Part 1: The task, the consequences, the methodology & the illusion of injustice
Part 2: Law enforcement 101: the enforcer
Part 3: Law enforcement 201: "in kind"
Part 4: Law enforcement 301: "in proportion"
Part 5: Law enforcement 401: inner civil war
Part 6: Law enforcement 501: The neuro-science of karma
7 Law enforcement 301: “in proportion”
At this stage you might be convinced of the truth that our conscience enforces the rule that our “long-term” happiness/un-happiness varies in direct proportion with our harmony/disharmony with our conscience.
However “direct proportion” is not the same as “exact proportion”.
There may be some part of us that believes that although we will suffer the pain of the guilt if we defy our conscience, the amount of pleasure that we receive by doing so will outweigh the amount of pain. Therefore we might be inclined to go for it.
Here I will illustrate why it would be unskillful to do so.
7.1 The currency of the mind
How on earth could our conscience seek to balance in “exact proportion” anyway?
In order to understand this, we need to understand the true nature of “value” and the way that our brains have evolved to measure it.
In our daily lives, one way that we measure value is with money.
Rather than exchange goods and services directly for other goods and services we use the intermediary of currency to make it easier to enable everyone to get what they desire.
But our brain evolved before the invention of currency.
The currency of the brain is not dollars or euros or yen.
It is not gold or silver or paper money.
Nor is the vast range of “things” that can be exchanged for these “things”.
What matters to us is not the “things” themselves but the degree of happiness that they bring to us or that we believe they will bring to us.
The currency of the mind is “happiness”.
Understanding this is crucial to understanding how our conscience works to ensure that we receive in “exact” proportion to what we give.
When we say that we should receive “in kind and proportion” to what we give we mean simply …
1: If we seek to bring joy to others, we will experience joy ourselves.
2: If we seek to cause suffering to (take joy from) others, we will experience suffering (have joy taken from) ourselves.
3: The amount (intensity and duration) of joy or suffering that we experience will be in proportion to that which we give.
How can this be?
How do we keep score?
How do we know how much joy or suffering that we deserve?
Because we have empathy, we know how much joy or suffering that we have caused.
And even if we try to hide from it, we *always* know how much joy or suffering that we truly “intended” to cause do we not?
This is how our conscience keeps score.
7.2 Voluntary interactions
As the “subjective theory of value” from the Austrian school of economics correctly states: “value is relative”.
We all place different value on things because we all have different pain-pleasure neuro-associations to those things in our minds. Something that is of great sentimental value to you may be of little value to others.
This is why all voluntary (coercion free) transactions are always “fair”. Both parties trade something that makes them less happy for something that makes them more happy. All such transactions are win-win and both parties derive pleasure from both receiving something of more value themselves as well as well as experience the sympathetic joy of giving something of more value to somebody else.
Voluntary exchanges are exchanges which are made between two parties who are both in harmony with their conscience.
Neither party seeks to gain at the expense of the other and thus no karmic debt is owed by either when the transaction is concluded.
Each voluntary exchange increases the net amount of happiness in the universe.
There are two key points to be noted here:
1: both parties receive increased value in such exchanges – so value is not a finite quality and scarcity is a delusion.
2: nothing – not even currency – has intrinsic value. All value is relative to the individual.
Why is this relevant here?
Because the exchange of value is present in all human interactions – not just those that fall within the domain of formal economics. And even for those transactions that do fall within the realm of financial exchanges, the exchange of value is never purely monetary.
7.3 Involuntary interactions
To understand to the true nature of value is to begin to comprehend the astonishing truth that not only are all voluntary interactions *fair*, but all involuntary ones are as well.
Remember, if karma is real, then injustice does not exist.
If karma is real, then all perceptions of injustice are misperceptions.
Consider the case of theft.
When we have a neuro-association that having a particular thing will bring us happiness, we may be tempted to take that thing without offering something of equal value to the person who currently posses it.
If we think about it in purely monetary terms we may think that theft will make us a net winner.
If we think only of the immediate happiness we will experience when obtaining the object of our desire we will believe that theft will make us a net winner.
But both types of thinking are narrow-minded and misguided.
To truly understand the exchange of value we must ask ourselves if the theft will truly make us happier over the long term.
It never does, of course.
If we steal we will feel shame for taking what does not belong to us – because deep down we know that we have not *earned* it.
We feel shame whenever we feel empathy for the victim of our theft.
We will feel shame whenever our thoughts remind us of what we have done.
We may have to live with the constant fear that people might find out that we are not trustworthy.
These are just some of the ways that our conscience seeks to punish us for acting in disharmony with it.
The belief that stealing creates a net win for the thief is a delusion.
It creates a net loss.
Our conscience knows that we owe a debt to those we have stolen from.
If we cause other people pain our conscience tables that as a “debt” that we owe them. The size of the debt is measured in terms of the amount of pain we believe that we intentionally caused through either an attempt find joy in hurting others directly or indirectly through indifference. Our conscience will pound us with pain relentlessly until we take action to repay that debt in some fashion. The longer we resist, the greater the destruction of our self-esteem.
In the same way as only we know how much we value the things we exchange in trade, only we know the true intentions behind our actions. Only we know how deeply we intended to hurt our victim or how indifferent we were to their feelings when we acted to hurt them. That is exactly the amount of “value owed” that our conscience tables and it will work relentlessly to repay that debt.
This is how our conscience enforces the rule that we should receive both in *kind* (pain or pleasure) and in *proportion* to what we give.
7.4 Keeping score
Deep down we know the people whom we feel indebted to and those whom we feel are indebted to us.
Our conscience is our score-keeper.
Which of these two groups of people do you have warm feelings for?
To which type do you feel compelled to give to?
If you were to name the force behind this compulsion would you not label it your “conscience”?
In your experience, amongst the givers and takers in your orbit, which group do you perceive to be happier?
Might this be because the givers cultivate feelings of good will towards those in their orbit and are treated well in return whereas the takers cultivate feelings of ill will and are treated accordingly?
If you think that you have been have been taken advantage of, is it possible that you may have over-estimated the value of what you gave to the person that you gave it to?
Or is it possible that that they may be giving back to you in ways that you may not be cognizant of?
Is it possible that they feel indebted to you and intend to pay you back when they are able to?
In the end, everything balances out, because all human beings subconsciously keep score of who they owe and who owes them.
If we directly or indirectly cause great joy or suffering intentionally to others it will come back to us in some form.
We may not be aware of the form that it takes but we can rest assured that it will come back to us.
“But”, you might object, “is it not possible that others may misjudge our intentions and view our offer of giving as really an act of taking?”
Of course. It happens all the time.
But [and this is absolutely key] the fascinating thing is that what we actually receive or fail to receive from others does not really affect our net level of joy or suffering.
That’s crazy right?
Wrong.
Read on to discover why …
7.5 Conclusions
In this section I’ve illustrated how our conscience enforces the rule that our “long-term” happiness/un-happiness varies in “exact” proportion with our harmony/disharmony with our conscience.
It does so by “keeping score” of the amount of joy or suffering that we intended to bring to others and subconsciously working to ensure that we experience that ourselves.
But this is not the whole story. We know that what we resist persists. We know that attempts to cover up what we have done or otherwise run from the shame actually lead to even more pain than that which we originally intended to cause. In the next section, I will illustrate why that is.
Part 5: Law enforcement 401: inner civil war
No comments:
Post a Comment