Infinite regress and debunking karma

[Aegon]

I'll be operating from a Buddhist POV for this post because I know next to nothing about Hinduism.


Okay, I have two fundamental issues here.

1) I assume by "suffering" you're referring to "duhkha"? I don't agree with the translation of duḥkha you're using. It's the most common one, but I think "unease" and "unsatisfactoriness" are more accurate translations. IMO, "suffering" is a bit too harsh of a word. Duhkha refers to the everyday unease that comes with being human, of our consciousness/higher awareness compared to other animals. It's "the void" that most people fill with alcohol, work, sex, kids, video games, junk food, etc. Suffering sounds much more intense to me, like mourning a loved one or getting stabbed.

2) Duhkha is not caused by your misdeeds or misdeeds in past lives. I mean, don't get me wrong, there is some relation because ultimately everything is interdependent. But one of the main tenants of Buddhism is that duhkha is inherent to life regardless of one's karma. Buddhism claims to offer a path that decreases this duhkha.

I was going to respond to the rest of your post but I realize that I don't have to, the rest is predicated on the first assumption, which I take fundamental issue with.

Both Hinduism and Buddhism claim that there is a theoretical catalog of your good deeds and misdeeds. In Hinduism, whatever has been catalogued of your history of good deeds and misdeeds determines what will happen in your life, as far as good things happening to you or bad things happening to you is concerned. 

Okay.

However inappropriate the definition may be, I ask that we understand I'm using the word 'suffer' to encompass any and all instances of a sentient being experiencing a state that we would intuitively describe as a negative subjective experience. The slightest feeling of inconvenience qualifies. 

Okay.

What can Buddhism say to the problem I pose by invoking the first ever sentient being to suffer? 

Like I said, Buddhism teaches that suffering is inherent to the human condition. Duhkha is caused by a desire for things to be different than they are, clinging to things/places/people we like despite the fact that it is the nature of things to change, etc. To live is to suffer. So by this logic, merely existing would be enough for the first ever sentient being to suffer.

To add some nuance here, karma does most certainly impact rebirth in Buddhism. Your karma will "mold" your consciousness, if you will, and then your consciousness will transfer to a sentient body that "fits" your "mold." That's the easiest way to put it. So you're not totally wrong with the idea that karma, in the current life and past lives, has an impact. The issue with your post is that you're connecting the concepts of duhkha and karma in ways that are not entirely accurate.

I presume that Hinduism claims that the first sentient being to ever suffer (call him Bob) only suffered as a consequence of his own past misdeeds. However, past misdeeds directly implies that there was a sentient being who suffered at the hands of Bob before Bob ever suffered. Therefore, any supposed first sentient being to ever suffer that I invoke cannot exist under Hinduism. I take it as a necessary logical fact that there had to have been a first ever sentient being to suffer. Since this is at odds with Hinduism, I reject the latter. 

Would it be fair of me to say that the Hindu conceptualization of karma is incompatible with the existence of a first ever sentient being to suffer?

From a cursory Google search, it would appear that Hinduism generally believes in an infinite universe with no beginning or ending. Thus, there was never a "first" sufferer.

Gita 2.12:

न त्वेवाहं जातु नासं न त्वं नेमे जनाधिपाः।

न चैव न भविष्यामः सर्वे वयमतः परम्

There never was a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings of men. Nor will there be any time in future when all of us shall cease to be.

You could argue that it makes no sense to claim that there was never a "first" anything, which is fair, but this appears to be how Hinduism gets around the logic issue you're posing. 

As far as Buddhism is concerned, it's a similar situation.

Rohitassa Sutta

I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.

That's all you get. A first cause violates the principle of dependent origination, a staple in Buddhist cosmology.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Any discussion of karma in the classic sense is meaningless.

Boru

[Sicnoo0]

Both Hinduism and Buddhism claim that there is a theoretical catalog of your good deeds and misdeeds. In Hinduism, whatever has been catalogued of your history of good deeds and misdeeds determines what will happen in your life, as far as good things happening to you or bad things happening to you is concerned. 

Okay.

However inappropriate the definition may be, I ask that we understand I'm using the word 'suffer' to encompass any and all instances of a sentient being experiencing a state that we would intuitively describe as a negative subjective experience. The slightest feeling of inconvenience qualifies. 

Okay.

What can Buddhism say to the problem I pose by invoking the first ever sentient being to suffer? 

Like I said, Buddhism teaches that suffering is inherent to the human condition. Duhkha is caused by a desire for things to be different than they are, clinging to things/places/people we like despite the fact that it is the nature of things to change, etc. To live is to suffer. So by this logic, merely existing would be enough for the first ever sentient being to suffer.

