[Buddha-l] RE: Problems with karma

[Bob Zeuschner]

Curt --
Everything you wrote may be true, but much of it seems to be irrelevant.

curt wrote:
>>
> I think that verifiability is a great thing - but not all claims include 
> the claim that they are rigorously testable - thus the common phrase 
> "your mileage may vary". 

I was not arguing for verifiability.
I was arguing for testability, falsifiability. Quite different.


I certainly think that anyone who claims about
> karma something like "poor people are poor because of bad karma from 
> previous lives" should have their feet held to the fire until they 
> either produce some evidence or recant. But even Newton's laws do not 
> explain everything, so why should "karma" be required to do so? 

No scientific law "explains everything" because they explain small areas 
and scientific theories cluster together to make systems of explanation.
No one suggested that the problem with karma is that it doesn't explain 
everything.

In
> physics people like to focus on the easy stuff - which generally means 
> anything that can be modeled with a nice simple linear model. But lots 
> of things are non-linear, and non-linearity entails the possibility that 
> you can have a very good model that has no predictive power.

No. Predictive power simply needs to generate a POSSIBLE or CONCEIVABLE 
observation that would be accepted as falsifying the claim. Technical 
possibility or length of time is irrelevant to testability.
Karma has no conceivable or possible observation which would falsify it.
Gravity has such possible observations that would falsify it. Evolution 
is falsifiable.


People cause suffering to themselves
> and others by their actions. In many cases this can be observed directly 
> and even reproducibly. That is the "F = ma" of karma. Working out the 
> details is not only much more difficult, but potentially impossible. For 
> mere mortals.

But karma is so much more than your trivial claim that people cause 
suffering to themselves and others.
Karma claims that every moral choice will generate equivalent similar 
moral consequences, in this life or the next.
Does each moral choice generate an unavoidable moral consequence 
commensurate with the choice?
What possible evidence would count against it?

If I might, may I quote a prior e-mail of yours to make the point:

curt wrote:
> 
> I attended a 
> retreat last weekend led by a teacher who insisted that you can "burn up 
> all of your karma" by just chanting "om" one time. However, she also 
> strongly encouraged all of her students to meditate for 2 hours every 
> day, one hour of which should ideally be between 3:30 and 4:30 am 
> ("brahmi muhurta") - but by all means prior to 6 am! She further said 
> that you need to bathe prior to meditating and that if you get up at 
> 3:15 am, bathe and then meditate for an hour during brahmi muhurta - you 
> cannot then go back to bed!

You have presented several claims made by the teacher:
(a) reciting om once will eliminate bad karma;
(b) reciting om many times will eliminate bad karma;
(c) reciting om many times will lessen bad karma;
(d) reciting om has no effect on karma, good or bad.
(e) if you bathe after reciting om, it won't work.

What possible observation would allow us to tell which of these are 
correct? What conceivable observation could allow me to reject any one 
of these four (and a dozen others)?
No possible or conceivable observation is relevant. No possible 
observation in the world would allow us to determine which of these is 
incorrect.
Thus, karma is not offering any explanation relevant to the empirical world

Bob