A modern explication of Buddhism by Bernardo Kastrup and Nathan Hawkins

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Part One

Part Two

I highly recommend these two videos. They provide an excellent explanation of Buddhist philosophy or world view without ever mentioning Buddhism.

The ‘small self’ of Buddhism is Kastrup’s ‘dissociated entity inside a Markov Blanket’. Kastrup’s ‘mind at large’ is Buddhist ‘ultimate reality’, ‘the Tathagata’, the ‘Buddha mind’, ‘enlightenment’, etc. The ‘doings’ of the entity inside the Markov blanket are karma. In this sense, those doings, or that karma (work), perpetuate a series of ‘rebirths’ rather than reincarnations. The Noble Eightfold Path is a concise way of describing the behaviors that lead to full realization of ‘mind at large’ or enlightenment.

Two of the (falsely understood) most ‘negative’ things in Buddhism are nicely cleared up in Kastrup’s description. The first is the mistaken notion that ‘nirvana’ or the ‘cessation of suffering’ is the cessation of being itself. Nirvana is ‘merely’ the return of the small self to ‘mind at large’, or the enlightenment of the small self to Buddha nature or ultimate reality. The second is karma is some kind of punishment administered by some kind of god thing. Karma is much more what Kastrup calls ‘doings’ and is simply a way to describe how what we do affects what we become.

I want to add that Nathan Hawkins does a wonderful job of interviewing Kastrup. He contributes a great deal to this conversation, which overall is not only a good description of Buddhism (without ever mentioning Buddhism) but also an excellent example of how people should talk. At one point, Hawkins says he wants to create a something like a ‘proto-religion’ that does not rely on ‘sacred texts’. He also says he wants philosophy to be more in touch with people’s lives as they are really lived. I like that a lot. It’s basically what basic Buddhism already is.

The Buddha said he was just a man; that he should not be worshiped; that his words are not sacred; that his teachings should be conveyed mind-to-mind (as in the videos above) and not turned into scared texts; and that each of us should make the teachings our own; learn them in our own languages and convey them to others generously when and if they want to hear them. I bet the Buddha would thoroughly enjoy and approve of the discussion above.

In a deeply Buddhist sense, there is no need for a Buddhist tradition. The whole thing could be thrown away and recreated. But why bother? Buddhism today is not a clinging to some sacred past or god-like figure, but a present iteration of a long tradition (which is largely philosophical) that dates back 2,500 years to the Sage of the Scythians, Shakyamuni Buddha. Watch the videos above and see what you think. ABN

UPDATE: I do not want to detract at all from Kastrup’s vision, but would like to say that, imo, Mind at Large or Ultimate Reality is much more like Mahayana on steroids than the philosophically guarded position Kastrup holds. He himself says he is conservative and sticks to ordinary interpretations like time and space and probably the existence of other civilizations and realms. I appreciate that he does that and why. Another point worth mentioning is the Markov Blanket each of us is ensconced in is surely semi-permeable. In that sense, a great deal of religious practice, including especially the samadhi states in Buddhism, can be understood as ways to make the Markov Blanket more permeable, to invite Mind at Large into our little cocoons. Prayer and religious ritual do that as well as does calling on God or practicing the presence of God. Moral actions, no matter how they are understood, that make us receptive to powers much greater than us are fundamental to human being and our comprehension of who and where we are. If we can comprehend Mind at Large viewing our lives through our eyes and senses, we can also comprehend having a very rich relationship with Mind at Large. In Buddhist terms, that might be described as us being drawn to the Tathagata to the point of never wanting to turn back. ABN

Complex mind, simple thoughts

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I strongly believe a major cause of neuroticism, emotional agony, and mental illness is our minds are more complex than much of our thinking and most of our communication.

This causes us to be like prisoners trapped in small space when we are capable of much greater freedom.

A new study illustrates why this happens.

The study show how auditory hallucinations can be induced in people who are not otherwise prone to hearing them.

