Posted by
glen ropella on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/DEBATE-about-Religion-and-Atheism-tp7580664p7580815.html
Sarbajit Roy wrote at 09/30/2012 10:28 AM:
> The Gita, however, (as I'm fairly sure the Old Testament does too)
> expresses that once a man's side is determined, he is obliged by DUTY
> to do what is "right", even if it involves heinous killings on a
> massive scale or even the killing of his close relatives. DUTY is one
> of the core elements of Dharma (the way of righteousness). Of course
> DUTY cannot be taken in isolation, because the essence of the Gita is
> the continuous weighing of choices between the Dharmic Law (kill /
> harm nobody) versus the inferior Niti (Penal) Law (slay all offenders
> on sight). Gita 1:30, 2:31 etc.
>
> So DUTY would probably be compressible. I am an ant, so I'm duty bound
> to pick up every speck of sugar I can find and convey it back to the
> mother ship.
Yep. I'm totally ignorant of Gita. But this one clause suggests to me
that duty is compressible, by (my) definition:
"Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities ..."
Incompressible (components of) systems are initiators of cause rather
than passive transmitters of cause. If a duty is defined by removing
one's _self_ from the situation, detachment, then it's definitely not
prima causa.
But I wonder, also, about the Dharmic Law, which sound like _rules_ to
me ... rules have an input and an output, mindlessly transmitting cause
from the former to the latter. Is there any inherent "be present", "pay
attention", "be attached", "be the change you want to see", take
responsibility for your actions element to Dharmic Law? If not, then
it, too, is compressible.
To promote an agent to an actor, we have to make it a prima causa, give
it the ability to _start_ a causal chain ... or at least affect someone
else's chain in a way that couldn't happen were it not present.
Note that an actor's influence on the propagation of events need not be
unique. I.e. 2 different actors could produce the same result. But in
order for it to actually be an actor rather than an agent, the result
cannot be "optimized out", so to speak. An actor can only be
(perfectly) replaced by another actor ... though an agent can
approximate/simulate an actor.
--
glen
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