Heads and Tails

It is a habit of the mind to assign order where inherently there is none.



This is not to say there is no order. The universe is certainly not pure chaos, or anything resembling that. Contrary to the often-simplified notion of things tending toward entropy, there are -rules- which must be followed. Simply tending towards higher degrees of freedom does not mean the same thing as being chaotic.

Everything has a set of defining properties; all forms of energy behave in ways that make perfect sense - given the tools to understand it.

But that is not the sort of order I am referencing.
I'm talking about the ideas we have about our own little corner of the universe, our world.
Ideas like karma, and the sets of false assumptions behind gambling. Things like that.

Let's take a standard person's week, for example.
People tend to be awake during daylight, and sleep after it has been dark for awhile.

There's an evolutionary background there, a sort of biological stopwatch that sets us up to keep a sleeping schedule of that sort.

But that's an effect, not a cause. We have not adapted to see well in the dark, making us vulnerable at night if we're wandering about - both to accident and (in the distant past) predation.
So our bodies have adjusted to try and ensure we use the light wisely and avoid doing anything particularly risky at night.

Now that we have more direct control of our environment - namely artificial lights - this is becoming less significant. There are people who find it easier to adhere to evening schedules, and harder to wake during the day. Again, effect and not cause.
Sure, there are consequences. Hormones that go awry for awhile...but these are far less severe than one might expect even a hundred years ago.

Karma is probably a better example.

We want things to be balanced. People tend to prefer that kind of evenness.
We want a good deed to result in good consequences, and a bad deed to result in punishment. Our entire system of justice is based on that notion.
So it is natural that when we see things contrary to our applied order, we rationalize them.

Thus karma is born. Maybe the universe balances itself in a more prolonged fashion. Instead of bad deeds being immediately punished, maybe that person simply has bad luck for awhile.

Etc. I'll spare you the details.

While such concepts can be very comforting (and I'm not saying there's no value in them), they are often based on faulty logic.

Think of it this way: let's say you are flipping a coin. It lands on heads 100 times in a row.
What are the odds it will land on heads again the next flip?

The instinct you've got says one outcome is more likely - tails to balance, or heads to continue the trend.

Reality says 50/50. Odds don't change because they should.
Neither does a person's lot in life. Saints had a habit of being persecuted and executed.
Villains tend to be filthy rich.

Is there a balance in the afterlife? Maybe. That's a different discussion.

But for us folks here on earth..
Here's a thought - rather than wishing someone the best when they help you out, why not reward them yourself? Beats the hell out of waiting for karma to do it for you.

- C