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An alternative view of karma:what if karma is real but works a little different than most people think?

Lets start by acknowledging reality. We know good people often have horrific things happen to them and bad people can get away with murder. We know the mind exists inside the brain and can be explained in causal terms. We know that when the brain dies, our mind die and is gone forever. But society did not begin with us and it does not end with us.

Consider:
I was walking down the sidewalk with a friend recently and we noticed the stamp in the cement said that the sidewalk was built during the great depression. Perhaps by one of the work projects of the time.

Great scientists often say: " the reason I have seen so far is that I have stood on the shoulders of giants".

We live in a great country because of the far sightedness of our founders 200 years ago.

Everywhere I look I see benefits and consequences of people from the past. perhaps we live in a world-karma where we now suffer or benefit from the actions of our ancestors.

SleepingOnABoat 7 June 18
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5 comments

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Two things:

  1. You said "we know that when the brain dies, our mind die, and is gone forever". In fact, we do NOT know this. That is a belief, or an opinion, not a point of fact.

  2. Karma, in my opinion, basically means "what goes around, comes around", or "as you sow, so shall you reap". Walking on an old sidewalk is not karma. Its being there has nothing to do with my actions, good or bad.

  1. Not "all data" shows that we think with our brain. Some studies indicate that the brain acts more like a receiver than a processor. The validity of these studies is uncertain, but not dismissed out of hand.

  2. Being affected by someone or something from the past is not karma. Karma is payback. An old sidewalk is not payback.

@Fit-50something I understand that the gut also responds with brain like function along with intelligence in the heart where parts of our personality reside. I am sure there are examples of people with heart transplants have had personality changes. Please correct me if I am wrong but I recall something from the deeper recesses of my mind.

@Geoffrey51 It's called Memory Transference. There are a large number of reported cases. Apparently, they are mostly anecdotal.

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Karma in the traditional senwe would only work in conjunction with reincarnation. In the new age sense, it's just a flaky, feel-good belief with no justification. Karma as you present it is inheritance.

That just brings me to there's no such thing as karma.

JimG Level 8 June 18, 2018
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Your new notion of karma seems awfully similar to cause & effect.

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Wouldn't you need supernatural being to effect such karma?

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I've seen a number of stories about peoples' lives that were ruined when they won the lottery. Unlucky bastards, huh? I know it's wrong to read those headlines and just laugh, so I read them carefully and try to empathize on what it must've been like to live with next to no money, in some run down trailer, eating nothing but processed foods, and splurging to buy a couple lotto tickets, and then one day, BAM!! You've got the golden ticket and you're movin' on up, to the East side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky. You've got cousins 9 times removed asking for money, your best friend's 30 year old truck broken down and it'll cost 40 grand to replace it, and your neighbor's dog needs some super expensive life-saving surgery or it could die in a matter of days. Before you know it, you've given away a massive chunk of your newfound fortune, and then the IRS stops by to say hello. I think about all those what-ifs and how that poor schmuck's life was ruined when he won the lottery. And I laugh my ass off. Lottery didn't ruin his life. It was chum and he found out how many sharks he was swimming with. That the kind of karma you're talking about?

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