Note: This is a research note supplementing the book Unscarcity, now available for purchase. These notes expand on concepts from the main text. Start here or get the book.
Karma as Quest System: Reframing Moral Causation
Summary: What if karma isn’t punishment but a quest system? MIT computer scientist Rizwan Virk proposes that the ancient concept of moral causation works less like a cosmic court and more like a video game’s achievement system. This reframe connects Eastern philosophy to Western game design - and maps surprisingly well onto the Unscarcity framework’s Impact Points.
The Punishment Model (And Why It Fails)
The popular understanding of karma goes something like this: do bad things, bad things happen to you. Cheat on your taxes, get audited. Lie to your spouse, get caught. The universe keeps score, and the bill always comes due.
This model has problems:
The Timing Problem: Karma supposedly operates across lifetimes. But if you can’t remember what you did to deserve this suffering, how is it corrective? Punishment without memory is just random cruelty.
The Blame Problem: Did that child get cancer because of past-life sins? The implications are monstrous. We instinctively reject karmic explanations for innocent suffering because they feel like victim-blaming with extra steps.
The Passivity Problem: If karma handles justice, why bother fighting injustice? The punishment model can become an excuse for inaction: “They must deserve it.”
Rizwan Virk, in The Simulation Hypothesis, proposes we’ve been thinking about karma wrong.
The Quest Model
In video games, you don’t “fail” when you face a difficult boss. You learn. You develop skills. You try again. The challenge isn’t punishment for past mistakes - it’s the mechanism by which you grow.
Virk suggests karma works similarly:
“Think of karma as a set of quests or achievements. Those are experiences you’ve signed up for at some point. As you unlock one, you unlock others.”
In this model:
- Challenges aren’t punishments - they’re curriculum
- Suffering isn’t cosmic revenge - it’s skill development
- Life isn’t a courtroom - it’s a training ground
The shift is subtle but profound. You’re not paying for past sins. You’re completing quests that develop your consciousness.
How Games Actually Work
Modern game design has sophisticated understanding of motivation and growth. The best games share several features:
Progressive Difficulty
Games don’t throw the final boss at you in level one. They calibrate challenges to your current skill level, pushing just beyond your comfort zone. Too easy and you’re bored. Too hard and you quit.
If karma works like a quest system, it would similarly calibrate challenges to your current development level. The “unfair” difficulty you face might be precisely matched to what you need to learn next.
Achievement Systems
Games track accomplishments that don’t directly affect gameplay but provide satisfaction and direction. You’ve collected 47 of 100 stars. You’ve completed the stealth section without being detected.
Karma as quest system would track similar meta-progress. Not just “did you survive?” but “did you grow in compassion? In wisdom? In patience?”
Multiple Playthroughs
Many games are designed to be replayed. Each playthrough, you make different choices, explore different paths, develop different skills. The game isn’t “complete” until you’ve experienced multiple perspectives.
Reincarnation, in this frame, isn’t punishment for failing to achieve enlightenment. It’s multiple playthroughs, each exploring different aspects of consciousness.
No Permanent Failure
Most games don’t have true “game over.” You respawn. You reload. You try again. The challenge remains until you develop the skill to overcome it.
If karma works this way, there may be no permanent failure - only lessons that repeat until learned.
Eastern Parallels
This isn’t just Western game theory imposed on Eastern philosophy. The quest model actually aligns better with original teachings than the punishment model does.
Hindu Lila (Divine Play)
The Sanskrit concept of lila describes reality as divine play - God playing hide-and-seek with itself. The universe isn’t a courtroom but a playground. Karma in this context isn’t justice but gameplay mechanics.
Buddhist Skillful Means
Buddhism emphasizes upaya (skillful means) - teaching methods calibrated to the student’s level. A teacher might tell one student to meditate more and another to meditate less, depending on what each needs. Karma as quest system would work similarly: individualized curriculum.
