 Next, to defeat the objection that unlike ordinary physical objects, merely apparent objects are not intersubjectively shared by different beings, Vasubandhu provides the counterexample that in hell, demonic entities appear to torment groups of hell beings. This is a case of a shared hallucination. When the objector wonders why the demons might not in fact be real, Vasubandhu appeals to karma theory: Any being with sufficient merit—sufficient “good karma”—to generate a body capable of withstanding the painful fires of hell would never be born into hell in the first place. Any creature in hell that is not suffering must be an apparition generated by the negative karma of the tormented.