Ya, that's what I'm saying.

On death, your karma points will determine what you become in your next cycle, and not what will happen in the next cycle. A mass murderer, on dying, gets his punishment by being an ant in the next cycle. He doesnt get to become human. That's his karma punishment. So as an ant in next cycle, whatever happens when he is an ant has nothing to do with the fact that he was a previous mass murderer. He already got his punishment by being an ant and in the new life, the ant is still being given the chance, like all life-forms, to ascend further and accumulate more points.

So whether you cyanide the ant or not, it doesnt matter. The outcome of this current ant life is not determine by previous life deeds. Meaning to say that at the time of death, the predictability is what the consciousness become in the next cycle, not the outcome of the next cycle.

Edit : to put it in another way, once you get punished or rewarded (to become whatever your score is), karma resets and all is forgotten. You start afresh with the points you have. You are not punished for endless cycles because of one bad life cycle. Every consciousness is given a new chance in every cycle.

This post has been edited by kmarc: Apr 6 2020, 10:40 AM

Then you are saying karma does not bother or predicts about whether you suffer or not in your entire life. It only covers what life form you will be. You know we can change the thought experiment to deliver suffering to group A.

Is not a big 'if' !

You think about the thought experiment, it has been demonstrated that past life karma is deferred or ignored by present life acts.

Ya, karma determines what the consciousness becomes in the next life. That's all. It doesn't hold a grudge after that. Every consciousness starts anew after their reward or punishment, every cycle provides a new chance.

Anyway, what I did was just to show that every believer/preacher/etc. can always come up with a convincing explanation for everything. If they can't answer, it is as simple as saying "it"s meant to be like that" or "it is from God".

Thx for the brain workout!

no it is not demonstrated by the thought experiment. you just killed the ants. Thats just one action. The underlying causes on WHY u did the action was totally unexplained.

what if:
1. Karma was the one guiding you to choose the 50 ants to kill, therefore doing its job
2. Control group ants might die due to karma anyways. Just not at the exact time you did the experiment
3. Being born an ant is punishment enough and regardless how they died they would have earned some "positive" karma

Then you really need to change the thought experiment to use different samples as I mentioned to kmarc.

Read post #50.

Instead of killing, maybe change it to deliver suffering or incentive to group A.

The idea is to do a deterministic action to disprove the impact of past life karma.

This post has been edited by puchongite: Apr 6 2020, 11:17 AM

I think we have to get the premise straight. Basically, this is what we're saying:

Premise A - past life karma has an impact on current life
Premise B - past life karma has no impact on current life. Only impact what the consciousness becomes

So I guess you're going with premise A because for premise B, killing, suffering or rewarding group A in current life has no connection with past life karma.

okay, what if:
karma has already predetermined the random generator to choose what karma wants to choose. then the experiment becomes a tool for karma to do its work. Because you wholly believe the random is random because it was not generated by you, but a computer program. But computers does not do random, it would still follow an algorithm and might seem random but given a big enough sample, there would still be patterns. You are also thinking that the experiment is the only determining factor. what if after the experiment one of the creatures/humans from the surviving group die? Is that karma or not?

Then you are saying there is no randomness in the real world.

You are then making a tall claim which go against science, which based on randomness of sampling to achieve objectivity of scientific experiment and the conclusion.

For example then, we cannot use clinical trial of a medication to arrive at the efficacy of a medicine.

I think you have gotten my point right on the dot.

whether or not there is randomness depends entirely on your belief system. But in terms of software, unless you're talking about AI; no, its not random.

but if u want to base it as an experiment, then what yours does is merely making an action to see the reaction. Karma shouldnt be involved in this.

Clinical trials are exactly that, give people or animals the medicine and see how they react.

Karma is basically the cause and effect which is claimed to spread over multiple generation of life.

No ?

I forgot to add another point to back up premise B.

If you look at Buddhists monks, they generally regard all life as precious. They try not to kill anything unnecessarily and that includes ants.

This means that ants, already being punished for past evil deeds, are still regarded as precious in current life and are given equal chance to live.

If the view is that ants were previously evil and that karma need to persist into subsequent life, then the natural outcome is that we should kill all ants when we see them. DIE you evil ants!!!! But no, buddhists monks practices all lifeforms as precious so it goes to show that karma from past deeds ends after the punishment at the beginning of the next cycle.

Hmmm.... there's an ant on my table..... what should I do? Haha.

This post has been edited by kmarc: Apr 6 2020, 12:27 PM

dont know, really. Merely pointing out that the experiment and the subject matter (karma) would need a more complicated experiment that the one you proposed. Something to prove the existence of karma first, maybe. Then only define its parameters.

I maintain the claim that karma is understood by most people as the cause and effect which span over multiple generation of a life.

In that regards, to disprove/prove karma, we can use the same scientific methods of random sampling and look at the % of fulfillment of the prediction.

Our experiments always show 100% disprove of the causes due to past lives.

This post has been edited by puchongite: Apr 6 2020, 12:35 PM

I think your argument with mikehuan is that there is no proper definition of karma.

For you to have an experiment, you have to first define what is karma.
After we define, then we set an experiment around it.

So, technically, you have provided your definition, and set a thought experiment.
However, now, the issue is that there are disagreement in the definition you set.

In that case, then it's up to the other person to define what karma is.
And define it in a manner such that it's quantifiable, and falsifieable.

I don't know how your post above is able to substantiate it as premise B.

For me, I don't have to depend on premise B to know how to not overly mistreat an ant. But if a white ant comes to me, I will have no hesitation to take act on them.

and i did that. i said the thought experiment is an action/reaction and only that. If you removed the "karma" parameter, what does the experiment become? i didnt prove karma exist, merely put in a conjecture that karma does not necessarily have a part in this.

Just adding a point that it goes with the Buddhist principle that all life is precious regardless of circumstances and in this case, regardless of past deeds. So the argument of karma not influencing subsequent cycles fits well with this Buddhist practice. Whether true or not I don't know!!!!

This post has been edited by kmarc: Apr 6 2020, 12:56 PM