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What is FIML and what does it do?

by ABN

FIML is fundamentally a communication technique with wide-ranging implications for many other aspects of being human.

FIML removes mistakes from communications between partners. FIML reduces or eliminates neurotic feelings. FIML encourages honesty, integrity, responsibility, and many other virtues. It greatly improves communication. It transforms beliefs in a static self, a personality, an ego, or a set autobiography to a more realistic understanding of the dynamic nature of being, speaking, listening, remembering, functioning. FIML skills are useful when dealing with people other than the FIML partner. FIML greatly reduces the need to rely on external standards (public semiotics) for self-definition and/or communication. FIML elevates consciousness in the sense that FIML practice is done consciously and improvements are made in partners’ consciousnesses. FIML works directly with partners’ experiences and thus is a deeply experiential practice that generates experiential understanding.

FIML greatly supports Buddhist practice and though FIML is not specifically a traditional Buddhist teaching, it does not contradict any core Buddhist teaching. For many people, FIML may be a very good tool to use with the Dharma. This is so because FIML allows each partner to identify kleshas (mistaken interpretations) the moment they arise and to correct them with input from their partner. FIML also helps partners experience the reality of no-self, impermanence, emptiness, and dependent origination. When these truths are experienced together with a partner, both partners are able to deeply confirm the validity of their insights as both share in this confirmation. Both partners will notice kleshas being eliminated and both will be able to confirm this to each other, through explicit statements to each other and also through observations of each other.

FIML practice also helps partners understand and experience how the First and Second Noble Truths actually operate in their lives. When one partner discovers a klesha through a FIML query, they will see very clearly how their mistaken interpretation, if not corrected, could be the source of suffering. When they correct their mistake, they will see how eliminating a klesha is liberating and how it produces a bit of “enlightenment” (Third and Fourth Noble Truths).

FIML practice encourages honesty between partners and many other virtues. FIML partners will directly experience the importance of being honest with their partner and treating them with the utmost respect and integrity. This strengthens partners’ understanding of the Buddha’s teachings on morality (sila).

FIML’s emphasis on fully understanding the roles of language and semiotics supports the Buddha’s teachings on Right Speech (for language) and wisdom (for semiotics). In the Prajna Sutras, “dharmas of the mind” (laksana) very closely correspond to the modern English word semiotics as that word is used in FIML practice. By focusing on this word and concept and experiencing with a partner how semiotics affect everything we think and do, partners will gain great insight into the kind of consciousness described in the Diamond Sutra–a consciousness without the “marks” or “characteristics” (laksana, semiotics) of a self, a human being, a sentient being, or a being that takes rebirth.

FIML accomplishes most of what it does by being a technique that is called up quickly, the moment it is needed. FIML queries almost always lead to long and interesting discussions, but the basic technique must be done quickly. The moment either partner feels a klesha arising, they should stop and query their partner about what is/was in their mind. After hearing your partner’s honest answer, compare it to what you had thought. The better data from your partner should eliminate that particular klesha after a small number of its appearances. Remember, your partner’s data is better because you asked them quickly enough for them to be able to recall with great accuracy what really was in their mind during the moments you were asking them about. If you wait too long or get into long stories or theories, or become emotional, you will miss the chance to catch that klesha. When you do catch a klesha, feel good about it. That means there is one less hindrance in your mind.

Non-Buddhists will experience the same results from FIML practice as Buddhists, though their understanding of these results will be framed differently. We have discussed FIML from a non-Buddhist point of view in many other posts. Interested readers are encouraged to browse some of those posts for more on that angle.

we do not sample our world continuously but in discrete snapshots

by ABN

This report–Brain oscillations reveal that our senses do not experience the world continuously–supports the core activity of FIML practice, which entails noticing the first instant(s) of the arising of an emotional jangle (that is typically tied to a much more involved “mistaken interpretation” within the brain). By interfering with the first instant(s) of arising, FIML practice forestalls the habitual wave of neurotic interpretation that normally follows. Instead, new information–better data obtained from the FIML partner–is used to replace the cue that led to the initial jangle, thus redefining that cue.

Professor Gregor Thut of the University of Glasgow, where the study was conducted, says of its results: “For perception, this means that despite experiencing the world as a continuum, we do not sample our world continuously but in discrete snapshots determined by the cycles of brain rhythms.”