Maya as Render-on-Demand
The Hindu concept of maya (illusion/appearance) describes reality as not-quite-real, a kind of divine imagination. In game terms: the world renders what’s needed for the current quest, not a complete simulation of everything everywhere.
The Unscarcity Connection
Chapter 7 of Unscarcity notes an uncanny parallel: the Impact Points system resembles what karma might look like if reverse-engineered from first principles.
| Karma (Quest Model) | Impact Points |
|---|---|
| Earned through action | Earned through contribution |
| Non-transferable | Non-transferable |
| Decay over time/lives | Decay at ~10% annually |
| Track development, not wealth | Track contribution, not accumulation |
| Can’t be hoarded | Can’t be hoarded |
| No permanent hierarchies | Power decays by design |
The chapter asks: “Maybe Chapter 2 wasn’t inventing anything. Maybe we reverse-engineered the universe’s original operating system.”
This might be coincidence. Or it might be convergent design - different minds solving similar problems arriving at similar solutions. If consciousness development requires certain mechanics, both ancient seers and modern framework designers might discover them independently.
Implications for Suffering
The quest model doesn’t make suffering pleasant. It reframes its meaning.
You Chose This (Maybe)
Some spiritual traditions suggest we choose our challenges before incarnating - the soul selecting a curriculum. If true, the hardships you face aren’t imposed by a vindictive cosmos but selected by your deeper self as necessary training.
This is unprovable but potentially useful. Asking “what might I be learning here?” is more generative than “why is the universe punishing me?”
Difficulty Isn’t Failure
In games, encountering a hard level doesn’t mean you’re bad at the game. It means you’ve progressed to where hard levels are appropriate. The difficulty is a compliment to your development.
Similarly, facing intense challenges might indicate you’re ready for intense growth - not that you’ve failed somewhere.
Completion Isn’t Victory
Games end when you’ve experienced what they offer, not when you’ve “won.” Enlightenment traditions similarly describe liberation as completion of a cycle, not victory in a competition.
The question shifts from “how do I win?” to “what does completion look like?”
Objections and Limits
The Privilege Problem
It’s easy for comfortable people to call suffering “curriculum.” Tell that to someone in genuine despair. The quest model, misused, becomes another way to dismiss others’ pain.
The response: curriculum doesn’t mean “deserved.” A game designer isn’t cruel for creating challenges. But the character in the game still genuinely suffers. Acknowledging the developmental frame shouldn’t diminish compassion for those struggling.
The Free Will Question
Did you really choose this? Do you have genuine agency, or are you playing a role? The quest model doesn’t fully resolve free will questions - it just reframes them.
Perhaps “free will” isn’t binary. You might have chosen the general curriculum while the specific moves remain genuinely open.
The Evidence Problem
None of this is provable. Karma, reincarnation, cosmic game design - all are metaphysical speculation. The quest model isn’t scientific fact; it’s an interpretive frame.
Its value isn’t truth-claim but usefulness. Does thinking this way help you navigate difficulty with more resilience and less bitterness? If so, it’s working as intended.
Practical Application
If karma is a quest system:
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Treat challenges as curriculum. Ask what they might be developing in you, not just how to escape them.
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Track development, not just outcomes. Did you grow in patience, wisdom, compassion? That’s the score that matters.
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Expect calibrated difficulty. If life is hard right now, you might be in an intensive training module. It won’t last forever.
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Release the scorecard. You’re not competing against others. Their quests are different from yours. Comparison is meaningless.
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Trust the respawn. Even death might just be the end of a level, not the end of the game.
Related Articles
- The Sacred Question - Where religion and technology converge
- Simulation Science - The physics behind simulation theory
- Sacred Diversity - How different metaphysics can coexist
- Impact - The Unscarcity currency of contribution
- Impact Decay Curves - Why power must fade
Further Reading
- Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis (2019)
- Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
- Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better (2011)
- The Bhagavad Gita, particularly Chapter 2 on karma yoga
