Archives for posts with tag: Karma

Truths?!? How many?

September 29, 2021 //

I argued earlier that truth is a convention.
And that the Truth exists but will never be known. Not in its entirety, anyway.

Then what are we left with?
How can any of us decide what is true and what is not?

First of all, any convention needs three things. The two convening parts and the object of their convention.

‘So, you want us to believe that truth is a make-believe?!?’

That it can be, yes!

And the further from the real truth – from reality itself, that convened about truth is, the worse the fate the believers will eventually have to face.

The first example which jumps to my mind is the fate of Bernie Madoff and ‘his’ investors.
Bernie and each of the investors had convened a truth. That his investment fund was sound.
Consider what happened to each of them. To each of the investors and to Bernie Madoff himself.

I’ll come back.

https://nicichiarasa.com/2021/09/15/truth-take-one/

https://nicichiarasa.com/2021/09/26/truth-the-one/

Tags convention, fate, Karma, Reality, truth

Categories alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, evolution, In English, limited rationality, Manipulare, Psychology, skin in the game, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Karma!

February 1, 2021 //

Copilul luat ieri cu salvarea de la botez s-a stins astăzi de dimineață.

„Biserica spune că îi este greu să înțeleagă ”de ce Dumnezeu a îngăduit această încercare grea”.”

O parte dintre internauți este de părere că „ne merităm soarta ca nație”

Tradiția spune că „până la Dumnezeu, te mănâncă sfinții”.
În traducere liberă – și având în vedere că sfinții au început prin a fi oameni, ‘ne-o facem cu mâna noastră‘.
Soarta. La ea mă refer!

Pe de altă parte, e adevărat că ne croim soarta în condițiile ‘pe care ni le-a dat Dumnezeu’… Adică pe care le-am moștenit de la predecesorii noștri. Care condiții sunt, și au fost din-totdeauna, influențate de o serie de factori obiectivi. În primul rând de natură geografică…

Aud pe foarte multă lume dorindu-și ‘o țară ca afară’.
Înțeleg ce vor să spună și sunt de acord că avem foarte multe de învățat de la cei care au ajuns, ‘afară’, la niște rezultate deosebite.

Să fii primul are multe avantaje. Printre altele, avantajul de a fi primul care greșește.
Și să vii din urmă are niște avantaje. Cu condiția să ții ochii deschiși…

Suntem în situația actuală pentru că atât am putut face, ca neam, în condițiile date.
Carpații, frații noștrii, ne-au adăpostit cât au putut. Dar ne-au și despărțit unii de alții.
Câmpiile mănoase ne-au dat de mâncare. Dar au și facilitat accesul tuturor celor celor care au avut chef să treacă pe-aici. Că bogății de luat cu japca s-au tot găsit…

Așa că noi am rămas puțin în urmă.
Unii dintre vecinii noștri, aflați mai la adăpostul istoriei, au avut timp să-și cristalizeze cultura. Să-și rafineze valorile… Într-un cuvânt, să-și croiască soarta.
Noi… când ne-am dezmeticit, am început să copiem. Din stânga, din dreapta… Mai de voie, mai de nevoie…
La început mai timid, mai p-ormă am mai sărit și calul…

Acum ar fi momentul să clarific puțin lucrurile. Nu caut scuze și nu dau vina pe nimeni!
Ideea e că trecutul a fost. Nu mai poate fi schimbat.
Dar poate fi studiat!
Dacă tot am trecut prin el, măcar să învățăm ceva!
Dacă tot am rămas în urma unora dintre vecinii noștri, măcar să nu refacem, și noi, greșelile comise, deja, de ei.

Dacă tot am văzut că alții au putut, hai să ne croim, și noi, soarta noastră.
Pentru că acum a început să se poată și în partea asta de lume!
Și pentru că oportunitățile nefolosite au obiceiul să se răzbune…

Iar celor care spun că ‘suntem prea mici’ le sugerez să-și aducă aminte de câte ori n-au putut să doarmă din cauza câte unui țânțar!