I would further hypothesize that the same holds true for our “perceptions” of inner emotional states. In this context, recall the five skandhas of Buddhism–form, sensation, perception, activity, consciousness. A form can arise in the mind or outside of the mind. This form gives rise to a sensation (a FIML jangle is a type of sensation), which gives rise to perception, followed by activity (mental or physical), and lastly consciousness.

In Buddhist teachings, the five skandhas occur one after the other, very rapidly. They are not a continuous stream but rather a series of “discrete snapshots”, to use Thut’s words. In FIML practice, partners want to interfere with what has become a habitual “firing” of their five skandhas based on (neurotic) learned cues. FIML practice strives to prevent full-blown neurotic consciousness (the fifth skandha) from taking control of the mind by replacing the source of that consciousness with a more realistic interpretation of the neurotic cue. The cue corresponds to form in the five skandhas explanation. The more realistic interpretation of that cue is based on the true words of the partner.

The five skandhas can also help us understand how FIML is different from more or less normal psychological analysis. In normal, or traditional, analysis we use theories and schema to understand ourselves. In FIML we use a specific technique to interfere with habitual neurotic “firings” of the five skandhas. FIML partners are encouraged to theorize and speak about themselves in any way they like, and it is very helpful to do this, but the core FIML activity cannot be replaced by just theorizing or telling stories.

Here is a link to the study itself: Sounds Reset Rhythms of Visual Cortex and Corresponding Human Visual Perception.

Allen J. Frances on the overdiagnosis of mental illness

by ABN

 

“It’s always better to under-diagnose than over-diagnose.”—Allen J. Frances

This talk is worth watching.

As a side note, I hope that readers of this site, especially Buddhists and/or those practicing FIML, will understand at least some of what Frances is saying as being about how societies organize their semiotics. We still use priest-like figures with esoteric knowledge and identifiable clothing and mannerisms to write large tomes (the DSM) that define what is real or healthy or normal.

FIML practice is designed to put much more of the process of defining who you are in the hands of partners themselves. My comments are not directed at Frances, who does a good job with his talk. I just want to point out that the ways our common semioses are organized or structured are very much subject to political and economic forces as well as to the power of the media and society’s hierarchical institutions. FIML gives partners an opportunity to rationally discover and redefine the terms and semiotics that contribute to how they see themselves as individuals and how they see the world(s) they live in. I think Buddhism is supposed to do much the same thing, but Buddhism itself has been subject to the same kinds of forces as the DSM, resulting in much of the teachings becoming little more than a static semiotic–or culture-bound standard–that, though good and helpful, is less than optimal.

How to do FIML

by ABN

Two people–A and B–are talking.

A says something (X) that makes B feel an emotional jangle. The jangle could be slight or it could be strong.

B is mindful of this jangle, aware that it has happened within one second or so.

Before B goes any further and starts to call on her usual interpretations of what her jangle “means”, she stops and asks A: “What was your state of mind when you said X“?

A answers honestly, providing a complete description of his state of mind during the few seconds surrounding his saying X.

B does not hear anything in A‘s description that justifies her emotional jangle. To be certain she might want to ask a follow-up question: “Are you sure you were not implying that you are bored when you said X“?

A answers honestly and says, “Yes, I am sure. I was not and am not bored. When I said X, I just meant that we don’t need to be concerned with that one aspect of the subject. I did not mean that I am bored with the subject, and certainly not with you.”

A trusts B to tell her the truth. Thus, she is forced to realize that her jangle was not justified.

__________________

At this point A might want to describe her new understanding to B and discuss it with him, either briefly or at length. The choice is hers. B may also have something to say about what happened.