Pairing a stimulus in one modality (vision) with a stimulus in another (sound) can lead to task-induced hallucinations in healthy individuals. After many trials, people eventually report perceiving a nonexistent stimulus contingent on the presence of the previously paired stimulus. (Pavlovian conditioning–induced hallucinations result from overweighting of perceptual priors)

Since this effect can be induced fairly simply it shows that:

These data demonstrate the profound and sometimes pathological impact of top-down cognitive processes on perception… (from the study itself: Pavlovian conditioning–induced hallucinations result from overweighting of perceptual priors)

Note that these hallucinations “result from overweighing perceptual priors.”

A “perceptual prior” is, in these cases, a mistaken assumption about reality.

If our auditory and visual “realities” are susceptible to mistakes like these, how much more is our psychology?

Due to our generally very simple ways of interacting with other people, we are essentially forced to hallucinate who they are and at the same time who we are.

That is, our complex minds are essentially forced to see ourselves and others in simple, hallucinatory terms that cannot possibly be true.

I believe this is the cause of great mental and emotional distress for all people everywhere.

I also believe that this problem can be largely overcome by practicing FIML

FIML allows us to remove our psychological hallucinations about our FIML partner as they remove theirs about us.

FIML works because it allows partners to escape the simplicities and many hallucinatory traps of ordinary communication.

As far as I know, there is no other method for doing this. FIML is practical psychotherapy that will optimize your mind and psychology by providing the data you need to overcome hallucinating most of your life.

In this respect, FIML is a preeminent Buddhist mindfulness practice done by two (or more) people working together.

I hope the day comes when Buddhist Sanghas will practice FIML among themselves and teach it to lay followers when they have mastered the technique.

FIML is deeply human and not something AI will be able to do. It is very well-suited to this Human Realm because it shows us how delusions are formed, where they lie within us and how to extinguish them.

Netanyahu ‘beside himself with rage’ after furious phone call with Trump over Iran war that left the Israeli leader ‘with his hair on fire’

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed with Donald Trump in a furious phone call that left the Israeli leader with his ‘hair on fire’, a source has revealed.

On Tuesday evening, the two leaders held a difficult and lengthy phone call where they disagreed on the way forward in the Iran war.

Netanyahu increasingly doubts further negotiations with Tehran will yield a peace deal and wants to resume military strikes, according to Israel’s Channel 12.

Trump, meanwhile, wants to push harder for an agreement in which Iran abandons its nuclear weapons programme before any return to war.

Trump claimed that Netanyahu ‘will do whatever I want him to do’ on Iran, though adding that they had a good relationship

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Looks like a planted story to show Trump controls Netanyahu and not the other way around. Interesting they choose to do this. Or it could be a true story. Whatever the state of the war or the world, it’s impossible to say what is really going on. ABN

FLASHBACK 12/2021: Covid is a glaring excrudescence of parasitic national and world culture

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Covid is an extremely strong signal of national and global rot brought on and furthered by deeply ensconced parasitic subcultures. The origin of the pandemic is a bioweapon, itself a chemical parasite that reproduces in living cells.

The parasites feeding on the covid parasite are those who have benefitted from the global bioweapon attack—Big Pharma, Big Government, captured federal and state agencies, particularly health agencies, cooperating bureaucrats and politicians, billionaires, elites, large stores and businesses, legacy media, hospitals (through parasitic feeding on govt covid payouts), and more.

When covid is over, the parasitic culture it has revealed in the stark light of medical and scientific reality will not be over. It will slither back into the shadows of the agencies and organizations it has fostered and lives within.

If we really want to save our country and the world, we must recognize the horror and massive power of the huge parasite that is feeding on us. It is also in our schools, universities, schoolboards, legal system, virtually all licensed professions, science itself. Proof of this is either the silence of these organizations about covid crimes or their active and sometimes vociferous complicity in them, including but not limited to banning early treatments, banning effective hospital treatments, mandating harmful vaxxes, school closings, lockdowns, falsifying PCR tests, falsifying disease and mortality data, unrelenting fear porn, othering bodily autonomy, censoring and hunting dissenting doctors and scientists, and more.

I mentioned billionaires and the elite as parasites but mean only those who have participated in the parasitism and/or remained silent about it, especially if they are not otherwise normally silent. This category of parasites includes but is not limited to academics, universities, scientific journals, scientists, doctors, celebrities, politicians, intellectuals, influencers, and Big Tech social media that has consistently silenced and deplatformed reasoned debate.