To add some nuance here, karma does most certainly impact rebirth in Buddhism. Your karma will "mold" your consciousness, if you will, and then your consciousness will transfer to a sentient body that "fits" your "mold." That's the easiest way to put it. So you're not totally wrong with the idea that karma, in the current life and past lives, has an impact. The issue with your post is that you're connecting the concepts of duhkha and karma in ways that are not entirely accurate.

I presume that Hinduism claims that the first sentient being to ever suffer (call him Bob) only suffered as a consequence of his own past misdeeds. However, past misdeeds directly implies that there was a sentient being who suffered at the hands of Bob before Bob ever suffered. Therefore, any supposed first sentient being to ever suffer that I invoke cannot exist under Hinduism. I take it as a necessary logical fact that there had to have been a first ever sentient being to suffer. Since this is at odds with Hinduism, I reject the latter. 

Would it be fair of me to say that the Hindu conceptualization of karma is incompatible with the existence of a first ever sentient being to suffer?

From a cursory Google search, it would appear that Hinduism generally believes in an infinite universe with no beginning or ending. Thus, there was never a "first" sufferer.

Gita 2.12:

न त्वेवाहं जातु नासं न त्वं नेमे जनाधिपाः।

न चैव न भविष्यामः सर्वे वयमतः परम्

There never was a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings of men. Nor will there be any time in future when all of us shall cease to be.

You could argue that it makes no sense to claim that there was never a "first" anything, which is fair, but this appears to be how Hinduism gets around the logic issue you're posing. 

As far as Buddhism is concerned, it's a similar situation.

Rohitassa Sutta

I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.

That's all you get. A first cause violates the principle of dependent origination, a staple in Buddhist cosmology.

I didn't intend to invoke Duhkha in my post. I had no intention to connect Duhkha to karma. Wherever I used the term 'suffering' I was not talking about Duhkha. I was talking about any kind of negative subjective experience. It's obvious that karma has no direct impact on Duhkha, except insofar as your karma determines what vessel you incarnate into, which may have some impact on the quality of life you will have in that incarnation. 

It's obvious that a cyclical universe with no beginning or end would solve the problem of the first sufferer. 
Thus, both Hinduism and Buddhism are compatible with karma.

[Sicnoo0]

Any discussion of karma in the classic sense is meaningless.

Boru

What other sense is there? 
Like when we say "instant karma" but we really mean "convenient coincidence"?
I'm just curious what you mean by classic sense

[LinuxGal]

Any discussion of karma in the classic sense is meaningless.

Boru

What other sense is there? 
Like when we say "instant karma" but we really mean "convenient coincidence"?
I'm just curious what you mean by classic sense

I took it to mean discussion in the classic sense.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Any discussion of karma in the classic sense is meaningless.

Boru

What other sense is there? 
Like when we say "instant karma" but we really mean "convenient coincidence"?
I'm just curious what you mean by classic sense

Just as you said. Not ‘instant karma’ or ‘karma is a bitch’, but karma in the classic Hindu sense as being the manifest agency of causality and ethicization.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

What other sense is there? 
Like when we say "instant karma" but we really mean "convenient coincidence"?
I'm just curious what you mean by classic sense

I took it to mean discussion in the classic sense.

That as well.

Boru

[Sicnoo0]

What other sense is there? 
Like when we say "instant karma" but we really mean "convenient coincidence"?
I'm just curious what you mean by classic sense

Just as you said. Not ‘instant karma’ or ‘karma is a bitch’, but karma in the classic Hindu sense as being the manifest agency of causality and ethicization.

Boru

On that note, ethics sure would be easy if karma were real. Then there would exist a theoretical cataloguer of all deeds. You could then simply (in theory) consult the catalog to determine how the universe felt about Alice torturing Bob. Asking about the morality of an action would be the same as asking how the universe theoretically decided to categorize that action.

[Sicnoo0]

I'm not sure if my "proof by contradiction" is necessarily a good argument against karma, let alone a hands-down defeater of karma as I present it to be. Nonetheless, I made the post, and I'm curious A) does my argument constitute a valid case against karma B) To what extent (is it a standalone hands-down defeater of karma?) and C) what arguments against karma would you personally point to if asked?

As far as I understand it, karma can be real only if time is like a circle and there is no first sentient being to ever suffer.
It seems to me that if you believe there was a first ever sentient being to suffer, then you necessarily must believe that karma cannot be real.

D) Are there ways to debunk Karma even while believing that there was not a first ever sentient being to suffer?

[Anomalocaris]

Karma is not a theory because there is no evidence for it and no testability in it.

But in its lack of rigor is also its ability to find ad hoc ways to avoid the objection you posed.

Bob may have done a misdeed, but the effect of his misdeed may be delayed and the suffering it causes to make it an misdeed is not experienced by his victims until he himself has been karmically punished for the misdeed.