__________________

A few things to understand about the model described above:

  • A jangle is the first emotional/physical/hormonal response instigated by a neurosis.
  • Neurosis in FIML is defined as a “mistaken interpretation”, or an “ongoing mistaken interpretation”.
  • A mistaken interpretation can simply arise out of conditions and need not arise out of an ongoing habit. It is still a mistake and it is best to correct this mistake, but on its first few appearances, these sorts of mistakes are at worst proto-neuroses. Only if they continue will they become full blown neuroses, or “ongoing mistaken interpretations”.
  • In our example above, person A does have a neurosis, an ongoing mistaken interpretation, concerning the way people speak to her. She tends to mistakenly interpret many tones of voice or other cues as indicating boredom with her.
  • (A‘s neurosis is just an example. FIML partners will have other kinds of neuroses–feeling disrespected, unwanted, frightened, etc.)
  • Let’s say that the example above is the third time that A has asked B about this neurosis when it first appears as a jangle, and let’s say that each time B has described a state of mind that is not bored. Firstly and most importantly, A believes B because she trusts him. Secondly, A can tell from what B has said–how he described his mind–that he really was not bored. He was thinking something else.
  • Now that she has seen that her “boredom” jangle was a mistake three times in a row, A‘s mind will very naturally begin to abandoned that mistaken interpretation.
  • She may ask about it a few more times, but when she keeps getting similar answers from B, her mind will come to realize that it is wasting energy creating a painful interpretation that isn’t true.
  • In many cases, A‘s mistaken interpretation will simply disappear from her mind with no other work on her part. In a short time, she may hardly be able to even remember what it was.
  • Her neurosis will drop away from her almost effortlessly because her mind will be fully convinced that she has been making a costly mistake. Her mind will be convinced of this because she trusts her partner and knows that he is giving her truthful information.
  • In the example above, A becomes fully aware of her initial emotional jangle within one second or so. Buddhists who regularly practice mindfulness will find this fairly easy to do in most cases. People who have never been exposed to Buddhist mindfulness training may find this more difficult, depending on their backgrounds.
  • Mindfulness means that we are observant, mindful, of how we react to things. With practice, it is possible to be mindful of the very start of even a strong emotional reaction.
  • Almost as soon as a FIML partner notices (is mindful of) a jangle arising, they should start a FIML query by asking their partner what was in their mind as in the above example.
  • The partner making the query should strive to hold any further emotional reaction (the full-blown neurotic response) in abeyance.
  • If their mindfulness is good, they should be able to see that, so far, all that has happened is a word was spoken and a jangle arose.
  • The point of the FIML query is to discover if the jangle was justified or mistaken.
  • A FIML query should be spoken in as neutral a tone of voice as possible, though partner B should be able to understand if A‘s feelings start to show a bit. B needs to be mindful of what A needs at this point.
  • A needs an accurate description from B of his state of mind.

__________________

The key to FIML practice is being mindful of the jangle as soon as it appears, and then making a query in a neutral tone of voice (so your partner will not start reacting to you). FIML is different from an ordinary discussion of “personal issues” in that FIML practice is designed to capture and isolate a real emotional jangle before the mind brings in all the usual baggage that goes with that jangle. Partners may find it interesting or beneficial to discuss childhood experiences or theories about why they feel the ways they do, but these discussions should come after the basic FIML practice of determining whether the initial jangle was justified. I am confident that most jangles, if not all, will not be justified. Please see other posts for more details on FIML practice.

Some basic benefits of FIML practice

by ABN
  • FIML clears up communication problems in the moment (at the time they occur and just afterward) while establishing a valuable precedent for clearing up future problems, which are inevitable.
  • FIML helps partners see their own neuroses (mistaken interpretations) and understand how those neuroses operate in their lives during a real moment of their lives. Each basic FIML discussion is based on a real problem identified by one or both partners.
  • Being able to efficiently and effectively fix real problems as they occur gives partners a sense of confidence and joy.
  • If only one partner had a problem with something, both partners still benefit because the second partner will come to understand how the first hears or speaks and why. Partners will increase their understandings of each other as well as of language, semiotics, communication, emotion, psychology, etc.
  • Each FIML discussion can be extended into other fields (history, science, art, Buddhism, etc.) as much as partners want. This helps both partners increase their awareness of how the large “net” of cultural semiotics is put together and where they stand in relation to it.
  • Each FIML discussion forms a basis, or can serve as an example, for the next discussion. After a single neurosis has been identified a few times, partners will learn to recognize it immediately and deal with it very quickly.
  • Fixing one neurosis increases confidence and skill, making it easier to fix the next or to deepen discussions to include other kinds of psychological material.
  • Once partners are reasonably skilled at FIML, they will find they are able to deal with a much broader range of subjects because they have communication techniques that allow them to quickly overcome misunderstandings.
  • Once the skills are developed, FIML discussions are a lot of fun. In many ways, there is nothing more interesting.
  • FIML practice greatly supports Buddhist practice and should serve to help Buddhists gain immediate and very personal experiential comprehension of the Dharma.
  • Buddhist terms like delusion, suffering, liberation, wisdom, karma, compassion and more will take on new meaning as they become less an abstract code for behavior and more a personally understood aspect of our own behavior.
  • FIML helps us see for ourselves in real time how our own particular delusions create suffering, and how we can attain liberation from those delusions.
  • FIML works with very small instances of delusion so it is neither painful nor embarrassing. Indeed, it is a great pleasure to eliminate delusion.