Tags Karma, ne meritam soarta, pana la Dumnezeu te mananca sfintii, soarta, tantar

Categories alegerile pe care le facem, cadre mentale, Ce tara lasam copiilor nostri?, colaborare, comunicare efectiva, constiinta de sine, evolutie, identitate colectiva, In limba Romana, Incredere, Intentie, moduri complementare de cunoastere, Omul ca masura a tuturor lucrurilor, psihologie, Respect Mutual.

Of chance and choice

December 2, 2018 //

Christians call it fate while Buddhists call it karma.
Christians’ main goal is called salvation while Buddhists’ is called nirvana.

And no, these are not exactly the same thing.
Not different enough to separate them easily, not similar enough to consider them the same thing.

Fate depends on what God has in mind for you while karma depends exclusively on what you have decided all along your life.

Salvation is even more complicated.
Catholics believe that each individual can obtain it, regardless of what they had done until that moment, by simply acknowledging ones sins and by repenting before God/priest. Protestants, on the other hand, believe that individual salvation is entirely at God’s mercy. Mortal individuals can do nothing more than putting their faith in God’s all encompassing love and waiting for it.
Meanwhile, since Buddhists don’t have a God, they believe that accomplishing nirvana is the responsibility of each individual… All somebody has to do in order to achieve this goal is to transform their inner self. There is no outside, objective (?!?) benchmark to be reached here… no other arbiter to please…

Yet fate and karma are not that different either… Life experience in Asia may be different from that in Europe but the differences aren’t huge enough to consider them two different things. Not to mention the growing number of Buddhists living in the Euro-Atlantic region and the burgeoning number of Christian converts in Asia….

As for salvation versus nirvana… the man made Catholic one is almost similar – even if a lot easier to obtain, to the Buddhist nirvana while the Protestant one is just as dis-similar from it’s Catholic equivalent as it is from the Buddhist nirvana.
Yet, again, is it really possible for peace of mind to be that different on the opposing ends of EurAsia? Peace of mind experienced by very similar human individuals…. The only difference between them being the culture they have grown into….

Which brings us to chance.

Rationally minded people – scientists, economists, etc., are convinced that any decision can be perfect… If only people were diligent enough to educate themselves properly, to think with their brains instead of allowing their hearts to take over…

‘Rationally minded people…’
But how rational is to expect a human being – an animal, first and foremost, to behave in a perfectly rational manner?
How rational is to expect a human being to overcome all emotion AND all biases? Known and unknown….
How rational is even to expect a human being to ‘diligently’ research all available data before making a decision? How much time would that take? When should someone be satisfied enough with the information gathered about a particular subject?

How much is each of us indebted to Lady Luck about the place we’ve born into?
Christian Europe or Buddhist Asia?
About the time of our birth? Before any of Christ/Buddha had preached or after?
How much is each of us indebted to Lady Luck about the amount of opportunity each of us have had to decide about during our lives?

My last question was a tricky one, indeed.
OK, Lady Luck is responsible for many things. For the place and time of our birth. For the fortunes of the families we’ve been born into and for the mental and physical each of us enjoys. Or lacks…

Only we do share in the final responsibility for our fate/salvation/karma/nirvana!

Our decisions are equally shaped by the circumstances in which we’ve reached those decisions AND by our diligence in making them.
Each of our decisions opens up some new doors and shuts down others. Or, at least, turns our heads towards new openings and away from others.

‘And your point is?’

