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How does karma work?

I never said their emotions were subjective. I'm saying any observer can see them crying.
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But what does that show? Does it prove causation, or only correlation? Is me crying cause I touched my eyes after cutting peppers exactly the same as me crying because I just watched my GF get murdered? Can I fake crying? Is it possible to still be in internal discomfort and not cry?

Although emotions can be electrochemical and neurons can send shit along dendrites and all this shit from HS psychology, we can't measure them accurately yet, which is why Karma encompasses both concepts. I was wrong to say it wasn't energy and matter interacting.
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There are a lot of things we can't accurately measure yet. There are many things we will never be able to measure accurately, and in the past, things we measure now could not be. That someone in the 1300's could not measure bacteria and the toxins they make did not mean that infectious disease at the time was not the same physical thing as it is now. That we can't in vivo measure the entire brain the way we can do a few neurons in vitro does not mean the generalized theory of what going on is not applicable, only that we lack the engineering capacity to do it.

Nothing conscious is affected. The air can't have any sort of emotional or logical response, only physical/energetical. Now, the moment somebody walks past and has to change tracks because a fallen tree is in the way and then in turn gets bitten by a snake is when it becomes karmic to both the person and the snake. In fact there's probably some animals living in it and eating it and shit so it was already karmic to them.
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Your emotions and logic are purely physical in nature too, it's an emergent property of a very complex system, but is still firmly physical, well, if your not going off into religion... Is not the one of the major points of the scientific method (applicable to psychology as much as anything) that everything has a natural, mechanistic, physical basis, even if it is absurdly complex and difficult to understand.

Emotions aren't physical. From what we know, if you fired some neurons or whatever the fuck so it was identical to another person they won't be experiencing the same thing. Just like if you give someone a drug, they'll experience commonalities that are rigid whilst simultaneously experiencing subjective effects.
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But they are physical, it's all interacting matter and energy. If we had the EXACT same brain (like down to solving the quantum state of each elementary particle in it as being the same) and we did exactly the same stimuli to it, it would do exactly the same thing. Small perturbations between each specimen of brain and between instance of stimuli account for the differences observed, its a VERY complex system, and as such would be expected to behave in a chaotic manner with respect to small differences in the initial state of the experiment itself.

Exactly, it's a long way off. Psychiatrists and neurologists can't just do some shit to see what's going in on your brain and then conclude you're thinking 'Man she's hot as fuck. Now I want some pepperoni pizza. Maybe I'll go key that car. I'm gonna kill myself tonight' and they can't see 'This person is experiencing (insert emotion)' as emotions are subjective because even if we share commonalities between say anguish none are tantamount, let alone conveyable. I mean explain pink, or green.
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Astronomers can't just do some shit and see what's going in detail in a galaxy on the other side of the universe down to fine detail either, but it seems not to cause any questions that stars over there work the same as the Sun does, and more generally, that whatever is happening over there is not a totally different kind of phenomena then anywhere else.

There is no blanket statement for this, it's situational and transient.
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That sounds like trying to discuss things on the Planck scale, i.e. absent of meaning, sense and utterly pointless.
 
The notion of harm, I think, forms a good basis for understanding karma as it relates to human life. Conceiving of human action in terms of its potential for harm to other sentient beings (or lack thereof) sidesteps the whole issue of the subjective versus objective, since harm is clearly both.

To what genre of philosophy did the original discussions of karma in India belong to? Was it a matter or ethics, or epistemology, or ontology, or something else? This makes all the difference when we're trying to discuss any philosophical construct -- it's a proposed answer to what question?

I think you'll find that 'karma' as it's used by most English-speaking Westerners nowadays, is actually a piece of folk philosophy wholly indigenous to the West. Like all folk philosophy, it's a crude tool. It sums up what most of us can expect out of life much of the time, in a way that's good enough for regular joes who don't meet many extraordinary circumstances and have neither the need nor the interest for closely examining life. On the other hand, I suspect that most Westerners who take the verbal examination of the human condition to the level of a high art have generally forsaken this folk concept, in favor of more sophisticated tools that aid in understanding the course and aftermath of human action more reliably and in a broader range of circumstances. It's not wrong, per se; it has its place but it's of limited value. Again like most items of folk philosophy, it wouldn't get passed down through the generations if accepting it into one's worldview had no practical merit whatsoever.

Is not the one of the major points of the scientific method (applicable to psychology as much as anything) that everything has a natural, mechanistic, physical basis, even if it is absurdly complex and difficult to understand.
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You've left out a key qualifier: everything amenable to scientific scrutiny is natural and physical. There may be things and phenomena which are not natural or physical, but we will never understand them in the same way we understand things and phenomena which are natural and physical, because we cannot measure and test them. Note that this philosophy of science is neutral on whether non-natural, non-physical phenomena exist, actually or potentially. That question is squarely over the border in metaphysics. All science has to say is that it has no interest in them.
 
If something has no effect on the physical world, what in the hell does it matter? It's a non-concept and affects nothing, if it has some affect on the physical world, it can be treated by some branch of science. IF "karma" affects no one in any way, it can be treated as non-existent, if affects them, we can measure it.

It can't harm or not harm a sentient being without being physical, as sentient beings are physical natural phenomena.
 
rangrz said:
If something has no effect on the physical world, what in the hell does it matter?
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Are you replying to me? I never said karma has no effect on the physical world.

