Karma

This post will discuss my understanding of the Buddhist concept of karma. It is not an orthodox understanding. As far as I’m concerned, all Buddhist orthodoxies have failed in their attempts to reconcile the doctrine of individual rebirth with the doctrine of no self. (If there is no self, who gets reborn? They all claim to have answers, but none of those answers makes sense to me.) I find it necessary to reject the doctrine of individual rebirth. That is, I reject the idea of rebirth as an event where one specific individual is reborn as another specific individual. None of this Shirley MacLaine crap!

My understanding starts with a thought experiment. Suppose it were possible to upload and download a person’s memories lock, stock, and barrel. I don’t think this will ever be possible technologically, but it should always be a theoretical possibility: memories are just information, so why not upload and download this information? Now consider two people, call them Tom and Mary. Using this upload/download process, switch the information in their brains. When Mary wakes up, she will say something like, “Holy crap! I’ve turned into a chick.” With Tom’s memories, Mary will have no idea that she’s really been Mary all along.

I don’t necessarily expect others to be convinced, but to me, this gedankenexperiment shows that the Buddhists are right about “no self.” Why do I believe I’m the same person that I was ten minutes ago? Because I remember being that person. But memories, the thought experiment tells me, are totally arbitrary. So I’m really not the same person.

If I can’t define myself in terms of memories, how should I define myself? A Buddhist philosopher might say, “Define yourself in terms of consequences.” If what this person did ten minutes ago caused what’s happening to you now, then you are the same person. “I” drank a cup of coffee, so now “I” feel alert.

The obvious “problem” with this idea is that consequences do not go strictly from a single individual to a single individual. For example, I brewed a pot of coffee and poured cups for me and my wife, so now (having drunk it) we both feel alert. But this is only a problem if we let it be one. My suggestion is to accept this new definition of self without reservations: when one person does something, everyone affected by their action becomes, to some extent, that person. “My wife” is now partly me. Everyone who borrows or lends dollars at a floating interest rate is now partly Ben Bernanke.

Once you accept this definition of self, the concept of karma falls right out. No longer do we need some mystical process whereby good and bad karma attach to the individual. It happens by definition. If I do something that benefits people, it benefits me, because I literally become those people. Rebirth also becomes a trivial issue: I am constantly being reborn in the people affected by my actions. In a past life, I was Ben Bernanke.