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A survey to understand the experience of living with developmental prosopagnosia (face-blindness)

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This mixed methods study examined the real-world experiences of living with developmental prosopagnosia (face blindness), a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that severely affects the ability to recognise faces despite otherwise normal vision, IQ and memory. Twenty-nine UK based adults with confirmed face recognition difficulties completed an online survey describing and quantifying their experiences of living with poor face recognition. Although the majority (62%) of participants reported being able to recognise their immediate family, e.g., parent, partner, or child, strikingly 35% reported being unable to reliably recognise their immediate family members out of context. Even fewer (45%), reported always being able to recognise their three closest friends when encountering them unexpectedly, highlighting that DP commonly affects the recognition of highly familiar faces with whom individuals have close emotional relationships. Furthermore, participants who reported being able or unable to recognise their immediate family showed no significant difference in objective face memory ability. More than two thirds of participants (65.5%) reported being able to recognise fewer than 10 familiar faces (with the most common response being none), far below typical abilities. Thematic framework analysis highlighted how low public, professional, and employer awareness of developmental prosopagnosia [DP] presented challenges across multiple domains including seeking diagnosis, social and family relationships and workplaces. Driven largely by concerns about negative evaluation by others, most participants employed a range of highly effortful, though error prone, strategies to disguise and compensate for their face recognition difficulties. Some of the strategies described may help explain why many individuals can perform within typical norms on laboratory face processing tests despite their clear difficulties in everyday life and highlight the need for ecologically valid tests. Participants’ highest priorities for future research were improved awareness of developmental prosopagnosia and interventions to improve their face recognition ability.

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I have this condition, but can come to recognize people sort of OK after interacting with them 3-7 times. Two points: 1) many people who have prosopagnosia do not know it; and 2) people with a singular appearance or who wear something distinctive, like the same hat all the time, are much easier for people with DP to recognize. I did not fully understand my own condition until well into middle age, and even then my understanding was not so good. One aspect of this condition I have not seen recognized is it greatly disturbs initial socialization with colleagues, neighbors, or potential friends. For example, my actual, innate internal warmth toward others does not activate on time toward people I have only interacted with a few times. A friendly exchange today somehow has been lost in me a week later when I see that same person again. Even if they tell me who they are and are sympathetic to prosopagnosia, an important piece of human connection has been lost in me; it as if I were talking to them for the first time again. This can easily be misunderstood by the other person as I do not like them or am cold or moody, which I am not. More people are aware of face-blindness than in the past, but the subtle social overtones of the condition—the lag in normal progress toward camaraderie, for example—may not be clear to most, including even those who have this condition. If many of your best friends, whom you took to quickly, have unique features or dress unusually, these may be signs you have DP. ABN

Game theory and interpersonal relations

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Game theory uses models to understand how people interact under predetermined conditions or rules.

The end result of any particular model is called its “equilibrium.” Equilibrium implies no one will change their input if external conditions remain the same.

One way to make a game theory model is to reason backwards from the equilibrium you want. To keep it simple, there are two players.

Let’s say we want an interpersonal equilibrium that is honest, clear, and open to the dynamic reality of life. Here is a hypothesis: an equilibrium like that should also result in psychological optimization, psychological well-being for both players.

To achieve that equilibrium, my game model will be based on the following rules:

  1. communication will be as honest as possible
  2. communication will be as clear as possible
  3. all acts of communication (within reason) will be subject to clarification, revision, correction, and explication to the point (within reason) that there is no misunderstanding and whatever ambiguity remains is reduced to its lowest practical level

To do this, players will:

  1. focus on the smallest practical units of communication because error and ambiguity (which often leads to error) frequently begin at this level; this level includes: words, phrases, gestures, tone of voice, expressions, gasps, laughter, grunts, and so on; anything that communicates; all pertinent semiotics
  2. correcting error at the above level, which we will call the micro-level, ensures that small mistakes do not lead to large mistakes; it also teaches players how to correct errors at meso and macro levels of communication
  3. since human minds are limited in what they know and can communicate, and if players are diligent in following the above rules, players will steadily become more familiar with each other; how they speak, hear, think, what their references are, their values, beliefs, and so on
  4. if they continue to maintain these practices, they will build on their mutual familiarity, eventually achieving an interpersonal equilibrium that is honest, clear, and open to the dynamic reality of life

I have played this game with my partner for over ten years and can attest that it has worked even better than we had hoped.

