life - so you can try and explain good things that happen to you by cause-effect, but then you wouldn't (necessarily) be talking about karma.

and because of this we can't proove or disproove karma - making it non-scientific.

and that's what this thread was all about.

 

[onlyOne]

you can feel it, forgoth. you know it by the quality of your being and experiencing; by the ease with which you "harmonize contained conflicts"; the extent that you are free, at peace; by the enchantment found in the simplest act of being.

it sucks to suck. everyone knows that.

 

[emrandel]

Well, that's really just an over complication of: "Your past AND present determines your future." Now this is a pretty logical statement... what you've done and are doing will effect what you're going to do. And yes, it would be proven true easily.

 

[Serpo]

There is no such conception as karma without expectation. Expectation is derived from desire. Without desires karma ceases to exist. Therefore we come to the conclusion that karma is only a byproduct of human desires for a greater unknown in some kind of matrix that always comes out to a perfect harmony. Fortunately this isn't true and karma only exists in ones head. As far as cause and effect go, sure if I throw a ball in the air it will come back down as long as gravity is present. Yet I'm pretty sure this thread was started assessing a different meaning of karma.

 

[sameandnot]

Well, that's really just an over complication of: "Your past AND present determines your future." Now this is a pretty logical statement... what you've done and are doing will effect what you're going to do. And yes, it would be proven true easily.

or, "your past AND present determines your future" is your interpretation and has no relation to the post... i meant what i said.

serpo's on to it, i think.

where is karma? who has karma?
-these are not silly questions.

 

[Serpo]

In more simple terms, what I was saying is; There are two types of karma, cause and effect, which is true, and faith based(or human expectation/desire/want/need induced)... which is not. To answer your last two questions. Where is karma? That depends on what type of karma you are talking about, it's either all around us, or not here at all.
Who has karma? I don't think it's possible to attain karma. Unless it's cause and effect. Faith based karma is not absolute. I can be married to my wife for 50 years, cheated on her 5 times in our tenth year of marriage, never tell her, and then live happily ever after because she never found out. Is that karma? You see? Some say "what goes around comes around" ... now that's just silly... and only true to an extent. 2+2 is only valid when it comes out to 4 everytime. You get what I'm saying? As long as we keep everything scientific and mathematical we're just fine, as soon as we start perverting reality with the want for that greater diety controlling our lives, we slip into the faith based beliefs which are never absolute... therefore in my eyes, are just chance happenings made into an absolute definition, which is completely paradoxical and false.

 

[sameandnot]

this leads us to: where is cause and effect? (which may go a little too far for this forum and moderation...)

if there is no conceptualization, there can be no 'cause-effect' or 'karma'. the two have dependent origination of and in conceptualization... as concepts.

can we say?: the mind is conceptualization.

ya know, if you don't judge (which is to conceptualize), then nothing...