It can't harm or not harm a sentient being without being physical, as sentient beings are physical natural phenomena.
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You seem to be attacking this straw man whereby karma is this 'thing' that interlopes into our world, has an effect, and leaves without a trace, sort of the way people conceive of ghosts. I propose no such thing. I'm not that familiar with it, but I'm fairly sure karma is an idea or schema for labeling and understanding human action. It's similar to, say, game theory. Game theory is not a 'thing' which either exists or doesn't; it's an abstract concept which either is helpful for understanding the world we live in, or isn't.

Before we can have that discussion, however, we all have to be on the same page in terms of the idea we're talking about. I've got really nothing more to contribute until I've read up a little on the original notion of karma in Indian philosophy, and understand its application within this context.

You're clearly a physicalist, rangrz. I get it. Thanks. Not everyone here is. I don't think it matters when we're talking about this topic, though, because though I could be wrong, I don't think the original idea of karma has anything to do with metaphysics.
 
Yes, I absolutely believe in Karma.

I believe everything is energy, waves of energy flowing through and around us at all given times. A good example is to think of a small pond, how the water ripples back and forth, occasionally bouncing off the sides and floating back around. This, is us. We are ripples in the water. Our Karma is the energy propelling us forward at all times. When we do good to others, it makes them feel positive, all while encouraging them to do good to others as well. Negativity simply spreads more negativity, so why be the one to start the chain reaction?

I know it's difficult for many to believe doing good will inevitably make good return to you. I think this outlook on Karma is a little silly to be honest. I don't believe the good that is returned to you is meant to be physical or even obvious, but simply that feeling inside that we know we've done good. That feeling alone keeps our thoughts on track and prevents us from feeling negativity, all while spreading positivity to someone, who for all we know may have been on their last thread that day, and just needed a little push to keep going.
 
Karma literally translated means action or doing, it has nothing at all to do with cause and effect, the wake does not drive the ship.
 
Whatever religious system (moralistic) you subscribe to there are rules of cause and consequence. Some believe this is enforced by a supreme God and others beleive that its a cosmic force. I believe that it could well be both that is a supreme being who oversees the universal constants i.e. gravity light speed quantum rules etc. This supreme being keeps the cosmos in precarious balance by maintaining its laws of which this is one.
Reason I submit that it has to be maintained by a supreme being is that someone has to define right and wrong. If karma were a force like any other how could it possibly decide on what is or isnt an ethical course of actoin? You cant judge intent only. Someone who has lived in a survival oriented situation their entire lives for instance will have their actions informed by self preservation leading to amoral actions. It all would have to be mediated by an intelligence.
 
right and wrong are subjective. That's the problem with karma as many people understand it. Right and wrong aren't defined by a supreme being anyhow, and if they were, how would humans know about it? Unless you are referring to the 10 commandments or something. Morality is relative, to culture, time, society. What is right or wrong right now may be changed in the future or may have been different in the past.
 
Yes, I am a physicalist, but I am being civil and on topic, so I think I am adding to the discussion too.

I gather from the posts here that karma is a meta-concept to name human emotion/cognition/social behavior?
 
Although Karma does mean action, please take the time to look into karma before entering such a discussion. Some terms you will come across;
Kharma
Dharma
Cause and Effect
Samsara
Vipaka
Niyama Dhammas

I didn't want to reduce this discussion to religious nonsense, but since I doubt you're going to go look into this and have the suspicion you will talk, I feel the responsibility to spoon feed you some information in an attempt to raise the standard of conversation above bigoted stupidity.

One key problem with discussion any Eastern thought, is that there are many interpretations/translations that take a reasonable notion and portray a completely different, nonsensical notion in English.
Another thing is the extremety seen in Eastern school to display the extremes of life with the intention of creating a 'middle way' and a sense of balance between the dualities of life. A problem with this arises from Western culture and taking things for face value.

Now, I'm not going to go into the difference between kharmic/dharmic (selfless and selfish) actions. I'm not going to go into samsara as it is pretty much a joke not to be taken so seriously, as reincarnation is absurd imo and the theory of rebirth, whilst remaining more logical, I do not subscribe to.

I should have prefaced all of this by saying I know fuck all about Buddhism and Eastern thought, and make no claim to have any sort of informed opinion on the matter. Well now I'm downtalking my rationality, but I know fuck all about Easter thought so if you're interested in this I suggest listening to/reading some Alan Watts and not me.

Now there are different thoughts on Karma, and they're totally different theories. The difference between Buddhist and Jain and Hindu and yada yada are extreme with juxtaposition, but I'm not going to present you with such. What I am going to do, is let you know that I have lost the desire to educate you and the information is out there, in a better manner than I can provide, should you choose to seek it.

Karma is created by your volition.

I just found this page on karma. When people say karma is akin to 'you reap what you saw' it is in an impersonal manner. It would be more precise to say 'humans reap what humans sow', and I'm sure the discussion of karma in Lojban, or Sanskrit even, would be much better than English.

I also like the first quote on that page: 'Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.' -Dennis Wholey (1937)

I'm also (positively and rationally/logically) biased about the whole creating joy/suffering thing and the effect of your actions from my depressed existence, in which things are more complicated than blanket statements found in every culture and religion.
 
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