Q: CURT: “Is Karma real?”
Great question.
As an analogy, both karma and soul refer to cognitive phenomena, and reduce that complexity to something anyone can understand by supernaturally abstracting it.
a) we are perfect accountants for reciprocities (moral) and irreciprocities(immoral). We have to be as social superpredators. That accounting system shows up as self image, reputation, and status. And it determines our and others’ access to opportunity for cooperation – and none of us can survive for long without cooperating with others.
b) Our neurons are subtle and ensure the history of behavior shows up in our facial expression and posture, body language, and even dress, so effectively that people can identify the character of others with reasonable accuracy at a glance. Reputations and Stereotypes, at least in personal interactions, are almost always true.
c) Others react to this observation of us, react to our behavior, and self image an reputation and status accumulates in our behavior and theirs.
d) People remember us even after we are dead and in their memories and even whatever marks we leave on the world are like molecules of smoke that dissipate but linger and minutely influence the future through our survivor’s memory, thoughts, words, and actions.
e) While I would prefer to leave the supernatural open to satisfy my fellow humans that require it, if you ask me to testify I will say that there is no ‘bandwith’ in the universe for the transmission of information by ‘supernatural’ means, and can’t be. Though explaining that to people is rather burdensome. But that said, synchronicity does exist, and the subtlety of what we detect as patterns in reality might as well be considered supernatural because it’s un-introspectable, and rarely explainable.
f) So I prefer to say that the idea of kharma and the soul are parables that are roughly understandable to all. They roughly represent real world phenomena. And so if they are not scientifically(testifiably) true, they are ‘true enough’, for any purpose we would need them, even if we cannot (and this is the issue) claim they are true (in reality, testifiably, meaning scientifically, because that’s what science means: testifiable).
I will not deprive my fellow man of his psycholgoical comforts when facing an all but hostile universe, and the vagueries of man and vicissitudes of nature, as long as he does not claim the useful is the same as the true – and in doing so claim the true enough by analogy is true performatively and testifiably given the narrow constraints of the physical universe, and the absence of the possiblity of the supernatural within it.
In other words “Deliver unto faith that which is the domain of faith, and deliver unto Court that which is the domain of testimony.” The Christians got it close enough to right by saying “God and Caesar”.
This is the most accurate and honest answer possible for mankind to give. And I would caution (and call a liar) those who disagreed with it or claimed it false.
Thank you for asking me a hard question with respect and intellectual honesty.
I hope I have done your respect and honesty justice.
Affections
Curt
Reply addressees: @jero95444