*
Consider the basic situation.
Since we were alive pre-mortally, we differed even before incarnation - differed in our needs. God therefore must have placed us in particular times and places, and with particular parents in particular situations, for some reason concerned with the kind of experiences we could expect. This would mostly be related by what we needed most to learn during our mortal lives to equip us for resurrected post-mortal eternity.
So, we were placed here on earth, in a world which God created, among people, animals, plants and minerals that God also created. Everything on earth was shaped from the stuff of the universe, everything is therefore alive - albeit in different ways.
Furthermore, everything is - to widely varying extents - conscious and in communication with everything else.
Therefore life on earth is all about relationships - the relationships between innumerable (more- or {usually} less-conscious) entities in-communication.
All the entities, every-thing, on earth can be regarded as a matrix or web: each entity influencing and responding to everything else; some entities much more powerfully than others; and sometimes entities will align together collectively - either defensively or aggressively - and thereby amplify their influence.
*
Luck can be explained in terms of the relationship between each of us and the web of other entities. Other entities in the web respond (individually and collectively) to our personal and collective human attitudes and behaviours - and that is the reason for luck; whether good or bad.
Bad luck may be a response to our own selfish, insensitive, aggressive, exploitative attitudes and behaviours being resisted by individual or collective responses from the matrix of living things (i.e. the web of other-entities); or this reaction may be against some group we are in - the species, a nation or smaller grouping. In sum, bad luck is characterized by a relationship that is prideful, hate-driven, old, impersonal, careless: negative.
Good luck is the opposite - it happens when the relationship between an individual (or group) and the matrix is empathic, care-full, altruistic, warm, positive; that is, when the relationship is characterized by Love.
*
It is vital to remember that this system is not set-up to optimize our mortal health and happiness; but to provide the situation for providing the experiences necessary for developing our post-mortal resurrected lives.
Therefore, true luck is not referenced-to our current state of pleasure or suffering.
*
From this above metaphysical scheme, it can be seen that there is, on the one hand, no randomness to our lives - we are under God's care. But on the other hand, we are free agents with choice; and so is everything else in this world; not just the other people, but every-thing in this world.
We are subject to the consequences of our own choices and behaviours, and also subject to the consequences of the choices and behaviours of the other entities of the world. And as each of us is a sinful, weak, imperfect entity; so too (in their very different and diverse ways) are the other things in this world.
Just as we can be spiteful vengeful, self-centred - so too ca the matrix of things with which we are necessarily in relation.
Hence good and bad luck are not 'a matter of luck', not random, nor imposed individually and specifically at the will of God; but most a matter of the consequences of choices.
**
The above argument is adapted from the chapter entitled 'Justice' in A Geography Of Consciousness, by William Arkle (1974).
7 comments:
I think the concept of "true luck" is valuable.
>Furthermore, everything is - to widely varying extents - conscious and in communication with everything else
I'd say that everything I'm conscious of is in communication with everything else that I'm conscious of *within my own mind*. The action of this is to bring all entities and ideas into harmony (I'm guessing Bruce would say 'divinisation'). The appeal of panpsychism comes from the assumption that the contents of one's mind are piped in live from 'out there', instead of being an imperfect model which corresponds pretty well in everyday cases. Popper recognised this at the scientific level by noting that all observation is indirect. Of course, if things like clairvoyance and ESP *were* possible then people would be busy making killings on the stock market, rescuing dying relatives, etc.
-- Tom
@Tom - Well, some people are! but that isn't entailed in the way you suggest. The imperfections and distortions of adult human-adult human communication are very great - even speaking the same language - and these increase with dissimilarity. Try remembering, then communicating a dream - even that is very difficult indeed.
@Tom - By the way, it is an error to try and refute the perspective of everything being alive by using evidence. It is a metaphysical perspective which frames (several steps lower down) what we think of as evidence. Any evidence can be interpreted as consistent with any metaphysical framework - the only difference is that the links may be long and complex.
>Try remembering, then communicating a dream - even that is very difficult indeed.
It can be done often enough for writing them down to be a chore if someone banging around downstairs keeps waking you up earlier than you like! Communicating it might still be considered difficult if all the minute details you write down have no apparent meaning.
>Of course, if things like clairvoyance and ESP *were* possible then people would be busy making killings on the stock market, rescuing dying relatives, etc.
There are accounts of people using "remote viewing" to make money on commodities exchanges, but even if they are to be believed it is still pretty tricky.
>Well, some people are! but that isn't entailed in the way you suggest.
Bruce,
I'm not sure whether you've quite grasped my position (for what my position is worth).
Everyone experiences *only* his own model of reality. Literally everything within that experience is 'in here' rather than 'out there', although much of what he perceives consists of *tokens* (e.g. his experience/token of a table) which refer validly to entities 'out there' (the actual table, which strictly speaking he can't see).
Some people do live in narrower model of reality than others both for biological reasons (e.g. dementia) and because of unconscious chaotic forces which constrain growth via guilt and fear ('sin').
Everyone, to the extent that he is conscious, has 'communication' going on within his mind. When ideas are updated this affects the way that other things or even all other things are perceived.
He mistakenly concludes from this that real entities and people 'out there' are in magical communion. There's a mystical impression that somehow 'all is one'. In fact such communication as gives rise to this intuition is internal, within his model.
>The imperfections and distortions of adult human-adult human communication are very great - even speaking the same language - and these increase with dissimilarity
Oh I agree. But this would again be to conflate the internal 'communication' I've talked about with normal, external communication between bodies.
For example, and putting them both in sequence: I have a token in my mind which represents you. When I am conversing with you via text, this token participates in an internal communicative process which may result in an attempt at normal external communication in the form of my pressing certain keys on my keyboard. As you read the text and try to guess what I mean your brain updates your token of me, which may in turn update other parts of your mind, perhaps many if I've persuaded you about something important.
-- Tom
@Tom - What you are describing to me is your metaphysical assumptions - these are not inferences from your experience.
I used to share these assumptions of yours
http://hedweb.com/bgcharlton/modernization-imperative.html
(see Appendix)
But I now have very different assumptions regarding the fundamental nature of reality.
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