Ask HN: Is karma real? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is karma real?

3 pointssmithmayowa9 comments

What are your thoughts on the concept of karma, do you think it is real or do you think it's supposed occurences are but bye products of universal randomity. I will like to know what your thoughts are or better still what your mental justification is for doing "good" every day.?

I asked this cause I am starting to feel that perhaps there are no real rules anyway, and that justfull actions, and upright deeds weigh and slow you down. I mean the bad guys seem to be on a roll.

View on HN

I spent my teens in Hollywood and surrounding areas in the `70s. I sat in on many discussions about "Karma" there. Here's a summation of what I heard...

If your goal is to gather more wealth, or celebrity, or political power, then it is true that "justfull actions, and upright deeds [might] weigh and slow you down".

But you miss the entire point of Karma if you think those are worthy goals. Those are selfish goals and silly distractions in the work towards obtaining enlightenment, which is the intended goal (why we are here).

Aside from that, Karma is the law of cause and effect. But it's not a reward system that tallies up your good deeds and pays them at the end of every month.

Good Karma is what allows one to break down in their car in South Chicago and a stranger appears with the help you need to get back up and running and safely on your way.

You obtain good Karma via selflessness and a true sense of caring for others and doing what is right.

To trust in Karma means you must not seek revenge because it's a waste of time when you're seeking enlightenment. You leave the work to teach those who screw you up to Karma.

Now, if you screw up, screw others, cause pain and suffering, you will also cause a visit from Karma intended to provide you with the lessons you need. This will continue until you learn those lessons. The real lesson is you must seek enlightenment.

Ultimately, to believe in Karma you must also believe in everlasting life. If you don't, well then, Karma will make no sense at all to you.

Now, what you asked is "Is Karma real?"

All I can tell you is that I am poor but I live much better than most of those I met while living in LA, and everyone that's ever screwed me has had bad things happen to them that I had nothing to do with. And that I've been smacked down a few times too, and needed it. And that my work over the years has touched and made life better for a lot of people, and I feel good about that. My grandkids are visiting with my wife and I now. When they grow up the stories they hear about us will be of good times that were had with us. And even if I don't live on those will for quite some time.

So it's worked for me.

I think the concept of karma is an attempt to find a way to talk about impossible to prove patterns suggesting cause and effect of social phenomenon.

You can't really prove that honesty or kindness or whatever is directly responsible for various positive outcomes, but the concept of karma encapsulates such ideas in a somewhat actionable fashion.

My son read a book that contained a story about a primitive village with a concept of a lucky jaguar. The village believed that if there was a jaguar in the area and it wasn't bothering the villagers, you should not kill it because it's presence was a blessing on the village.

Somehow modern scientists were able to determine that the big cat was eating wild pigs and the wild pigs were feeding on the crops at night. In years with a lucky jaguar in the area, the crop yield was 50 percent higher than average.

So villagers could observe that when there was a jaguar around, life just mysteriously worked better. They were unable to pinpoint cause and effect, but they could recognize correlation.

Similarly, I think the concept of karma is an attempt by humans to say that pro-social behaviors like honesty and treating others well observably correlates to a better life, though we often fail to identify the exact mechanism by which such traits come back to us in a positive way.

I think you meant to write "shouldn't kill it" up there, and by the way, your thoughts up there makes a lot of sense but it still has that air of non-exactness that I've always felt around the subject of karma.

Yes, I meant shouldn't. Corrected. Thank you.

As a creator of http://karmabot.chat – I can confirm, it is real ;)

Philosophically, there is no justification for the existence of balance of good and evil. Humans tend to believe in such thing, that makes it somewhat real, but not in the material sense.

AFAIK, there is generally a chaos: in life, in the universe. It can be carefully observed, rationalised and handled with great deal of care and toughness. It is hard but not impossible to bring more order in one's way of living. Karma rule is a by-product of such process.

Possibly good read: https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-life/

Nice work on karmabot.

Consider the following Thought Experiment:

Let's assume for a moment that the "six degrees of separation" theory is true. (six can in-fact be any number so long as it is some valid number)

Let's also assume that for every person to whom you bestow a good deed, pays that kindness forward at a rate P, where P > 0;

Then it can be mathematically proven that given sufficient acts of kindness, eventually, a loop will occur where the good deed has propagated back to the source, thus proving Karma to be True.

Thanks for your reply, I have sadly never heard of the six degrees of separation theory, but I will give it a look up, but then what happens if certain people (or a lot of people, consider ing the fact we are talking about humans here) in your kindness path "graph" do not pay it forward I.e their P rate is 0?

I would argue that there are very few people whose P rate is actually zero. AKA someone who has never done a good dead in their lives. I don't believe there are enough Karma Sinks to outnumber the Karma Sources and propagators.

Even at very small P values, while yes the propagation time is longer, loops will still appear. Now the question is what is the average P value, and how many good deeds must one do to realistically see a Loop within their lifetime. The answer is that the likelihood of small loops is fairly high even with low P-Rates assuming someone performs say 1 good deed per day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com