Don’t blame others for your bad decisions and don’t praise yourself too much for your good ones.
Don’t blame others for their bad decisions. Are you sure they had a real alternative for the situations you found them in? Mind you, not whether there was a real alternative! Did THEY had access to that alternative?
Extend a helping hand. You’re not responsible for saving everybody else but to see somebody in need and not offer your help sets the stage for you needing help and everybody else passing by without noticing you.
Don’t overdo it. When you see someone drowning, get them out to safety. That’s enough. Don’t lecture them about the dangers of getting into water. Firstly, you don’t know how they got in and, secondly, if they are not able to figure this out by themselves you’re wasting your time.
Don’t prevent everybody else from getting in simply because somebody had (nearly) drowned. You’re not God. You don’t know everything. You just happened to be there when somebody was drowning and you was strong and brave enough enough to save them. That’s all there is to it.

Tags bad decisions, Buddhism, Christianity, fate, Kahneman, Karma, Lady Luck, nirvana, salvation

Categories Bounded rationality, Chance, Choices we make, cooperation, fail better, forgiveness, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust

Manipulation as a masturbatory practice.

January 28, 2017 //

Both are done ‘by hand’.

Apparently, any likeness between these two stops here.

But, if you pull back in earnest, the ugly thing becomes unraveled.
Not only that it is masturbatory, aka self-inflicted, (political) manipulation should also be classified as sado-masochistic.

Manipulation, as a process, can be examined from two perspectives.
A social one and an individual one.
Now, that everybody knows that ‘manipulation is bad for you‘, any individual who allows themselves to be manipulated into anything must suffer from a masochistic disorder while those who actively manipulate others must be cold blooded sadists.
On the social side, since time and time again manipulation has been proven to have had dangerous consequences, any community that sees any form of manipulation as an acceptable practice must have certain suicidal tendencies. Aka suffer from a ‘social form’ of masochistic disorder. While those who manipulate must be, themselves, cold blooded sadists.

As for being masturbatory, something which is brought upon one self by their own hand, that is almost as evident as Polichinelle’s secret:

Bona-fide politics, that made in earnest, involves open discussion between those who are going to be affected by the decisions and those who propose and support them. Discussions which take place before each major decision is made, during its implementation and after its consequences have started to be felt. The interaction between the politicians and the general public is direct, unmediated.
In Nassim Taleb’s terms, in this situation the politicians have their own ‘skin in the game‘.

Which results ‘risk management’ policy which is the complete opposite of the one adopted by those who believe themselves to be insulated from the consequences of their own actions.

The manipulators, on the other hand, window-dress themselves and the propositions they make. Their goal being not as much to contribute to the well being of their community as to ‘sell to the public’ whatever their minds have been focused on, at that moment. They consider manipulation to be a legitimate tool either because they are not fully aware of the great dangers involved or because they have convinced themselves that they will be forever exempt from contributing to the the eventual price.
Meanwhile, those who allow themselves to be manipulated either do not realize they are being manipulated or have adopted ‘cynicism as a refuge’ in order to mitigate the cognitive dissonance that is eating away their self esteem.

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true… The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness .”

Please note that in this situation the interaction is no longer direct. The manipulator and the manipulated do not ‘touch’ each-other. Therefore neither knows exactly what the other has in mind.
The interaction is mediated by symbols. Which are ‘photo-shopped’ by the manipulators and, sometimes ‘admiringly’, accepted by the manipulated.

It’s exactly this lack of direct contact between the manipulators and the manipulated which determines the whole thing.
The manipulators are, simultaneously, unaware of the true situation and growingly convinced of their ‘impunity’.
The manipulated have initial difficulties in determining that they are subjected to manipulation and, in a second stage, the impression that there is nothing left to be done about the whole thing.

When, eventually, the consequences catch up with both of them, it is usually too late for anything else but ‘damage control’.

People regret that they didn’t wise up earlier, promise themselves they’ll never let something like that happen to them… and forget. Until the next time.

Manipulation: useful tool, mortal sin or what?!?

Hannah Arendt Explains How Propaganda Uses Lies to Erode All Truth & Morality: Insights from The Origins of Totalitarianism

Masochistic Personality Disorder

Secret de Polichinelle

Cognitive dissonance

Karma