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

by ABN

Link. Anyone remotely interested in science or rational thought should read this study. Ioannidis has shown with great clarity how distorted the scientific process can become, has become in many cases.

This opinion piece on DSM-5, Diagnosing the D.S.M, shows a similar problem with the “science” of mental illness, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. From the article: “The association has been largely deaf to the widespread criticism of D.S.M.-5, stubbornly refusing to subject the proposals to independent scientific review.”

This should seem appalling in the 21st century, but we know it is not. Isn’t this partly what is meant by the First Noble Truth? That we humans–even scientists and professional doctors of the mind–tend to be delusional and make decisions based on greed, hatred, ignorance, and pride, decisions that cause needless suffering. Life is like a dream because our assessments of what is real are often so poorly formed.

Semiosis, symbiosis, and optimization

by ABN

In this post, I want to avoid words like psychology, personality, instinct, normal, abnormal, etc. to describe human beings. I want to throw out all of those usual ways of thinking about people and replace them with just three terms–semiosis, symbiosis, and optimization.

In this context, semiosis means all symbols, meaning, language, philosophy, religion, etc. An easy way to grasp semiosis is to equate it with the way an individual’s culture, or subculture, works within their mind. Symbiosis denotes relations to other people. An easy way to grasp symbiosis is to equate it with an individual’s social group(s)–their marriage partner, family, friends, clubs, religious groups, job, etc. I know I am using these words in a special sense, but you have to do that sometimes to get at new meanings.

All humans are a combination of some sort of semiosis and symbiosis as defined above. What we want to aim for in our lives is optimization of our semioses and symbioses. The only way I know how to do this is with FIML practice because only FIML practice gives partners the tools to grasp and manipulate–to understand and improve–their semioses.

The main area where this optimization occurs in FIML practice is in the symbiosis of partners’ semioses. I know that is a lot of jargon, but please bear with me. Semioses are shared. Partners share in a symbiotic relationship the semioses they both carry around in their heads. FIML partners must become conscious of this level of human interaction because it happens whether you are conscious of it or not. If partners are not conscious of it and/or can’t deal with it, they will not be able to optimize their relationship (or their own lives). Rather, they will be forced to cling to public semiotics, private neuroses, or most commonly both.

If partners are optimizing the symbiosis of their shared semioses, their core behaviors will spring from dynamic principles rather than static codes, vows, or agreements. FIML is nearly contentless in that it does not tell partners what to think but rather how to observe and analyze their shared semioses.

Now, as an example, let’s say you experience a mix-up with your partner. Something didn’t go right; one of you misspoke or did something bothersome; then you had an argument or at least difficult emotions arose. So what should you do then? At times like these, many people will separate for a while to cool down and then gloss over whatever it was when they get back together later on. At that point they will rely on some sort of static notion of their relationship and on that basis try to recapture good feelings. This technique works to a point, but it is not the best because it does nothing to optimize the relationship. It just covers up the problem. When you avoid a problem, you underscore your inability to deal with it while allowing it to grow.

A much better way for partners to deal with a problem like the one above is recognize that it is definitely going to affect your shared semiosis. Once you both accept this fact, you will probably find it easier to stick with the issue. Rather than separating for a while, face the issue and start a FIML discussion by analyzing what has happened and why. Even if it takes you an hour or more to reach a resolution, it will be well worth it because you will be optimizing your relationship. By doing a FIML discussion, you will avoid hiding from a problem while profoundly increasing your mutual understanding.

This is how mutual transformation often works in the real world. If you do small things like this enough, both you and your partner will become convinced that you can really live and interact on a higher level than what you probably had thought possible before.

