Karma a myth? Or real.

[Fruitbat]

Let me clarify instead, I talk about the golden rule because OP mentioned it. I wasn't putting it into relation with karma, I was replying to to separate parts of his post.


Yeah I was just taking it from the top of my head while tired, it makes little difference though. My example is still valid and the golden rule is flawed in that way.

Got you. No worries.

 

[sosousage]

karma is more fakish than what these salesmen who knock ur door are trying to sell.


only difference would be that shady people dont expect good things to come while good people are happy, open, and indeed expect good things to come, their aura is healthier, so basically people are nicer to them because they can feel that aura

 

[Red Legg]

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.A MAN REAPS WHAT HE SOWS.-Galatians 6:7

 

[That_dude]

Bingo. That goes for everyone.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.A MAN REAPS WHAT HE SOWS.-Galatians 6:7

LK 6:38 "Give, and it will be given to you...for with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Karma is a handy excuse when you don't want (or are unable) to handle your shyte.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Yeah I was just taking it from the top of my head while tired, it makes little difference though. My example is still valid and the golden rule is flawed in that way.

I wondered if framing the golden rule negatively allowed it to be compatible with individualism - the initial mode is one of non-interaction. Framing it positively, there is almost no prior space to interaction.... more of a flow state with others... or rather between people...a cultural [inter-subjective] space. And then in the moral/ ethical/ cultural dimension we are both the same and other [outside ideology/ reason/ individual]..... it's almost like we are all a part of God.

 

[penkitten]

Yes, bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.

However, not everything that happens to good people is bad- otherwise no one would want to be good.

In my opinion, every human thinks they are good inside or that something inside them is good. Even Hitler thought he was good.

And in my opinion, if good people believe that karma will get them if they do something bad, they try not to be so bad.

And every time I was cruel to someone, you better believe I was repaid ten fold. I call it karma. You can call it whatever you'd like. But I know where my conscious is. If I didn't have a conscious, I wouldn't worry about all the bad things I've ever done in my life finding their way back to me.

Good karma is a thing. If someone shares kindness upon me, I try to pass it right along to the next person. This is what keeps me happy.

 

[Serenity]

I wondered if framing the golden rule negatively allowed it to be compatible with individualism - the initial mode is one of non-interaction. Framing it positively, there is almost no prior space to interaction.... more of a flow state with others... or rather between people...a cultural [inter-subjective] space. And then in the moral/ ethical/ cultural dimension we are both the same and other [outside ideology/ reason/ individual]..... it's almost like we are all a part of God.

It got a bit confusing there towards the end. Anyways, do or don't only changes what's explicit and implicit. Doing to others what I'd want them to do to me implies not doing to others what you wouldn't want them doing to you. Unless you're one of those people who takes everything either explicitly or implicitly. I don't think it really matters whether you say "do" or "do not".

It can even be compatible with individualism when positively framed, if you count leaving people alone to be an action. The golden rule is extremely flexible because it's so incredibly general, almost as general as Google's motto "Don't be evil". If you ask what it means the right answer is "almost anything".

Morality cannot be treated like physics, but I see many people having the expectation it works the same way. While physics is extremely predictable and certain, morality is more in the realm of less predictable probabilities. Rules such as the golden rule isn't always good the same way the laws of physics always applies.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

It got a bit confusing there towards the end. Anyways, do or don't only changes what's explicit and implicit. Doing to others what I'd want them to do to me implies not doing to others what you wouldn't want them doing to you. Unless you're one of those people who takes everything either explicitly or implicitly. I don't think it really matters whether you say "do" or "do not".

It can even be compatible with individualism when positively framed, if you count leaving people alone to be an action. The golden rule is extremely flexible because it's so incredibly general, almost as general as Google's motto "Don't be evil". If you ask what it means the right answer is "almost anything".

Morality cannot be treated like physics, but I see many people having the expectation it works the same way. While physics is extremely predictable and certain, morality is more in the realm of less predictable probabilities. Rules such as the golden rule isn't always good the same way the laws of physics always applies.

Yes, abstraction always confuses. I think this may be due to the reason that we lose 'traction' between the self and the world - we become abs-tracted from it. And from this position, then we must con-fuse [in representation/ ideology] reason with reality.

When, on the other hand, we reside within an ethical/ religious culture, within a wider inter-subjective space/ framework of which the 'individual' is yet to abstract himself from, then there is no perceived need for something such as certainty... that only comes in the wake of a segregation/ individuation.

As for ethics, such as the golden rule, I suspect they are more than the abstractions of physics, and so should not be treated as such. Rather, they are more like a normative and universal claim, on the one hand, and a reflection of an existing norm already found within the culture, in which it is espoused, on the other. Though we have lost - from the individualist/ rationalist point of view - the second; the first still remains to us in virtue of our rationality - ethical language, by its nature, has a universal claim on us, prior to reason and as an 'object' of faith.

