Waveform Karma is my attempt to model the possible behaviour of contemporary Karma (ie the idea that the effects of one's actions affect their fate in this lifetime, which is not necessarily the original Buddhist interpretation, and certainly not the Hindu), given that the concept itself is inherently unscientific. It must be understood that while that state of some variables considered cannot be measured, they are quantatitive, and as such I will attempt to provide a scale of a sort for comparison. The current state of the universe's 'vibe' at any point can similarly not be measured, so dummy values will be provided.

Concept

In innumerable works of fiction, the idea is presented the universe exists as a wave, generally with one extreme comes good; the other evil. This is not as fanciful as it may appear, indeed in quantum physics the universe is expressed as a multitude of wave functions. If you were to accumulate these functions, you would like as not be presented with one enormous, chaotic wave. Complex but not random, it would be something like a graph of each term of pi, represented in a number system whose radix approaches infinity. This is of course all speculation, I'm sure as hell not gonna sit here with a calculator and find out what the universe adds up to.

In any case, we have a wave, registering positive values of sunshine, lollipops and Care Bears; negative registering Skeletor, Gargamel and VBscript. For each state there is a nemesis - that is to say that when the curve is concave upwards, the universe will attempt to counter it, decreasing the gradient until it is concave negative, when Good takes over again. The amount of energy in the system stays constant (unless there is a way out of the universe noone has told me about), so the wave never quite evens out. It tries, however, providing plotlines for crappy PC games galore.

This is starting to sound like Karma, right? When you do something which benefits yourself at the cost of others, your quality of living increases, causing an imbalance in the wave (this is a little arbitrary; analogues can prove anything you want them to. Some would interpret this as just being a model for the way life tries to screw you. Imagine instead that the act of messing with someone else detracts from the energy of their waves, so - and this is starting to sound a little new-age - the universe acts to compensate by detracting from other aspects of your own life). When you put yourself out to help others, you are affected. In suitably selfless acts this is negative, so the wave rights itself by winning the lottery for you.

Application

We all live in the same world, for the most part. Apparently. In this case, we are all riding the same wave. Our personal waves aren't separate, in fact they are the very stuff of the Big Wave itself. Not that we are the only attributing factors, which is why this theory is so thankfully non-anthropic. Anyway, the point is that you can't always notice the effects of Karma. Perhaps it is simply the case that if things already suck, throwing a few coins in a homeless guy's tin probably won't make much of a dent. Undoubtedly there are external factors involved, resulting in events such as giving your life savings to charity, then stepping out of the building and getting squished by an 18-wheeler. Is it not possible then, that if we're all riding the Big Wave, it affects us just as we contribute to it? Damn right it is.

So for the 'carrier wave' we take the universe. Who can tell what the beat of the universe is? Wavelength, amplitude... no frickin' idea. Someone /msg me if you take Buddha's pulse. For the meantime, we'll just take anything we can get.

(+)
|
|   **                ** 
|  *  *              *  * 
| *    *            *    * 
|*      *          *      * 
0--------*--------*--------*--->
|         *      *          *  
|          *    *            *  
|           *  *              * 
|            **                   
|
(-)
Universe Wave

Pretty basic, but it doesn't matter at this point. Now for our own wave. This is, of course, unique for us all, but random-ish numbers will do, on the same scale:

(+)
|                   
|     *              
|    * *             *
|*  *   *             ** 
| **     *       *  *    *
0---------*-----*-**------**--->
|          *                * * 
|           *  *             *
|            **         *     
|                             
|                              
(-)
Personal Actions Wave

Notice first that this is the personal actions wave. That is, the effect that your actions would have on you following the classical model of Karma. So we say this is the way your life should look in response to the moral decisions you have made. Where this simply your personal wave (the actual way your life pans out), the + and - signs would have been reversed. But that's just silly.

Now it's time to add them, simple high-school style.

(+)
|                            
|                            
|    **                        
|   *                         
|      *             ***         
|                            
|  *    *                      
|**                 *    *       
|                            
|        *         *      *     
0----------------**-----*--*--->
|         *                   
|               *           *  
|          *                  
|                            **
|           *  *       
|                            
|            **                
|                            
|                            
|                            
(-)
Resultant (personal) Wave

The wave we are rewarded with does not look quite like what it should have been under the old method (Personal Actions Wave), instead it takes on some of the qualities of the Universe Wave, finding a comfortable spot someplace between the two. In this example it is somewhat subtle, but you can see how on the small scale, a conflict between high values in one wave and low in another would cancel out.

If we had numbers, any numbers, it would be a simple task to apply them to this model. It's open-ended enough to form a cult around, even if it is a load of bull. But it's nice to think that perhaps one day we might all wear little Karma-graphing watches, and be somewhat nicer to one another. Of course, if the universe was in a good mood, noone would have any reason not to descend into a bloody free-for-all until the little line started going down again. Cool.

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