Autocatalytic systems

by ABN

An autocatalytic system is a system that can “catalyze its own production”. Autocatalytic systems are usually called “autocatalytic sets”, but for our purposes using the word system may make the concept clearer.

FIML is an autocatalytic system that allows partners to reestablish the terms of their relationship, their psychologies, and their comprehension of the world around them. Strictly speaking, FIML is a non-autonomous autocatalytic set because FIML uses an abundance of language and ideas that come from outside of itself.

FIML is a small set of precise behaviors that allow partners to communicate with great clarity and without interpersonal ambiguity. Interpersonal ambiguity is the cause of much suffering. As we have said many times, FIML does not tell partners what to think or what to believe. It simply provides them with a set of tools that gives them the means to develop in ways that seem best to them.

FIML is primarily a communication technique, but the discoveries it leads to will cause partners to remake their understandings of who they are and how they understand themselves. Once partners have learned the system, they will find that it autocatalyzes, causing them to remake themselves with a freedom that had not been possible before.

FIML differs greatly from mainstream psychology because mainstream psychology is not autocatalytic. It is analytical, theoretical, or medical. The individual sufferer seeks a professional who diagnoses their “problem” based on a static standard and then prescribes medication or some kind of therapy that will also be provided by an expert. In contrast, FIML teaches partners how to communicate with sufficient clarity to comprehend themselves. As it autocatalyzes, FIML quite naturally leads partners to make beneficial changes in themselves as they discover new meanings in each other and the world around them.

I had been searching for a word like autocatalytic for some time. This morning I came across the following piece, which led to this post: The Single Theory That Could Explain Emergence, Organisation And The Origin of Life. The study on which that article is based can be found here: The Structure of Autocatalytic Sets: Evolvability, Enablement, and Emergence.

I am sure I have taken a few liberties with my application of this theory, but went ahead with these ideas anyway because one of the key features of FIML practice is it “auto-generates” or autocatalyzes itself. Once you get going and see how to do it, FIML practice almost runs by itself, allowing partners near infinite freedom to pursue whatever they want with it.

Notes

by ABN
  • All motivation and action is based on an assessment of “reality”.
  • Public assessments include the sciences, mainstream psychologies and religions, various traditions such as the arts, sports, work, etc. The general elements of these assessment are agreed on by many people. This makes them sort of satisfying within a limited sphere of thought. They can hold a good deal of psychological water, but not all of it.
  • Private assessments are usually neurotic (mistaken) because even if shared with others, they tend to contain many unfounded assumptions. These assumptions often appear true to the individual but don’t hold up well if exposed to other views or better evidence.
  • Not only do neither public nor private assessments of reality as described above completely satisfy, but even when combined, they fail to fully satisfy. This is because the problem of interpersonal ambiguity cannot be answered in those ways.
  • FIML practice provides a means for partners to reach a reasonable assessment of reality that includes both wholesome public and wholesome private components. The private components are made wholesome through FIML practice because partners actually have the means to achieve satisfying mutual understanding, to remove ambiguity.
  • FIML partners should feel that they can say what they want to each other. They should also feel that they can refrain from saying things they don’t want to say.
  • Most people tend to see other people as being on some sort of scale–they might be seen as “normal” or “crazy”, “responsible” or “irresponsible”, “reliable” or “unreliable”, etc.
  • These scales are always a mixture of public and private components as described above.
  • FIML partners, in contrast, need only ask how is the non-FIML person adapting to ambiguity? What standards have they chosen or forced on themselves? What standards do they use to assess “reality”?
  • Their standards will always be skewed one way or the other. To simplify, they will either be fairly strict adherents to a public code or fairly eccentric adherents to private neuroses, or most commonly, a mixture of these two.
  • Even Buddhist practice can fall victim to this problem. Insofar as Buddhist practice is nothing more than an imported public standard, it cannot satisfy for long. Buddhist practice plus FIML will satisfy because FIML allows partners to establish mutual interpersonal standards that both of them can understand and agree upon completely. These standards are not the imported standards of someone else, but self-generated, mutually generated standards created by the partners themselves.
  • If you don’t fill the void of interpersonal ambiguity, you will have to compensate by compartmentalizing your life, importing standards from the public sphere, or generating your own neuroses (mistaken interpretations). This point may seem obvious or trivial, but it is huge. Emotional suffering, delusion, the First Noble Truth all stem from this problem.