That said, we remain free to follow this lead or ignore it. To follow the lead would be to abandon the fortress of certitude [ego]. To ignore it leads inevitably to despair, where that fortress starts to look like a prison.

 

[Serenity]

@ChristopherColumbus Sorry, now the entire post is confusing. I think you're being too abstract for others to understand.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

@ChristopherColumbus Sorry, now the entire post is confusing. I think you're being too abstract for others to understand.

It may be a bit challenging. You want me to 'dumb it down'?

I take it that 'redpill' is critical of the mainstream and so should not be adverse to critical thinking.

 

[Pandora]

Karma is often misunderstood, as how could a "villain" have such a "great" life some proclaim. This logic is flawed for two reasons:

1) How do you know how "great" the villian's life is? Did you experience all his trials and tribulations to be in his shoes?

2) The corporeal existence is transient, and the energy within the corporeal continues to dwell in other corporealities a/k/a past lives. How do you know what the "villain" experienced in his past lives in relation to what he manfested today?

Your thoughts are energy. Think with stress and you will will create a physical hormone called cortisol. The simplest matter broken beyond the quark is energy and is subject to the observer effect, that is, it does not operate by causation, but rather capriciously by the observer. All matter is energy. Energy responds to energy. This is "karma."

I was reading a book all week that helped me understand these exact concept that you write about here. Learning these concepts really opens your consciousness. Too bad most people in American are not open minded to seek out this knowledge.

 

[Serenity]

It may be a bit challenging. You want me to 'dumb it down'?

Yes please, there's no use in fancy formulations if few can understand it.

I take it that 'redpill' is critical of the mainstream and so should not be adverse to critical thinking.

The redpill concept is fuzzy at best, so is mainstream. Abstract concepts become less useful when people can't agree on a clear definition of them. I'm a fan of critical thinking though and really all I want is to understand.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Yes please, there's no use in fancy formulations if few can understand it.
.

It's a good point you raise.... something like, what would be the point in conceptualizing something that you couldn't end up communicating? The problem is the second may be more difficult than the first. But I'll give it a go.

The redpill concept is fuzzy at best, so is mainstream. Abstract concepts become less useful when people can't agree on a clear definition of them. I'm a fan of critical thinking though and really all I want is to understand

Once again, a good point. Red pill stands contrasted to blue pill, and so itself [critical thought] can be in danger of becoming another ideology for mass consumption.... of going mainstream as a 'counter-culture'.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Yes please, there's no use in fancy formulations if few can understand it.
.

----------------
Exegesis on the original.

Yes, abstraction always confuses. I think this may be due to the reason that we lose 'traction' between the self and the world - we become abs-tracted from it. And from this position, then we must con-fuse [in representation/ ideology] reason with reality.

We live in an artificial and abstract age as opposed to a more natural simpler age. In a simpler age, there is a lack of all the dualities and dichotomies which we are all so familiar with [body/mind, public/ private etc], and which serve to clutter our minds, or which perhaps serve to individuate our minds in the first place. It's like we have been placed in a cave [of the mind/ the Cogito] and have been shown an extended fiction. Due to the durable nature of the mind, the 'suspension of disbelief' can extend indefinitely. To emerge from the fictional state [ideological state] may require some 'de-programming', some critical thinking.

The fiction of ideology consists in a fusing together of reason with reality - the rational is the real. The reason abstraction confuses us is because of this con-fusion. Criticism serves to re-distance things into their original relationship.

When, on the other hand, we reside within an ethical/ religious culture, within a wider inter-subjective space/ framework of which the 'individual' is yet to abstract himself from, then there is no perceived need for something such as certainty... that only comes in the wake of a segregation/ individuation.

With an open space now opened up outside of the confusion of abstract thought, we can begin to see the real relationship things have to each other - for example, people to people, the present to the past, and ideology to culture. Culture [in the old normative and unifying sense], becomes possible again. There is a common sense among people again, which the drive to detached certainty once destroyed [in religious terms this would be called heresy in contrast to orthodoxy].

As for ethics, such as the golden rule, I suspect they are more than the abstractions of physics, and so should not be treated as such. Rather, they are more like a normative and universal claim, on the one hand, and a reflection of an existing norm already found within the culture, in which it is espoused, on the other. Though we have lost - from the individualist/ rationalist point of view - the second; the first still remains to us in virtue of our rationality - ethical language, by its nature, has a universal claim on us, prior to reason and as an 'object' of faith.