Not only have we achieved an interpersonal equilibrium that is honest, clear, and open to the dynamic reality of life, but also what we hypothesized has come to pass: this equilibrium has also resulted in what feels to us to be psychological optimization and psychological well-being for both of us.

The rules to our game can be found here: FIML.

Note that initially FIML will upset your normal interpersonal equilibrium, whatever that may be. It cannot be otherwise. Note also that the rules of FIML will help you find or create a much better equilibrium.

If FIML is undertaken in a spirit of exploration, creativity, and fun, it will tend to self-generate or self-catalyze many new insights into your psychologies and how you interact with each other.

The ultimate FIML equilibrium is a dynamic one that keeps both partners open to the dynamic reality of life. With little or no “content” of its own, FIML rules allow partners to adapt to or create any “reality” they want.

Once understood, FIML is pretty much only difficult in the very beginning because in the beginning it will upset your normal interpersonal equilibrium. By doing FIML, you are choosing to change your normal equilibrium to a more efficient one.

Nicotine use widespread in Trump administration

~ ABN ~ 4 Comments

Donald Trump‘s administration may be addicted. 

The consuming craving: nicotine pouches from the popular tobacco-free product Zyn, an oral substance that poses itself as a healthier alternative than chewing tobacco. 

The sleek disk-like containers are ubiquitous throughout the administration. Employees across the various departments have been partaking, noting the pouches’ mentally invigorating effects. 

From the White House to the Department of Commerce and beyond, staffers can be seen carrying the tins close for whenever they need a dose.

They are so popular that even Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr swears by them. 

‘Nicotine pouches are probably the safest way to consume nicotine,’ he told a Brazilian radio host last year. 

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Ha, I love it! I myself am a big fan of reasonable use of nicotine. If Big Pharma came up with a pill that confers the benefits nicotine does, it would be splashed across all media and tens of millions of Americans would start using it. You can do your own research and find that nicotine prevents dementia and Alzheimer’s, sharpens the mind and even wards off viruses and bacterial pathogens. I do not use Zyn, but do use a 7mg nicotine patch fairly often. I also occasionally use a small piece of organic tobacco leaf, not so much as chew but rather as nibble. Ground organic tobacco mixed with high quality cannabinoids (emphasis on high quality, 3rd-party lab tested cannabinoids, especially CBG and CBD) can be used as occasional snuff. This mixture has helped me a great deal with a case of mild vertigo that would not go away. I see tobacco as a natural herb, which if used wisely, does much more good than harm. (BTW, I had my first exposure to cigarettes when I was four years old and loved it.) Tobacco and nicotine are not for everyone. I am not advising anyone to do anything. Definitely not promoting smoking anything. Just saying what has worked for me. ABN

LIVE With Victor Marx: What Did He Know About 9/10? | Candace Ep 341

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UPDATE: This is an interesting episode for several reasons. For non-Christians, it provides insights into both Catholicism and Evangelical, or Born Again, Christianity. With regard to Candace, it displays her bad side more than any other episode I have watched. She is a very good talker, and like all very good talkers can use speech with aggressive, devastating effect. For me, she went too far with Marx, who relies on emotional appeal more than rhetorical skill. He did come off as arrogant, especially in the beginning, but settled down considerably after about ten minutes. At that point, he sort of got the moral or histrionic upper hand over Candace, imo. He describes real experiences, does not appear to be a child abuser or trafficker and was reasonably polite toward Candace. Another side of this interview is it shows how powerful crowd-sourcing has become and how interesting people like Marx and Owens can be. I am a fan of Candace’s work and have praised her many times. I know very little about Marx. He also appears to be an interesting character but I doubt I will pay much attention to him unless something new happens. Lastly, from a Buddhist POV, I have to say both of these people embody a deep power which only Christians appear to have. They are both doing a lot; they are both forceful and generous personalities; they are both very much in this world, and also deeply immersed in their versions of spirituality. Most Buddhists are more withdrawn, even avoidant, and most of us do not do stuff nearly as passionately and with such perseverance as Christians. ABN