Infinite regress and debunking karma

[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.