There is another aspect to this critical distancing from ideological fiction - not only is one enabled to re-engage with a community as a social animal [on a basis of having an instinct/ drive for that], but so too one rediscovers a creative subjectivity within oneself which seems to serve as a springboard to such adventures as the aesthetic, ethical, and perhaps even religious. From this perspective, the ideological fiction served to 'flatten' our experience into a two-dimensional screen-like space where-in which we entertained our fictions.

That said, we remain free to follow this lead or ignore it. To follow the lead would be to abandon the fortress of certitude [ego]. To ignore it leads inevitably to despair, where that fortress starts to look like a prison.

And so we recognize that will is the central phenomena of ourselves and not reason. From the western religious experience, the adventures of reason are recognized and not obliterated. There is a dramatic and adventurous element to life, which reason itself points to. But reason can not become autonomous, or a faith in itself, and imagine itself to obliterate the other aspects of life as we experience them [aesthetics, ethics, culture, religion etc]. Nor can it annihilate itself, for being one 'faith' [or will, or ideal] among various ones, it is in turn supported by those. From the critical perspective, reason becomes conceptual art.

I think this may also go some way toward outlining the differences between East and West.

 

[Serenity]

It's a good point you raise.... something like, what would be the point in conceptualizing something that you couldn't end up communicating? The problem is the second may be more difficult than the first. But I'll give it a go.

Yes, exactly that. I'm well aware of the difficulty in communicating whatever you were trying to say, I have some of those thoughts as well that are hard to put into words. I see abstraction as a tool to make communication more effective by shortening lengthy definitions into single words, but it requires the listener to have prior knowledge about what it means. It's really only effective when the concept is clearly defined and well known though. You threw around way too many complex concepts for me to make sense of your point.

Once again, a good point. Red pill stands contrasted to blue pill, and so itself [critical thought] can be in danger of becoming another ideology for mass consumption.... of going mainstream as a 'counter-culture'.

I find red pill and blue pill to be equally an enemy of critical thought, they're just polar opposites. Both sides believe they're critical thinkers, everyone believes they're critical thinkers. Even critical thinking seems to be misunderstood by many, they don't know what it means.

 

[Serenity]

----------------
Exegesis on the original.

We live in an artificial and abstract age as opposed to a more natural simpler age. In a simpler age, there is a lack of all the dualities and dichotomies which we are all so familiar with [body/mind, public/ private etc], and which serve to clutter our minds, or which perhaps serve to individuate our minds in the first place. It's like we have been placed in a cave [of the mind/ the Cogito] and have been shown an extended fiction. Due to the durable nature of the mind, the 'suspension of disbelief' can extend indefinitely. To emerge from the fictional state [ideological state] may require some 'de-programming', some critical thinking.

The fiction of ideology consists in a fusing together of reason with reality - the rational is the real. The reason abstraction confuses us is because of this con-fusion. Criticism serves to re-distance things into their original relationship.


With an open space now opened up outside of the confusion of abstract thought, we can begin to see the real relationship things have to each other - for example, people to people, the present to the past, and ideology to culture. Culture [in the old normative and unifying sense], becomes possible again. There is a common sense among people again, which the drive to detached certainty once destroyed [in religious terms this would be called heresy in contrast to orthodoxy].


There is another aspect to this critical distancing from ideological fiction - not only is one enabled to re-engage with a community as a social animal [on a basis of having an instinct/ drive for that], but so too one rediscovered a creative subjectivity within oneself which seems to serve as a springboard to such adventures as the aesthetic, ethical, and perhaps even religious. From this perspective, the ideological fiction served to 'flatten' our experience into a two-dimensional screen-like space where-in which we entertained our fictions.


And so we recognize that will is the central phenomena of ourselves and not reason. From the western religious experience, the adventures of reason are recognized and not obliterated. There is a dramatic and adventurous element to life, which reason itself points to. But reason can not become autonomous, or a faith in itself, and imagine itself to obliterate the other aspects of life as we experience them [aesthetics, ethics, culture, religion etc]. Nor can it annihilate itself, for being one 'faith' [or will, or ideal] among various ones, it is in turn supported by those. From the critical perspective, reason becomes conceptual art.

I think this may also go some way toward outlining the differences between East and West.

That's better, it made sense now. Basically what you're talking about is people creating mental realities. If that's the case I have absolutely observed this. Where words lose their connection to reality by being redefined to fit a person's desires.

Also that the remedy for this is to recognize it for what it is through critical thought, then this can be used creatively without distorting the understanding of reality. If that's the case I'm with you on that and know very well what you're talking about.

I've looked into both Eastern and Western philosophy, your line of thought makes sense to me. It's rare for me to talk to someone of such great understanding of these things.